Every brand is chasing a narrative, but most are confusing the concept with creating content.
SaaS Half Full host Lindsey Groepper sat down with Nicholas Lembo, VP of Marketing at Coast, to talk about the buzzword “narrative.”
Nicholas said a brand’s narrative is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room. Marketers can’t just create one.
“Narrative is quite distinct. It’s in many ways the accumulated version of truth that you get from what your company puts out into the world, but also from opinion leaders, customers, journalists, the people that don’t work for you, and LLMs.” — Nicholas Lembo
When AI produces identical-sounding noise, human curation and authentic narrative become your primary competitive moat. Buyers rely on public perception and third-party validation rather than what a brand claims about itself.
The difference between content, story, and narrative.
Nicholas mentioned that companies are posting high-paying job listings for a “Head of Narrative.” However, when you read the actual job descriptions, they’re really just hiring a content marketer. Many fail to grasp the differences between content, story, and narrative.
Story: What you want to tell the world about who you are and why you exist.
Content: A point-in-time artifact that distributes your story.
Narrative: The accumulated aggregation of truth formed over time.
“If the story is your DNA, the content is how that comes to life. Narrative is the accumulated aggregation of how you express your story and how people understand and internalize your content and what others say about you.” — Nicholas Lembo
According to Nicholas, content is created for a specific moment and channel. Once that campaign or publishing moment passes, the individual asset naturally loses immediate visibility, traction, and relevance. Essentially, it decays.
A brand narrative compounds as consistent messaging and external perceptions accumulate. You can’t rely solely on internally created assets.
Three rules for building a narrative
Nicholas recommends brands follow three core rules to build a lasting narrative.
- Stay consistent
Tell the same core story repeatedly across channels with high volume and unwavering message consistency. By maintaining a clear, repeatable message architecture, you give internal teams and external audiences the repetition required to memorize and recognize your brand’s unique story.
- Share the mic
Because a brand narrative is ultimately what people say about you, you need someone to speak up for you. Sharing the mic means empowering third-party voices, such as customers, industry leaders, journalists, and partners, to retell and validate your story in their own words. This approach creates the “surround sound” that both human buyers and AI models rely on.
- Embrace imperfection
Trust is earned in how a company handles messy, real-world moments. Don’t ignore bad news or hide behind marketing spin. Name hard problems. Be forthright with customers and partners during misses. Take swift corrective action and acknowledge industry trade-offs. Being accountable and honest builds an authentic level of public trust.
Who Owns the Narrative?
Nicholas pointed out that over the last 20 years, organizational design has created a disconnect between strategy, budget, and execution. Rather than fighting over territory, he suggests a collaborative division of labor.
Ultimately, the founder and CEO owns the narrative. This person is inevitably the primary public face of the business. Marketing and comms equip leadership with the message architecture, customer evidence, and channel reach needed to tell that story effectively.
Watch the episode to hear more insights on building brand defensibility, fintech marketing strategy, and mastering narrative in the AI era.
Episode Transcript
This has been generated by AI and optimized by a human.
[00:00:00] Nicholas Lembo: the AI trust building and getting AIs to kind of tell your narrative is really now less about domain authority like SEO was and more about surround sound and kind of volume to some degree. And, and so there’s a little bit at play here of consistency, uh, and going back to that formula, like I said, of kind of volume and consistency of message.
Hey, and welcome back to SaaS Half Full, the only show serving B2B SaaS and AI marketers. I’m Lindsey Groepper, EVP at PANBlast, and I will be both your host and bartender today. I had a really good conversation with Nick Lembo, who is the VP of Marketing at Coast. And all of you would agree, marketers that are listening today, that narrative is super important right now, with AI and lack of trust in content, everyone’s chasing narrative.
It’s all over LinkedIn. However, Nick dives into, are you actually chasing narrative or are you just creating more content or telling [00:01:00] your story? Because narrative is not something he believes that you create. It is how you’re being talked about when you are not in the room. So if you care to, grab a drink and join me as I speak with Nick
[00:01:12] Lindsey Groepper: Hey Nick, welcome to SaaS sa four
[00:01:15] Nicholas Lembo: Hi, Lindsey. How are you? Nice to be here. Thanks for having me
[00:01:17] Lindsey Groepper: I’m excited to have you. Thank you for joining us. I know that my team approached you because they saw a couple of posts on LinkedIn that they thought were interesting and worth unpacking. So thank you for accepting our invitation. We appreciate it.
