We transform your commercial performance by changing your story.
Dan Ilett leads The Proposition.
Dan is an expert in B2B messaging and positioning. A journalist who wrote for the Financial Times and FTSE commercial director, he helps companies that are hard to explain become easy to buy.
What we do
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.
The work runs in three stages, bought one at a time: The Mirror (what your customers say), The Message (the story and the messaging framework) and The Engine (the tools and training that embed it).
The Proposition Studio. The story, produced. Identity, sales collateral, websites and social, made by the people who wrote the story. See the studio
Why us
Clients
IBMDan held the mirror up to us. Simple techniques, client first. Has it worked? You bet. Win rates are up.Christine WyattGeneral Manager, GBS, IBM
NordeaDifferentiation in banking is hard and they really helped us crack that. Once we had our story, we drove some amazing results.Ewan MacLeodChief Digital Officer, Nordea Bank
Virgin MoneyThey took a complex product, turned it into a simple story with a great commercial plan, and implemented it.Iain GibbonsCustomer Director, Virgin Money
CognizantThey nail the brief each time. They understand the challenge of landing messaging in large, matrixed organisations.Irene SandlerVP Global Marketing, Cognizant
BBVAInstrumental in helping us figure out how we position ourselves in the innovation space, with measurable, data-driven impact.Chris SempleGlobal Lead, Innovation, BBVA
MoonfareIn a thorough and engaging process, Dan helped us develop a clear architecture for brand and messaging we could implement across every channel.Yuri NarcissManaging Director, Moonfare
Embridge ConsultingThe response we have had from customers and the market since launching our enhanced messaging has been phenomenal.Emma O'BrienCEO, Embridge Consulting
HatchThey smashed it. We had struggled for years to describe what we do. They got to know us, then created a whole new concept.Matt SimsManaging Director, Hatch
GFTIt's been critical and has forced us to be direct with customers about what we do.Carlton HopperManaging Director, GFT
The Data Privacy GroupThe Mirror showed us exactly where we were in the market, where we needed to be, and how we could get there.Ian BornerCEO, The Data Privacy Group
The Proposition is led by Dan Ilett, 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 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.
A two-minute test to find your commercial challenges.
Your drift score, what to fix first and a one-page result for the board.
We know how our customers view us, and we act on it.
We know why the buyers we lost chose someone else.
We can name our customers' number-one problem in their words, not ours.
Our team explains the story the same way, every time.
Our market knows us for the thing we are good at.
A buyer on a shortlist could say in one sentence why us and not the others.
Pipeline is growing and deals close on time.
Customers can put a number on what we are worth to them.
Sales sells the same story that marketing tells and delivery keeps.
Our teams can pitch the company to a CEO with confidence.
If an investor or a buyer looked at us next month, the story would be ready.
Our salespeople tell customers something about their own business they did not already know.
Your drift score is ready. Tell us where to send the one-page version.
We send the result and nothing else unless you ask.
Questions
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.
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.
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.
Dan Ilett, personally, from the first conversation to the last workshop. Specialists in research, design and sales enablement are brought in around him when the work needs them.
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.
Fixed prices, with a clear scope and timeline, bought one stage at a time.
You could spend hours with AI and still not get the narrative. It will not ask you the right questions, and it does not know your market. We do, and we have been doing this a long time.
Of course, but in measure. We are part of the Anthropic Partner Network, and much of our research runs on agents. It is brilliant, and it still cannot do what a high-value decision demands: the judgement, the questions and the market knowledge that decide a deal.