✍️ curiosity isn’t pipeline (just ask your sales team)

Marketing teams aren’t short on ideas right now, they’re short on signal.

AI messaging is everywhere. Every platform, deck, and brainstorm seems to land on the same question: How much AI positioning do we need to lead with? Meanwhile, sales is still explaining what the product actually does, and pipeline doesn’t care how clever the positioning sounded in a doc.

That gap, between curiosity and conversion, is where a lot of B2B marketing is getting stuck.

Everett Butler ran straight into it at Lindy. Instead of debating positioning internally, he tested it in-market, running 10-15 messaging variants at once and letting the real buyer behavior decide what worked.

That experiment did more than settle a debate. It showed what happens when marketers stop guessing and start paying attention to the signals that actually move deals forward.

Most AI companies decide their positioning in a Google Doc. Then they launch it…and hope.

At Lindy, Everett Butler did something different. Instead of debating how much “AI” to lead with, he tested 10–15 messaging variants live—across ads, landing pages, and real buyer journeys—and let the market decide what worked.

The results were uncomfortable in the best way. AI-heavy language pulled attention. Outcome-driven language built pipeline. And the difference showed up where it mattered most: shorter sales calls, smoother demos, and buyers who could finally explain the product back in their own words.

Once Lindy followed the signal instead of the hype, the split became obvious.

• Messages like “Build AI Employees in Minutes” drove heavy click volume, but stalled at demo bookings. 

• Outcome-driven messages like “Get 2 hours of your day back” generated fewer clicks but converted to demos at 2–3x the rate.

Clicks weren’t wrong. They just weren’t the whole story.

If sales is spending too much time explaining your product and not enough time showing buyers what they can achieve, this one’s for you.

Campaigns that got us talking: Rippling didn’t plan a big moment. The NYC mayor gave them one. On his first day in office, Zohran Mamdani rode the subway, and Rippling showed up in every photo.

AI Spotlight: AI is scaling faster than the infrastructure built to support it (sound familiar, marketers?). New Nokia-commissioned research shows that today’s networks, designed for streaming and browsing, are buckling. Reminds us of other days: cloud adoption before bandwidth caught up, EV demand outpacing charging stations.

Stuff that makes us scroll back up: Sponsoring the podcast TBPN put Ramp inside conversations tech founders and finance leaders already trust. No heavy-handed product plugs, just presence where their buyers already spend time. A quiet reminder that in B2B, attention is earned by showing up. That, plus getting an “office” icon to role play expense analysis in the middle of NYC. 

Corporate America has a new favorite job title: storyteller. We’re all for it. Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Notion are hiring dedicated storytelling teams—often at eye-popping salaries—as brands shift from chasing earned media to building their own. 

The signal is everywhere: 

• LinkedIn job posts using “storyteller” have doubled in the past year

• Executives now say “storytelling” on earnings calls more than 450 times annually

• Companies are using narrative to drive growth, trust, and relevance

If you’re curious what modern, scalable storytelling actually looks like in practice, we’re happy to show you.

There’s good content, great content, and then there’s the content equivalent of a January gym membership. Consider this our public service announcement. This week’s offenders:

• In & Out lists designed more for screenshots than substance. Extra credit for neutral palettes and overly familiar takes.

• “Out: busywork / In: impact” lists that stop at the slogan. We’re not mad at the idea, we just wish the proof showed up, too.

• Trend lists that trip over themselves. “Out: long content” sitting right next to “In: storytelling.” Pick a lane. And get an editor.

If there’s a theme running through all of this, it’s not “do more.” It’s pay closer attention.

Test before you commit. Watch what buyers actually respond to. Keep the things that shorten sales calls and quietly retire the ones that just sound good in a doc.

In a year already full of opinions, the edge belongs to teams who let the market do the talking.

See y’all next time.

— the storyarb writers’ room 🫡

Oh! And another thing... Google Drive hosts more than 2 trillion files. Docs, Sheets, Slides, videos, images. And yes, an embarrassing number of Google Docs titled “Final_v7_REALLYfinal.”

Ideas don’t fail because they’re written down. They fail because they stay in the doc. Strategy doesn’t move the needle until it meets the market.

Consider this your sign to test something before “v8_finalish.” We promise the doc will still be there.