[00:01:29] Nicholas Lembo: My pleasure
[00:01:30] Lindsey Groepper: And, uh, as our listeners know, I share a drink with our guests on this show.
We offered you one, you declined because, rightfully so, you’re in the office today, and it is not the time to have a drink. But you are having your another favorite beverage, which is what today?
[00:01:46] Nicholas Lembo: I have a nice crispy Diet Coke straight out of a can, uh, by my side
[00:01:51] Lindsey Groepper: There you go. Well, right before, uh, I hopped on a call with you, I went to my fridge, which usually has seltzers in it. It did not. Uh, but [00:02:00] I instead mixed up a vodka, what was gonna be a soda, but I grabbed one of my daughter’s Bloom drinks, which I can’t say I’ve necessarily ever had. And, um, I’m gonna hold this up so you can see what this thing looks like.
What is this? This is
[00:02:17] Nicholas Lembo: What is Bloom? I don’t even
[00:02:19] Lindsey Groepper: Bloom is just like a sparkling beverage with caffeine, and it looks like, for those of you that aren’t watching, most of you are just listening, it’s highlighter yellow. It can’t be good for me and might, um, put me in the grave after this episode. But I mixed it with vodka, and here we go.
So cheers, Nick. Nice to meet you.
[00:02:39] Nicholas Lembo: Cheers. Nice to meet you too, Lindsey. Happy to be here
[00:02:42] Lindsey Groepper: Uh, so working at Pam Blast, we are in, in the world of narratives and storytelling, so I imagine what caught the eye of my colleagues was a post that you had and some commentary around, yes, most marketers understand that narrative is oh so important [00:03:00] in today’s AI era and the, uh, mistrust everybody has, but that you make some clear distinctions around content, story, and narrative being three distinct things.
So we’re gonna dive into that topic today, but before we do, Nick, I want to give our listeners an understanding of a little bit who you are and what your journey was to the VP of Marketing at Coast. So if you could, give us a quick background. Um, he is sitting in New York in the Soho office, in office today.
Uh, but sort of what was your role leading up to Coast? What’s been your story? And then please do give us an understanding of what Coast is for those who don’t know.
[00:03:37] Nicholas Lembo: Sure. Sounds good. I’m happy to be here and happy to do that. So I am, uh, VP of marketing today at Coast. Coast is a spend management platform for businesses that run in the field and office. So think everything from HVAC to construction to trades. If you have guys that are out in the field every day driving trucks, going to job sites, you need a way for them to pay for gas, go [00:04:00] to Home Depot, maybe buy lunch if you want them to be able to. Um, but you don’t wanna just hand them your Amex or your Capital One card, and you don’t want a kind of full-blown expense management system that’s designed for, you know, a giant, um, software company or something like that. Coast is the, the, the card and the software that lets you kind of put place the control and policy you want for that team in the field.
Um, and it’s built specifically for some of the use cases that those types of businesses and teams have, which are pretty distinct. Um, so I’ve been at Coast for about a year. We are a Series B fintech. We are headquartered here in New York, where I am today, and we also have, uh, another office in Salt Lake City. growing fast and really kind of on a mission to move forward businesses that look like what I just said. And so started with a fuel card, now expanded to be able to do all of your corporate spending. Excuse me. And layering on things like bill pay and other ways to kind of manage your financial life if you’re a CFO or a fleet manager in a business like that. before Coast, I’ve spent about, [00:05:00] um, I don’t wanna say how many years, but it’s probably almost 20 at this point in, uh, marketing and communications world. fun fact, I majored in anthropology at college, and in fact, didn’t even know I was in communications or marketing till about my third job and told me that I was a marketer because I was sending emails and updating, uh, Twitter posts, which tells you a little bit about my vintage that I still refer to it that way and think about it.
