That is what a complex offer costs once it has outgrown the people who built it. We do three things about it.
We will look at what is going wrong, and whether there is a useful visual model to build. If there is, that becomes paid work. If not, we will say so.
One client's lifetime value per software user, read the full story below.
Same page,
every room
For
B2B teams
selling complex software, technology, engineering, or industrial services.
Founded by
Dr. Fritz Hermann
PhD in organizational psychology, a decade as CMO, prior client work spanning banks, insurers and Premier League clubs.
What we do
All three are built on one visual model: one drawing that carries the whole buying logic. So the commercial playbook your team follows stops depending on who is in the room.
Hard to explain
We find the moment the buyer stops following, then draw the buying logic as one visual model: the problem, what you change, and why the change is worth paying for. That drawing becomes the messaging your ads, your site and your deck all run from.
Long sales cycles
The visual model goes into the call itself: what to show, what to ask, what the buyer has to decide next. And your champion leaves with one page they can redraw for finance or a technical lead when nobody from your side is in the room.
Waiting on the founder
Pricing exceptions and awkward client cases still come back to the founder, because a process document records what people did and not how they decided. So we put those decisions into visual models the team uses inside the work, and marketing, sales and delivery end up reading the same commercial picture.
Why now
The three things do not change. What changes is the event that makes them urgent.
No shared way of selling
Different slides, different language, no shared process. And you've been tasked with building the commercial playbook that gives everyone one way to sell.
Founder's knowledge isn't transferable
Deals still wait for you to join the call. And in a sale, what transfers is only what somebody else can use without you.
Buyers don't understand the value
Your salespeople handle the easy questions. But nobody can walk a buyer through the total cost of the alternative, so the price question still ends up with the founder.
New hires don't understand what you do
So each new person still needs a founder or a senior colleague to explain what you sell and why it matters.
The hard calls live in one head
The process document covers the normal case, but the pricing exceptions and the awkward client cases still go to that one person.
Your champion can't explain you
Finance hears the cost without the return. The technical lead hears how it works without why it matters.
Find your starting point
Buyers remember the features, but not why they matter
The deal stalls after a good first meeting
Your champion cannot carry the case into the next room
The SOP captures steps, but the hard calls still return to the expert
The team advances the deal until the founder has to step back in
Bring the explanation that keeps breaking.
Book Your Introductory CallThat might be the homepage, an ad, the deck, a demo, a call, a working document, or a decision.
What it costs
Your company has become harder to explain than it was to build.
Deals slow down in rooms you are not in. New people take years to reach confidence, and the company's ceiling quietly becomes one person's calendar.
The founder joins the important calls because the team still cannot explain the offer without them. See where founder-dependent sales begin.
The homepage and the sales call don't describe the same buyer, and the demo adds a third. See how to make every room describe the same buyer.
The first call goes well. Then your champion has to explain the offer to finance or a technical lead without you in the room. By the third retelling, half the argument is gone, and the deal stalls in a meeting you can't attend. See what your champion needs for the next room.
Anything that does not fit the SOP still comes back to one senior person. See how the exceptions get captured too.
What changes
From forty slides to one page your team can point to. Nothing about your offer changes. What changes is the form it travels in, and who can carry it when you are not there.
Modules, features, integrations and proof. Every slide is accurate, and none of them add up to a reason to buy.
One drawing that shows the problem, how your offer changes it, and why the change is worth paying for.
So the same page turns up in the ad, the call, the proposal and the meeting you are not invited to.
How it works
We build the visual model where it has to work.
We look at what you're already using, from the homepage and ads to the deck, demo, sales calls, proposals, and working notes. Then we mark the point where people lose the thread and test the visual model in that same place.
01.
We go through what you're already using and mark the moment the buyer or team stops knowing what follows from what. That moment is the brief.
02.
We pull out what another person needs when the original expert isn't there. What matters? What connects? What changes? And where is the line?
03.
We choose a form that fits the job, such as a chain, map, matrix, sequence, decision tree, or a small set of connected visual models. Then we replace internal language with words another person would actually use.
04.
We put the draft into the real ad, email, sales call, proposal, onboarding, or working session. Where people hesitate, misread it, or return to the old explanation, we revise. A visual model that only works in the deck isn't finished.
The engagements
A campaign that attracts the wrong buyer needs a different visual model from a sales call that wanders or a delivery decision that still waits for the founder.
We start with the place that keeps breaking. That tells us what kind of visual model to build, so we don't force one visual model to do five different jobs.
Marketing Model project01
“We are not attracting the right people.”
