If your pipeline’s drying up, the real problem probably isn’t your sales team. It’s your brand. Buyers don’t care because you haven’t given them a reason to.
PwC and LinkedIn B2B Institute data show that B2B companies that neglect their brand lose deals before they’re even in the room. Strong brands get remembered. They get shortlisted. They convert faster. Yet most CFOs still file ‘brand’ under ‘nice-to-have’.
Sure, sales enablement can juice results for a quarter or two. But it’s a sticking plaster. If your story’s wrong, no amount of pitch decks will fix it.
Think of it like this: brand gets you invited into more rooms. Sales enablement helps you win once you’re there.
How can a CFO know if you've got a brand problem? All it takes are five simple questions to ask your sales team:
- Do your prospects say, “I’ve never heard of you”, even in your core market?
- Has the win rate budged despite better sales collateral?
- Ask three salespeople their sales pitch. If the message changes every pitch, no one knows your story?
- Do customers see you as interchangeable with competitors?
- How long is your deal cycle? Does it drag on because buyers need convincing that you’re credible?
Of course, it could be that your brand is doing the job and that the sales enablement needs new life breathed into it. Here's a quick checklist to help the curious CFO gauge the effectiveness of their sales enablement tools.
- You’re getting strong inbound but losing deals late-stage.
- Your brand is well-known, but sales teams aren’t telling the story well.
- You’ve had high sales team turnover, and new reps need better tools.
- Your pricing is clear, but you're losing at the negotiation stage.
- Customer feedback says they want more detail, not more fluff.
Completing these checklists will help you with some basic buyer journey mapping.
Are you having trouble filling the hopper at the Awareness leading into the consideration phase? You got a brand problem, baby. Is the conversion stage leaky? Time to look at the sales enablement tools and make them work harder.
And the numbers back it up. LinkedIn B2B Institute shows that brand investment lifts mental availability by 10–20%, translating straight into more leads and faster pipeline. It's this mental shortcut that builds brands.
We’ve seen it first-hand. One B2B tech client, leader in their niche, had flatlined revenue for three years. Sales enablement bought them a sugar high. But the real shift came when we fixed the brand story: clearer proposition, sharper positioning. 18 months later, they broke through their targets.
We worked with the client to communicate the distinct functional and emotional value that they offer, helping them start to outperform the market. This is the kind of branding, the branding that unlocks your business's value, that CFOs respect and makes their life easier.
And yes, you should be suspicious. Brand can be a money pit if you do it half-baked. That’s why we push CFOs to make it practical: more mental availability, more reasons to be recalled, more qualified pipeline. If it doesn’t do that, bin it.
If you're diagnosing a brand problem, don't reach for a new pitch deck. Get your story straightened out, making prospects lean in to ask, "Tell me more".
If you identify a sales enablement gap, ensure that you equip your reps with the necessary tools, following on from the good work of the brand.
Need more guidance? We run a 90-minute Growth Health Check for CFOs. No slides, no fluff. Just a straight diagnosis: brand problem, sales problem, or both. Spend your money in the right place, fix the right thing, and unlock growth that sticks. Drop me a line if you want to know more.