So, um, since that job when I learned that I was in fact a comms and marketer, I’ve spent most of my career in the fintech space at companies like Wise, which is a cross-border payments company, uh, companies like Gusto as well. So always kind of startups in, in that fintech space.
[00:05:38] Lindsey Groepper: Awesome. Thank you. Uh, what did you want to do with an anthropology degree? What did you picture yourself doing?
[00:05:45] Nicholas Lembo: I wanted desperately to be an archeologist, um, or paleontologist. I spent most of my youth, um, you know, digging up fake dinosaur bones and watching Indiana Jones too many times and wearing hats that no eight-year-old [00:06:00] should be wearing to, to look like some of my heroes. and then during college, I spent a summer, in Alaska working on a dig, and I realized what archeology actually was on a day-to-day basis.
And I
thought, “You know what? Sitting in a hole with a toothbrush for three months, uh, is maybe not actually what I want to do with my life, so what’s next?” and then there were a couple stops between that and, and writing emails and Twitter posts.
[00:06:24] Lindsey Groepper: Right. Wow. Yeah, that, that’s very different. Uh, interestingly, I went to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum about a month ago, and they have, dinosaur skeletons there, like real ones. Um, they’ve constructed the full, um, you know, T-Rex. Then it’ll show you which ones are actually like the real bones from the dig sites, et cetera, which is actually really cool when you’re sitting there looking at these real bones.
So anyway, you keep walking through the exhibit, and then you get to this place where there are, what I thought might have been like actual scientific like folks, you know, like paleontologists or archeologists or [00:07:00] whatever. Um, but there’s like a handful of these older gentlemen, I’m saying older like, you know, in their 70s and at least, and they are working on recovering bones from a real dig.
So they’re sitting in front and they’re using the toothbrushes. They’re using all the little tools, and I say, “Wow, hey, this is…” And I’m like… You’re right there looking at it. I say, “This is really cool.” I said, “What?” Like, “What’s your background?” Like, I, I’m like, “This is like… Did you, were you on site?” And they’re like, “No, we’re just retired.
We’re volunteers.” And I’m like, “That’s super cool that number one…” Okay, like you don’t even… No zero degree, nothing related. They are just volunteering their hours at the museum,
[00:07:40] Nicholas Lembo: That is really cool
[00:07:41] Lindsey Groepper: recovering dinosaur bones. Like how cool
[00:07:45] Nicholas Lembo: in my
retirement I will go back and I will do it for the love of the game,
you know, rather than,
[00:07:50] Lindsey Groepper: There you go. But I was like, man, talk about goals. Let me just sit at the children’s museum and with a toothbrush for three hours.
That actually now sounds amazing.[00:08:00]
[00:08:00] Nicholas Lembo: I have, uh, if you ever go to LA, I’ve spent time with my nephews who live there at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, where
they’re still taking wooly mammoths and stuff out of these tar pits and kind of they have a similar setup, you know, a giant kind of glass where you can watch people kind of cleaning the bones of all these
animals that fell into the oil 20,000 years ago or whatever.
It’s pretty cool.
[00:08:21] Lindsey Groepper: well, let’s talk about the exact opposite of relaxing for three hours uncovering dinosaur bones, which is the psychotic, crazy, uh, world of marketing right now, um, in the AI era that you sit squarely in. technology marketers, VPs in marketing, CMOs, um, wow, y’all have a really, really intense role right now, um, in what it is that you do.
And just when you think you got it all figured out, we have this era called AI and LLM visibility that is really just shaking it all up. So we want to dive into this. Before I hit record, Nick, you and I were talking about, this idea of most [00:09:00] marketers would agree that narrative is important right now.
I, I don’t think there’s anyone listening that’s gonna say, “Yeah, I disagree that it’s important that we have a brand narrative.” Um, so let’s just assume we all agree with that. However, um, you peel this back and say, “Okay, that, that’s fine. We all agree with that,” but, like, are you really chasing narrative? Is what you’re pushing really a narrative or is it more content?
Is it a, uh, more of a story or is it your actual narrative? So just unpack this for us, your, your thoughts and ideas around the importance of a narrative and maybe what, what companies are getting wrong.
