If Your B2B Messaging Isn't Repelling Anyone, You’re Doing it Wrong
- Summer Poletti
- Apr 22
- 6 min read
The Messaging Mistake That Might Be Costing You Growth
If you’ve ever caught yourself writing copy that sounds polished, professional—and completely forgettable—this one’s for you.
In B2B companies, especially at the growth stage, messaging often plays it too safe. We try to sound credible. Smart. Worthy of trust. But somewhere along the way, the message becomes so neutral, so “all things to all people,” that it stops working altogether.
Let me say it clearly: your message should attract and repel. And if it doesn’t? You’re probably attracting too many of the wrong leads, exhausting your sales team, and losing ground to competitors who are bold enough to say what they really stand for.
What You’ll Get From This Blog:
• The #1 messaging mistake I see growth-stage companies make (and how to fix it)
• Why your message should repel the wrong buyers on purpose
• A real story of how misaligned messaging cost a company years of momentum
• Signs your message is off—and what happens when it clicks
• A powerful framework to get back on track
• A sneak peek from my interview with Aprelle Duany on Revenue Remix
The Biggest Mistake? Making Your Message About You
Let me be blunt. Your potential buyer doesn’t care what year you were founded. They don’t care how many years of experience you have. And they don’t care about your features, your team bios, or your backstory.
They care about one thing:
I have a business challenge. Do you understand what that challenge is? And can you help me solve it?
Too many companies are educating the reader about themselves, their team, their product or services. And let me say that I understand - you built something great, your have a solid team, you deserve to be proud. Tell your mom at Thanksgiving dinner.
When someone other than your mom visits your website, it's because they're researching. They have a challenge they're trying to solve and they need to know if you understand it, and more importantly, can you help them?
If your website, your emails, your social posts, and your sales decks are all about you—you’re missing the chance to make your reader the hero. And that’s the first red flag your messaging isn’t working.
Why This Matters to You
83% of B2B buyers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services.→ (Salesforce, State of the Connected Customer)
If your messaging feels generic, buyers think your service will be too.
60% of B2B sales conversations stall because the customer doesn’t see value clearly enough to take the next step.→ (Gartner)→
Messaging that tries to please everyone actually confuses your real buyer—and confused buyers don’t buy.
The Cost of Getting Messaging Wrong
Bad messaging is expensive.
It’s not always obvious on paper. It doesn’t show up as a line item in your P&L. But it drags everything down:
• Sales cycles stretch out
• Churn increases
• Close rates fall
• Sales and marketing waste time on unqualified leads
And eventually, your growth stalls. Because the people who would actually buy from you never even understood what you really do. Or more importantly, who you help.
What Happens When Messaging Clicks
Here’s what happened with a client of mine:
They told me they needed to double revenue. They assumed we needed more salespeople. But when I looked deeper, I saw something else:
The existing salespeople weren’t selling that much.
But, and this is key, they didn't suck.
Churn was high.
Messaging across the website, emails, and sales convos was completely misaligned.
Instead of hiring, we fixed the leak. We focused on:
Aligning sales and marketing around objections and use cases
Building content that helped sales close more efficiently
Getting tight on on ideal buyers and targeting
Leaning into strategic partners and client success
Salespeople started sending educational content instead of booking 30-minute Q&A calls. Prospects were more educated, so they came into demos ready to buy and knowing what product tier they wanted. And most importantly, everyone was saying the same thing—sales, marketing, implementation, and support.
Question: What’s the Point of This Piece of Communication?
That’s the question I ask every founder, every marketer, every salesperson. Not just once—constantly.
What do you want the reader to do?
What do you want them to think?
What do you want them to feel?
If your message isn’t aligned to a goal, it’s just noise. The way to get alignment is to get clear on your ideal buyer, their pain, and your role in solving it. And then build every piece of content around that.
Repel On Purpose
Here’s where Aprelle’s voice comes in:
“Your message should attract and repel. That’s how people know if they belong in your world or not.”
I don’t always use the word “repel” with clients—but she’s right.
You should repel the wrong-fit buyers. Not because they’re bad people. But because your time, your energy, and your sales team’s bandwidth are too valuable to waste on someone who was never going to buy anyway. Or worse, become a misaligned client or project.
Does "repel" make you nervous? This about about Amazon. They sell everything. To everyone on the planet with internet access. They can afford to go broad. Now. Remember, they started out selling books online.
Your sales, marketing, and advertising budget isn't in the billions. You can't afford to (and don't need to) be all things to all people. And Amazon didn't start out that way either.
If you’re a growth-stage company in a niche market, you need to focus. Your dollars need to stretch. Your message needs to cut through the noise and attract your ideal buyer - the person you can most impact with your solutions. And to do that it's going to have to tell everyone else that they need to keep scrolling.
Practical Examples:
Are there types of businesses you don't want to work with for reasons involving personal ethics?
You want to have those people move on without wasting any of your salespeople's time with an account you won't work with.
Are there projects that are too small or price points too low?
Address that in FAQs or something so your sales team doesn't waste their time and your resources chasing loss leaders.
Conversely, is there work outside your zone of genius or clients too large for you to service them well?
Your sales team will chase whales if you let them, have a clear message so these buyers don't reach out and get your team's hopes up.
How to Build Magnetic Messaging (That Works)
Here’s a basic framework to audit your messaging today:
Start with the ICP
Who are they?
What do they care about?
What questions are they already asking?
Write for Their Problems, Not Your Product
List the top 3 pain points they have.
If your website doesn’t address them, rewrite it.
Pick a Side
Don’t be neutral.
Take a stance.
Be bold.
Be clear about who this is for and who it’s not.
Create Content That Helps Buyers Buy and Sellers Sell
Blogs, videos, white papers—designed specifically to answer objections, explain your process, and move people to action.
Align Sales and Marketing
What are the top 5 objections your sales team hears?
Does marketing have content for each one?
Use AI as a Gut Check
My Ideal Client Profile is uploaded into my GPT.
After I write content, I ask: “Would my ideal buyer care about this? Would they know what to do next? What's missing?"
Sneak Peek: From the Podcast with Aprelle Duany, Founder of AI Equity Ventures
In our latest Revenue Remix episode, Aprelle reminded me why “repel” is just as important as “attract”:
“You invited them to the barbecue. Now you’re mad they showed up. You don’t need everyone at the barbecue. You need your people.”
We also talked about how women, especially, are taught to please everyone. And how that mindset leaks into our messaging. But your message should filter, not please. Because it’s not about you. It’s about solving real problems for the people you’re best equipped to help.
What's Next?
Audit your website and top 3 pieces of content. Are they focused on you or the buyer?
Ask your sales team: what objections do you hear most?
Book a working session with your marketing lead. Pick one objection. Build content that answers it.
Run your next piece of content through AI and ask: “Would this help my ideal buyer make a decision?”
I produce loads of content on this topic, it's at the heart of what we do here. Want more resources? Check out the blog and podcast. Prefer to have me help you sort out what you need most? Book a strategy call.
Rise of Us is a practice run by Summer Poletti, specializing in revenue growth: sales, strategic partnerships, customer success, marketing alignment. We generally work with financial services and SaaS companies from $2MM - $10MM ARR and help them plan and execute for their next stage of revenue growth. We concentrate on strategy, coaching, and organizational alignment.
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