Ad Age argues that brands need to think more like entertainment companies. The more important question for business leaders is whether that shift will remain a marketing tactic or become a new operating model. The companies that win attention today are not simply producing better advertisements.

One of the most underappreciated forms of commercial leadership is translation. Not simplification for its own sake. Not reducing complexity until it becomes harmless.

Enterprise deals don’t become winnable at the pitch. They become winnable in the weeks before it, when you stop treating the account like a “prospect” and start treating it like a living organization with incentives, fears, and internal politics.

I once took over U.S. expansion for a disruptive European AI SaaS company with a familiar paradox. Globally proven. Elite engineering talent. Deployments on some of the most complex infrastructure projects in the world. And yet: North America wasn’t scaling.

🇺🇸 The U.S. isn’t a market. It’s fifty markets wearing a trench coat. I’ve watched brilliant foreign companies land in the U.S. with a great product and a confident plan… …based on one quiet assumption: “We’re entering the U.S. market.”

The truth about my last position: I didn’t walk into a “hot” category. I walked into a legacy, commoditized one — the kind where most buyers think they already know what you do, what you cost, and why you’re interchangeable.

I Walked Into a “Mafia-Run SaaS” Reputation. Then I Had to Earn Back Trust at 2AM on a Highway. I walked into a meeting to say thank you. I walked out realizing we had a reputation crisis. I had just taken over U.S. leadership for a SaaS company selling into public-sector infrastructure.

Most BD strategies break the same way: 🔵 The first few deals happen because you’re a human Swiss Army knife. 🔵 Then you try to scale… and suddenly the business depends on your personal heroics.