[00:09:37] Nicholas Lembo: Yeah, I think it’s, um, it’s a really interesting question one I think about a lot, especially as someone who kind of now has a general marketing role in the AI era where this is becoming a defensibility and brand and narrative is now a moat and people are just saying that who maybe have heard it or, you know, haven’t spent their whole career in the space.
And also, you know, I started my marketing [00:10:00] career in kind of communications roles where people are thinking on not necessarily how many MQLs am I driving this quarter, but like what is the story of this company over time? How do we build the reputation of this company? whether we’re a new entrant in a new space and we’re kind of defining our differentiation in the category or we’re an established player who’s kind of growing over time and cementing ourselves in the minds of our, you know, buyers, uh, customers, stakeholders, whatever.
And so it’s something I’ve thought about for a long time and I think in this kind of AI era, like I said, everyone keeps saying that, you know, brand and taste are the two things where humans still have an unfair advantage, right? LLMs are machines. They take in obviously all of the information in the entire world and maybe they’ll kill us all depending, uh, who you watch on the news and what you’re worried about at any given day.
But ultimately where humans still have an advantage is these areas of taste and brand is in many ways I think, um A very clear surface area where that can kind of come to light, right? And so I think a lot about being very clear [00:11:00] of what we mean by brand narrative versus content versus story, because the brand, if you treat it as a moat or if you believe it can be a moat in this AI era, is much more than just colors or design, right?
It’s, it’s narrative. And to me, narrative isn’t just content, which I think is when you read lots of like LinkedIn stuff, that’s where the distinction can get a little bit muddied. you know, content is a piece of an artifact that you put out, right? It might have stories within it. Um, it might be, repeated by some other people, but ultimately it’s one point in time of a message you’re putting out into the world, right?
Whereas I really think narrative is quite distinct. It’s in many ways the accumulated version of truth that you get from, yes, what you, your company puts out into the world, but also by opinion leaders, by your customers, by journalists, the people that don’t work for you, um, by LLMs [00:12:00] increasingly as aggregators of all that information on the, on the internet that spit it back out to an interested party.
And so if narrative’s not just a piece of content, which it’s not, it’s fairly distinct, the way that you build that over time and how you should measure it and how you should think about it is obviously quite distinct from the gated white paper that we put out this quarter that is a piece of content or the three latest posts on our blog about a product launch or, you know, whatever trend and kind of thought leadership we see.
And so, I think a lot about how, with that distinction in mind, how do you actually build narrative if it’s a multi-quarter, multi-year, decade-long kind of approach? And that’s something that’s been on my mind a lot lately and that I think we’ll probably talk a little bit about
[00:12:45] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah. Is narrative really like the through line that pulls those three things together? Like your narrative needs to exist and be present in all of your content, or are these really three distinct areas?[00:13:00]
[00:13:00] Nicholas Lembo: I think of them almost as like concentric circles outward, right? Um, and the narrative is like that accumulation of, you know, the story that we tell. Story is something that has like an archetype. It can be repeated. It’s often similar. Maybe we’re telling the story a slightly different way in one piece of content versus another.
But like there’s a through line. It’s kind of our DNA. It’s what we want to tell the world about ourselves, whether that’s Nick as a person or Coasta as a company or, or Lindsey or whatever it might be, right? that comes through in your content. Um, and the content is how it comes to life. Now, you might have it optimized for a certain type of distribution. It might be always on, which is, you know, easier than ever in kind of AI era to make content. it’s much harder to make content that stands out and is good, but it’s easier than ever to make it. and also it’s playing a different angle or a different part of your story over time, depending who it’s trying to speak to in what medium, in what channel, right?
And so if the story is your DNA, the content is how that kind of comes to life [00:14:00] depending on what your objective is. narrative is almost kind of, in a way, the accumulated, aggregation of all of those different perce– people’s perceptions that you’re creating that’s kind of combining your story DNA as well as how you express that outwardly, but also what people themselves internalize from reading your content and understanding what you’re putting out and understanding what other people say about you.
