The Proposition
Be the go-to choice.
A boutique team of specialists in growth, AI and digital.
We transform your commercial performance by changing your story.
Trusted by leaders in technology, finance and government
The problems we solve
Which one is you?
What we do
Calibrate to your customer.
We work for investors, CEOs and their teams to help companies do the things that give their customers what they want. It sounds simple, but when you're in the weeds, you miss a lot of the sky. We ask your customers what they want, then align the company's story, strategy and people around the answer, and put it to work with marketing, AI and the leadership to make it stick.
Growth
- Customer researchWhat your customers buy, and why, in their words. Interviews, not surveys.
- Market positioningWhere you win, who you are for and why you rather than the other three.
- Brand story and messagingOne narrative the whole company can tell, tested on real buyers.
- Go-to-market strategySales, marketing and operations reset to the story, with the plan and the numbers.
- Customer journey designWhere the buying journey is the problem, we redesign it.
- The Proposition StudioIdentity, sales collateral, websites and social, made by the people who wrote the story. See the studio
AI
- AI agents for marketing and salesWorkflows built into the tools your teams already use.
- Research and insight agentsCustomer, competitor and market research on demand.
- Proposals, bids and contentProduced in hours, in your story and your voice.
- Custom tools built with ClaudeApplications that join your data and answer the questions your teams keep asking.
- Customer comprehension testingAI panels that test whether customers understand what you send them. Dutified
Leadership
- Sales enablementYour team taught to use the message and sell differently.
- Pitch and boardroom coachingPresenting, pitching and holding a boardroom, for the people who carry the story.
- Investor and buyer readinessThe version of the company a raise or a sale needs to see.
- AI adoption for executive teamsNew ways of working your leaders own and your people use.
How it works
Bought one stage at a time, with fixed scope
You see the result of each stage before you decide on the next, and each one stands on its own.
The Mirror
Interviews with your customers and prospects, a look at your competitors and a workshop with your own people. You see how the market sees you and where growth leaks.
Read about the Mirror Stage twoThe Message
The messaging framework, segmented by buyer, and how your company talks about itself in every scenario, from the boardroom to the first sales call.
Read about the Message Stage threeThe Engine
The marketing, the go to market and the AI tools that put the story to work, with training so your team runs it from day one.
Read about the EngineResults
What changes when the story is right
New revenue
A global fintech systems integrator rebuilt its messaging, client strategy and deal coaching.
Higher win rates over two years
A listed global technology company changed how it sold, with value selling and better proposals.
Wrong investment avoided
A retail bank listened to its customers through our research before committing to a costly plan.
Why us
We have done this at the top of the market.
Sales teams we have coached and equipped have gone on to close more than $1bn in new revenue.
Founded by a journalist who wrote for the Financial Times and interviewed the CEOs your buyers read about.
We have delivered for the top of the market, from IBM, Microsoft and Google to Cognizant and Virgin Money.
AI-native. Part of the Anthropic Partner Network and badged on Claude Code, so you pay for judgement and outcomes rather than hours.
Part of The Executive Summary network, with the City CIO Club, read by FTSE and Fortune executives.
Testimonials
What they say.
Dan held the mirror up to us. Simple techniques, client first. Has it worked? You bet. Win rates are up.
They took a complex product, turned it into a simple story with a great commercial plan, and implemented it.
They nail the brief each time. They understand the challenge of landing messaging in large, matrixed organisations.
Instrumental in helping us figure out how we position ourselves in the innovation space, with measurable, data-driven impact.
They smashed it. We had struggled for years to describe what we do. They got to know us, then created a whole new concept.
The response we have had from customers and the market since launching our enhanced messaging has been phenomenal.
The customer drift test.
A two-minute test to find your commercial challenges. Your drift score, what to fix first and a one-page result for the board.
A word from our founder
I spent years interviewing the CEOs of some of the world's biggest companies, then ran commercial transformation inside a FTSE technology business. In both jobs I saw the same thing: the companies that grow fastest are the ones their customers understand fastest. The Proposition exists to make your company that one, and today we use AI to carry the story into every channel, proposal and sales conversation at the speed buyers now expect.
Dan IlettFounder, The Proposition
Who we are.
The Proposition is led by Dan Ilett, an expert in B2B messaging and positioning who helps companies that are hard to explain become easy to buy. Dan is an award-winning business journalist who wrote for the Financial Times, the Economist Group and The Daily Telegraph, then commercial director in a FTSE technology business. He was founding editor of and investor in CoinDesk, and leads The Executive Summary, which delivers briefings and executive education to the people who run the world's best companies.
He has helped Fortune and FTSE leadership teams rebuild the story they tell their customers and reshape how they sell it, contributing to more than $1bn in closed sales. Clients include IBM, Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Cognizant, Equinix, SEB and the UK Government, alongside owner-managed and private-equity-backed businesses that needed the same clarity.
Around him is a bench of specialists in customer research, brand and design, sales enablement, AI and commercial diligence, brought together for each engagement. Behind them sits The Executive Summary network and the City CIO Club, which put our clients in front of the executives they are trying to work with.
Questions
The things people ask first.
Who is this for?
B2B companies taking something to market that is hard to understand, and they know it. Whether you are repositioning, raising, launching or selling into a market that does not yet get you.
What problem do you solve?
The company has real substance but a story that lands badly. Buyers, investors and analysts hesitate because they cannot quickly grasp what this is and why it matters. Every week of that costs you pipeline, valuation and momentum.
What changes?
Before, the market squints and stalls, and your sales team carries the weight of explaining. After, the story lands fast, the positioning does the selling and the company becomes easy to say yes to.
Who will I be working with?
Dan Ilett leads every engagement, from the first conversation to the last workshop. Specialists in research, design, sales enablement and AI are brought in around him when the work needs them.
What is included?
Sharper insight into your customers and market. Your team aligned to that demand through one narrative the whole company can tell. A go-to-market and sales method elevated to match the buyer. The tools and training to embed it, so it sticks after we have gone.
How is it priced?
Fixed prices, with a clear scope and timeline, bought one stage at a time.
Can AI just do this?
AI can write the words quickly. Knowing which words your market will believe comes from asking your customers the right questions and from long experience of the market, so we use AI for speed and keep the judgement with people.
Do you use AI?
Every day. We are part of the Anthropic Partner Network, much of our research runs on agents and we build AI tools for our clients' marketing and sales teams. The judgement on a high-value decision stays with people.
We want to rebuild marketing around AI. Can you help?
Yes. We map where your team's time goes, build the agents and workflows that take on the production work and train your people to run them.
Where do you work?
We are based in London and work with leadership teams around the world.
Speak to Dan
Tell us where growth is stalling and we will come back to you within a working day.
+44 20 3475 4891 Dan on LinkedIn