The homepage and the ads explain what you do, yet the replies come from people who don't have the problem or can't buy the work. We choose one buyer and one problem, draw the visual model around the moment they recognize it, then turn that into the campaign and copy.
Used in ads, email, social.
Offer Model project02
“Every new feature adds a slide, but buyers still ask what this changes for them.”
The buyer sees the modules, features, integrations, and proof as separate pieces. We draw one visual model that shows the problem, how your offer changes it, and why that change is worth buying.
Used in sales conversations, proposals, the website. See the messaging problem this visual model addresses.
Offer Model plus Sales Conversation project03
“The offer is clearer, but the call still depends on whoever can explain it best.”
Each seller qualifies the buyer differently, important questions arrive late, and the founder joins when somebody needs the full picture. We put the Offer Model into the call itself, so the team knows what to show, what to ask, and what the buyer needs to decide next.
Used in qualification and sales calls. See why a good first meeting can still stall.
Codify Package project04
“The SOP covers the normal case. The hard calls still find the founder.”
Pricing exceptions, unusual client cases, and decisions that don't fit the process still go to one senior person. We ask how they size up the case, what they check first, and where they draw the line, then turn that into a set of visual models the team can use while doing the work.
Used in delivery, onboarding, decisions. See how expert judgement escapes the SOP.
Knowledge Alignment project05
“Marketing says sales cannot close. Sales says the leads are wrong. Product says the buyer does not fit the use case.”
The website, sales call, and demo can make the buyer feel like they met three different companies. A messaging document lasts for two weeks, then each team returns to its own version. We draw one visual model from the pitch people are actually using and bring it into the meetings where the story usually changes.
Used in pipeline reviews, planning, handoffs, working sessions. See how four teams drift into four explanations.
Case study
The software helped Lean manufacturing teams coach improvement work remotely, spread what worked across sites, and make ROI visible. The product made sense. The sales story was still a tour of every feature.
Software for Lean manufacturing teams
The demo moved through coaching, collaboration, business-case tools, integrations, and reporting. Buyers understood the features, but still had to work out why they were more valuable together.
A consultant could use the software with a client, help more teams deliver improvements, spread successful work across sites, and show management the return.
The Triple Multiplier Effect showed the value in one equation: more people delivering improvements × more improvements spreading across sites × more visible ROI = more value delivered faster.
The company stopped selling to factories and sold to consultants who bring the software into their own client engagements. Longer engagements followed, and the lifetime value of a software user rose by 40 percent. In the same year the company joined PwC's startup incubator and secured a second funding round.
+40%
lifetime value per software user
3 rooms
investors, operating companies, and consulting partners (the same drawing)
The Triple Multiplier Effect
More people delivering improvements, multiplied by improvements spreading across sites, multiplied by visible return on investment, creates more value delivered faster.
The team used the visual model with investors, operating companies, and consulting partners (the same drawing, all three rooms).
Who this is for
Strategem is for companies selling complex B2B software, technology, engineering, or industrial services. If somebody senior still has to join and explain how everything fits together, there may be a visual model worth building.
Direct answers
A bespoke visual model shows how the important parts of your product, service, decision, or method fit together. It is drawn for one real explanation problem, not taken from a template. The shape follows the relationship: a chain, a map, a matrix, a sequence, a decision tree, or a small set of connected visual models, whichever the logic actually calls for. The Triple Multiplier Effect figure above is one finished example.
Strategem helps when something important takes too much explaining. That may be a complex product, a deal that stalls after the first call, a champion who cannot retell the case, or work that keeps returning to the same expert or founder.
No. We draw the visual model around the real situation in front of us. A visual model for a sales call has a different job from one that helps a team handle an expert's exceptions.
No. We use the introductory call to look at what keeps taking too much explanation and decide whether there is a useful visual model to build. The visual model itself is paid work.
The Clarity and Roadmap package, which includes a workshop, starts at €8.000.
Strategem was founded by Dr. Fritz Hermann, who holds a PhD in organizational psychology and spent a decade as a CMO, with work across banks, insurers and Premier League clubs. The extraction runs as structured interviews on your own real cases, won, lost and difficult, using grounded qualitative method from that background. We draw while we listen.
The first conversation
That might be the homepage, an ad, the deck, a demo, a call, a working document, or a decision. We'll find where people lose the thread and decide what a visual model would need to do.
You leave knowing what is breaking and whether there is a useful visual model to build. We don't build a free visual model on the call. If the work makes sense, we'll explain the paid project and where we would test it first.