So, you know, the very famous Jeff Bezos quote, right? Like, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
[00:14:29] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah
[00:14:30] Nicholas Lembo: I often think as you could put b– narrative in there or brand narrative and the quote would stay exactly the same, right? Uh, the narrative is the story about Nick or Lindsey that’s out in the world of which we have played a part in doing, but also people have their own perceptions of, um,
and they have kind of come to form their own judgment over time.
And so it is something that is not an artifact you produce. It’s a, it’s an aggregation that kind of accumulates over time and is, something that compounds, [00:15:00] if that makes sense. Um, whereas like content decays
[00:15:03] Lindsey Groepper: Sure. And, and, and I’m glad you made that distinction on sort of the narrative being the accumulation of multiple voices. Um, it’s almost a little bit of more of like, more of opinion. so based on what people are experiencing is really where that narrative forms. And, and, and you can certainly drive your own narrative, but it’s not gonna be reinforced if that narrative isn’t true across all those different experiences, the stories that you tell, right, the content that you put out.
are there any examples that you can share with us, and whether this is for Coast or if there’s any like, you know, other brands that, that come to mind to help like crystallize this is the narrative that exists out there, this is, these are the stories that are, or a story that is told, and this is content that supports it?
[00:15:49] Nicholas Lembo: Good question. I think like in the Coast context, we’ve been around for five years, right? We’re still a relatively young startup, and so we are in that phase of [00:16:00] understanding and crystallizing what we want the narrative to be and how that gets reinforced. And, um, I think we are building towards a place where we know what we want to be known as and where we fit into someone’s workflow.
And so now it’s about telling that story in enough places, and getting others to kind of– I talk a lot about like sharing the mic when I think about narrative to reinforce that to your point, right? And so for us, when I think about, you know, this might come to life in a brand guidelines deck as like a manifesto or something
like that, Right
And so I think, uh, for us, it’s a lot about abstracting the pain of a fleet manager or a finance leader who got into their family business or, you know, whatever they’re doing to help people build new homes, to, uh, fix plumbing, to do whatever they want to do, and somehow at the end of the month, they’re still chasing [00:17:00] receipts, and they’re kind of bogged down by all the busy work that comes with running a business.
And so our narrative is that in many ways, like these are the people that built this country. This is a little bit earnest if, if you’ll forgive me. Uh, but like they don’t have the tools that they need to be able to focus
on doing exactly that, and that’s what we kind of bring to life. And, we have tried to do that in some activations in different ways so that other people can reinforce their stories of why they got into their business. Coast is almost an afterthought. That’s a good thing for us, right? It means it’s working well in the background. And that’s a very brand level forward, um, version of it. But I think there are some other examples that I, think a lot about when I think about building narrative over time.
another really great example of kind of narrative and brand is probably Patagonia, right? Uh, they are very clear about what they stand for, about reuse, about [00:18:00] environmentalism, and, you know, whatever you think of how they bring that to life and express it and, they don’t waver, right?
And so it’s not for everyone, and that’s very clear when you look at it. And it comes with imperfections. It comes with big swings that may alienate part of their base or not. But it is certainly consistent, and it’s a great example of how it compounds over time, right? Because it actually forces into their company ethos and how they operate very clear choices they make about the materials they use, things that they stand up for, where they donate money, how their founder talks about the purpose of the company overall.
And I think, again, whether you agree with all of it and none of it or some of it, um, you can never argue that they’re not clear about like what they want to be
[00:18:47] Lindsey Groepper: That’s a really good example, ’cause as soon as you said Patagonia, I immediately said, “Yep, totally off-brand for me.” Which is also totally okay, so I’m glad that you said that, is because I do [00:19:00] feel like part of the, the problem with a lot of, of brands is that they, they want to be liked by everyone and/or want to be everything to everyone, and that, that can really bite you in the ass.
[00:19:14] Nicholas Lembo: especially in the consumer space, right? Our market is everybody, so we really need to get after all of that. And it’s like their market is decidedly not everyone
[00:19:22] Lindsey Groepper: Correct. And that’s, and like Patagonia… But I don’t have bad feelings about Patagonia just because it’s not for me, right? There’s just other brands that align more closely, you know, with me and my personality. Um, and I, you know, I, I just wouldn’t wear Patagonia, but I think they’re an awesome brand.
