Transform Claims Into Credibility

From: Selling Signals Newsletter

Date: October 29, 2025

Oct 29, 2025

When everyone’s talking, the real differentiator is who can show their value

From high school English to copyediting comments, “show, don’t tell” is one of the first lessons you learn as a writer. This simple phrase articulates what makes a story come alive. Whether you're writing a copy or a television script, instead of telling your audience that a character is nervous, show their hands shaking as they reach for their water or the beads of sweat pooling on their forehead.

Lately, that lesson feels more relevant than ever. In an era where AI can generate a thousand words in seconds, the real challenge isn’t creating content but creating something that stands out in the “sea of sameness.” The difference between forgettable and memorable often comes down to how well you can show the value, not just tell it.

The same principle applies to sales and marketing. Both teams are experts at talking about benefits, features, and outcomes, but what buyers really respond to is proof. Walkthroughs, testimonials, and stories that demonstrate real impact.

So today, we’re exploring how “show, don’t tell” can move beyond creative advice and become a unifying mindset for how sales and marketing communicate with each other and with their audiences.

Marketing Signals

🎧 Great Marketing Tells Great Stories — This episode of The Marketing Architects Podcast dives into why great storytelling isn’t about scale or budget, but emotional clarity. The hosts unpack how strong narrative structure and authentic proof can make even complex products feel human.

📰 Show, Don’t Tell: How Storytelling Leads to Lasting Brand Impact — MarTech explores why storytelling outperforms slogans and stats, with fresh data on how visual storytelling, case studies, and narrative-driven campaigns drive measurable brand lift and customer loyalty.

🎥 Winning the Story Wars — An old favorite TEDxTalk that still rings true. Jonah Sachs reminds us that the brands that inspire action are the ones that stop broadcasting messages and start telling meaningful stories. It’s a masterclass in brand storytelling that holds up a decade later.

Marketing Movement

Make your message visible, not just verbal

Marketers have always been great at telling brand stories, but in a world where everyone’s telling one, showing proof is what separates scroll-past content from stop-and-stare moments.

AI has made “telling” easier than ever. You can spin up 20 headlines, five email variants, and three social posts before lunch. But the teams seeing real engagement are the ones using creative storytelling to show their value in motion through visuals, customer narratives, and authentic experiences.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Trade product talk for real context. Don’t say your platform “drives efficiency.” Turn claims into examples by showing a client walking through a workflow they simplified using your tool.
Bring testimonials to life. Instead of static quotes, create short clips or carousel posts where clients describe their transformation in their own words. Using authentic voices helps you cut through the noise of generic content.
Visualize transformation. Use before-and-after visuals, process maps, or campaign snapshots that let the audience see the results.
Build content around curiosity. Instead of explaining features, reveal outcomes through story arcs, where there is a clear problem, tension, and resolution.

Good marketing earns attention through authenticity and evidence. Buyers don’t believe in taglines; they believe what they can see. When you reveal the process, show real transformations, and spotlight human stories, trust becomes the natural outcome.

Sale Signals

📊 2025 State of Sales Report: What 1,000+ Pros Say About AI, Buyer Behavior, and Growth — HubSpot’s latest sales report reveals how AI and shifting buyer expectations are changing the rules of engagement. The biggest takeaway: Top performers don’t just talk about value, they show it, through proof, storytelling, and customer insight.

🎥 Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell — In this talk, Mike Adams breaks down the seven story types that help sellers connect, convince, and close. It’s a great watch for anyone learning to replace pitch decks with narrative arcs that build trust and emotional resonance.

📞 10 Outbound Sales Call Script Examples (+ Free Templates) — From our writers at Fit Small Business, this practical guide gives ready-to-use scripts and frameworks for outbound calls that show empathy, credibility, and expertise in action.

Sales Action

Turn your pitch into a proof point

Learning to write commercial content taught me that persuasion comes from showing proof, not explaining intention. Readers, like buyers, believe what they can picture. And the best sellers? They don’t just tell prospects what the product does; they know how to show them what it means.

Today’s buyers have heard every promise before. They’ve seen every slide deck filled with features and ROI stats. What they remember are the moments when they could see themselves in the story you told and when you made the product feel personal, real, and specific to them.

Here’s how to make “show, don’t tell” your sales superpower:

Lead with a customer story. Start your meeting with a mini case study: “One of our clients in your industry faced X problem — here’s what changed.” Make it visual, concrete, and outcome-driven.
Narrate your demo like a story. Don’t walk through tabs. Walk through transformation. Explain why each feature matters to their day-to-day work.
Bring the customer’s world into the conversation. Screenshare their LinkedIn page, quote their own product language, or reference a recent pain point from your CRM notes. The more it feels like their story, the faster they buy in.
Make proof portable. Follow up with a one-minute video recap or customer success snapshot they can share internally. Easy sharability helps them “show” your value to other stakeholders, too.

The best sales professionals think like storytellers, translating data and features into something people can actually see and feel. They make the invisible — such as impact, outcomes, and transformation — visible in ways that stay with people.

When sales and marketing share that understanding, every touchpoint becomes part of a larger narrative. From the first ad to the final demo, the story feels cohesive, believable, and human. Not because it tells people what to think, but because it lets them see why it matters.

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Mixed Signals

Marketing: “We’re already showing proof — our deck is packed with case studies, metrics, and brand visuals.”

Sales: “You mean the 40-slide deck that prospects stop paying attention to after slide six? They don’t need proof that looks good — they need proof that feels real.”

→ Translation: Both teams think they’re showing value, but in different languages. Marketing’s version of “showing” is polished storytelling and performance data; sales’ version is a customer walkthrough or unscripted demo that lets buyers picture the result for themselves.

The fix is not choosing between polish and proof, but combining them. Let marketing’s storytelling set the stage, and let sales’ real-world examples bring it to life. The best stories show, the best demos tell, and the best teams do both.

Meet Our Writer

Faithe J. Day, Ph.D.

Senior Staff Writer

Faithe has spent more than a decade helping people understand the tools that move business forward. With a Ph.D. in Communication Studies, she breaks down project management, office tech, and social platforms into practical insights for sales and marketing teams.