I love what they stand for. It just doesn’t necessarily match me. And, and as a result, I do feel like then Patagonia, using that example, people trust that brand because they do what they say, right? So talk to us a little bit about building trust through narrative, because it’s hard enough to build narrative, number one, because you have to be so freaking consistent with it [00:20:00] so that like no matter where you go and in what circles, people have the same experience and roughly, right?
and you’re known for a certain vibe, a certain thing, a certain whatever. but talk to me about the, the trust building and how much narrative plays into that. and especially now that its trust has been completely upended, um, in the AI era. Um, but I’m curious to get your thoughts on it.
[00:20:23] Nicholas Lembo: Great question, and there’s a couple different angles in there. So the, I’ll take the, the AI part of like what do people trust from AI and how does AI surface it is almost like, to some degree a technical question, which is interesting to get into in and of itself, right? But at a kind of reputation level and a psychological level of like who we’re trying to reach, whe- whether we’re a B2B or B2C brand, I think in a lot of ways trust is a lagging indicator of that consistency, right?
Like everybody says we… How many brand X can you look at where you say, “The brand value is we are a trusted company”? So, well that’s not how trust works.
You don’t [00:21:00] get to tell someone that you’re trusted and then all of a sudden they believe you, right? People form… Trust is a personal value that people form over time, and I think one of the ways we as humans build trust with each other is doing what we say we’re gonna do, showing up for each other.
Think of your friendships, your personal relationships, right? Like that’s where trust and to some degree respect comes from is like lived experience. And so I think, again, Patagonia as an example, and there are many others, it’s just the first one that comes to mind, of like where that trust comes from what we just said.
They are showing up and doing it again and again and again, regardless of what it means for quote-unquote alienating part of their customer base or whatever happens to their stock price, right? That is not the path for every company, nor am I suggesting it should be. It’s just such a explicit example of the fact that the trust there comes from the repeatability, and kind of consistency over time. And I think it’s an important part of, again, [00:22:00] going back to the distinction between, or thinking about the distinction between content and narrative, right? Like It’s easy to be consistent with content. Not easy, actually. Like, it’s easy to actually trace change in content. But if you wanted to
stick
to
it, y-you could put out content and you could be really consistent, and that still might not make you trusted because the narrative portion comes from what other people say about you, how do others talk about you, how do journalists write about you, and all that shows up in how you show up as a company and the choices you make.
And so I think a lot about trust as, a key part of successful narrative building, and there’s almost like a formula here where like volume is important, yes. So is the channels that you kind of choose to put out, the message in. So is consistency, um, and so is who is telling that story about you, right?
So the number and the credibility of the people, especially outside your own company, who are kind
of echoing those voices. And so [00:23:00] we make it complicated and we think about this, it’s easy to kind of talk in general abstract terms as I am doing, but to some degree, like there’s a pretty simple formula for like building a narrative that compounds over time.
It’s like get out lots of content, get out lots of other people’s stories, try and make sure the ratio of good to bad is as high as possible in one direction. be consistent where you can and, and engage the people that have the power and the credibility to tell your story for you. And if it’s kind of like comms 101, right?
But like you do those things enough over time and reputation and narrative kind of grow positively
hand in hand. I think to finish this answer, long-winded answer, that’s the, the kind of old way of doing things, right? Um, and I think it’s still probably the right way of doing things, but the AI layer abstracts away a ton of trust that otherwise people would get from mainstream media, which has collapsed, or friends and family, which is, you know, collapsing in a different way.
And so the [00:24:00] AI trust building and getting AIs to kind of tell your narrative is really now less about domain authority like SEO was and more about surround sound and kind of volume to some degree. And, and so there’s a little bit at play here of consistency, uh, and going back to that formula, like I said, of kind of volume and consistency of message.
[00:24:20] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah. Um, something that you said when you were talking about the qualities that make you trust a person, showing up when you say you’re gonna show up, doing what you say you’re gonna do. and other things that come to mind with that and people that I trust are those that will tell me the hard, uncomfortable truths, right?
and those that are accountable to the relationship, um, to words, to actions. Um, and those two parts for a brand can be difficult. Being accountable when things go wrong or when you’ve screwed up, and telling the hard, uncomfortable truths. Um, so talk to [00:25:00] me about where you… Do you agree, first of all, that brands sort of skirt away from that?
And, uh, where does the sort of the bad news portion fit into an overall brand narrative, if at all?
[00:25:12] Nicholas Lembo: Yeah. I mean, this is a good question and probably the hardest one. I think anyone who’s come up through a comms path or works with really great comms professionals over time or had the misfortune of anything crisis-related, understands how important this is. and it is, in my mind, one of the three rules for building narratives, right?
There’s– You have to compound and tell the same story and be consistent, right? So that you’re comfortable with it and you create enough ability for other people to repeat it. You have to share the mic so that other people can retell it, and they have enough consistency and kind of repeatability to do that effectively carry for you. and then the last piece, like narratives, you know, build them up over time, share the mic. The last piece is, in my mind, a lot about kind of… I like to think of it as embracing, uh, [00:26:00] imperfection rather than telling bad news, which is a classic, um,
[00:26:04] Lindsey Groepper: marketing spin on
[00:26:05] Nicholas Lembo: comm person way to thi-
to reframe the question.
Um, you, know, so we’re gonna do a little bridging statement into us slightly answering the question I
want to answer. Um, it is about embracing imperfection, right? Because, it’s less about I, as a VP of marketing am gonna go tell my peers on the management team that we should start telling bad news about Coast.
Obviously, that’s not true, right? And it’s more about how do you handle those moments where it inevitably does happen ’cause we live in a messy, real world, whether that’s comms to customers, comms to partners, stakeholders. If you’re a big enough company, uh, you have the misfortune of like bad situations doing so in public, crisis type of situations, right? And it’s about, naming a hard part, a problem where it is, being honest where you have misses and kind of like, uh, taking corrective action. Uh, it’s not about telling all– the world everything that they don’t [00:27:00] even necessarily need to hear about all of your kind of like dirty laundry, if you will, right?
And it’s
more about not shying away from these things when they happen. And when they do happen, being, you know, honest and kind of forthright with the answer to the question so that, you know, what builds trust more than anything, like again,
back to someone who like takes accountability. and so again, this is easy to say sometimes when you’re in a chair and you’re not dealing with a, a live situation that’s going to have a really big impact.
So not s- kind of professing to say that this is like guidance that could be followed at all times, but if it’s about the ethos that you try to embody for the brand and for the company, then like that also compounds over time and will reinforce how you’re showing up for people already.
[00:27:53] Lindsey Groepper: I, I agree with that. Um, I want to take a, a bit of a step back and, um, talk about ownership of narrative. [00:28:00] Uh, I feel like it’s been mostly a comms lane for quite a long time. I also feel narrative has really taken, um, a seat in the spotlight over the last year. It is def- like trust and narrative is a buzzword, which is again why I love this conversation because it’s like, but are, but are you actually talking about narrative or are you talking about stories or are you just actually pushing content?
Um, but it’s, you know, narrative has been definitely one of the words that, you see a lot on LinkedIn, um, in building brand trust. Uh, and it seems like now that more higher level marketing leaders are looking to own narrative, who currently owns it, and who do you think really should?
[00:28:43] Nicholas Lembo: Yeah You said so much there in the framing of the question that I agree with, and I think, um, it’s a really interesting time to be in marketing, to be in comms, to be thinking about this question ’cause if your LinkedIn looks anything like mine, at any time you see a screenshot of a job ad from one of [00:29:00] the giant AI labs about we’re hiring a head of narrative and this person making a gazillion dollars a year, and you’re like, “Wait a second, what?” And then the downstream effect is that lots of people see that, the trend develops, they start to think, “I need the head of narrative.” Then you read a job description and you’re like, “You’re hiring a content marketer.”
And so, like, it’s why this distinction is so important, right? Because you need to know what problem you’re solving for as you kind of build a, a team and a company.
And I think, you know, frankly, for startups like mine, this is less of an issue, right? Because we’re 160 people. We’re a marketing team of 10. We have a standup every day. We sit next to each other. The boat is rowing in the same direction, right? Like, this is a, an issue of organizational building and kind of design that I’ve certainly worked in big companies like that where this would be a salient issue.
And so my answer draws more on my experience there. And I think the biggest thing in my mind is, is to map out what collaboration looks like and what job we’re trying to solve for. Um, [00:30:00] otherwise, you do kind of maybe end up in an unfortunate situation where you have kind of like a, almost like a structural turf war, right?
Of like responsibility sits over here, but budget sits over here and stuff like that, and maybe that’s relevant for some of your listeners. But I think, you know, over the past 20 years, like comms owns narrative but rarely owns P&L, so they’re often kind of consulted instead of resourced, and
marketing owns distribution and measurement but doesn’t think in more than kind of
quarterly terms of attribution, which is precisely the wrong way to think of what is a multi-year kind of, job. And so I think to me, the cleanest division of labor sits back in that formula I was talking about of number of stories, consistency of stories, and things like that, um, at the top of the episode where, yeah, you know what marketing teams are really good at when they’re working well is volume and consistency of message, right? you know what comms teams are really good at when they’re working well is credibility with storytellers, journalists to the extent that they’re still around, but [00:31:00] other third parties, crafting the story that you want to be telling in the first place and, and finding the moments where you deal with imperfection well. And so I think it has to be a collaborative exercise. but what you separate is who sets the narrative from kind of, not who carries it, but who, who like kind of invests in it down funnel, if you will. Um, and I think there’s some really practical ways to bring that to life too in terms of like shared measurement, shared instrumentation, and, and kind of message architecture through sales teams and things like that, where the answer to who owns what will probably depend a little bit about your company, your product. But ultimately founder and CEO’s job to own the narrative, right? And it’s the comms and the marketing’s team to equip that person well. Because they will, as they should be, inevitably be the face of it
[00:31:48] Lindsey Groepper: Yeah, for sure. well, Nick, this has been awesome. Is there anything that we didn’t cover that you want to make sure that we tackle today?
[00:31:56] Nicholas Lembo: No, super fun conversation. I think, um, if you’re struggling [00:32:00] and/or thinking about this inside your companies, reach out. Always happy to chat with people like this, uh, working on topics like this.
[00:32:06] Lindsey Groepper: And you can also, uh, check out Nick on LinkedIn. That’s where we got our, our ideas for wanting him as a guest. well, Nick, I end every episode the same way, which is I ask our guests if they have a signature or favorite toast to send us out.
[00:32:20] Nicholas Lembo: I do. I thought about this more perhaps than I should have. Um, uh, turns out the one that I have always thought was attributed to an Irish proverb after doing some research is not at all an Irish
proverb. but I’ll raise my can of Diet Coke and say, uh, “To death and taxes, may we cheat them both,” um, which is always my favorite cheers
[00:32:43] Lindsey Groepper: All right. To death and taxes, may we cheat them both. I will drink to that
[00:32:49] Nicholas Lembo: Cheers. And for the IRS, as you’re listening, that is obviously a facetious statement intended in the spirit of, uh, fun
[00:32:59] Lindsey Groepper: [00:33:00] Absolutely. Um, and for those who are listening, uh, still, boy, this drink that I’m drinking is not it for me. It is so highlighter yellow. I’ve been trying to drink it. I can’t. It’s actually terrible. I don’t know how my daughter drinks this sh*t. But I did my best. I stayed true to the process as always. Well, Nick, thank you so much, really appreciate it.
It was great to talk with you
[00:33:21] Nicholas Lembo: Thank you, Lindsey. Great to be here. Enjoyed it
Thanks again to Nick for joining me on SaaS Half Full.
That conversation got me thinking about our own narrative as an agency at PANBlast and figuring out how I’m going to combine the external data points that I have to figure out really how are we perceived in market. So any conversations that get me thinking is always a good one for me. Hopefully you took a couple things away and really appreciate the listen, and until next time, bottoms up