There are two scenarios…
Company A.
The team was drained. Another change, another flop.
Management just rolled out a new product and pricing package, met with nothing but eye rolls. That came on the heels of last week’s cohort strategy shift, the ongoing management restructure, a feature expansion, and a brand-new market entry. Meanwhile, last quarter’s targets were missed by 30%. But hey, we were a startup. Move fast and break things, right?
The on-the-ground team saw it differently. They weren’t energized. They were exhausted. Disillusioned. Skeptical. “These changes came out of nowhere? What is management doing, throwing darts?”
Company B.
Two months before a major product launch, an uncontrollable risk forced us to scrap a major distribution channel, leaving hundreds of thousands of customers in limbo. It could have been chaos. Instead, we pivoted by building off previous changes. People were energized, we were iterating quickly. In just two months, we R&D’ed a new product, built a distribution system, restructured our sales team, and launched a new business unit.
The kicker? Company B was a 50x larger NGO in agriculture, moving faster and more effectively than a high-wire tech startup.
The Power of Storytelling
The difference?
The second company had developed a robust narrative arc where every decision was explained by linking it to previous changes and how it furthered the company mission. This allowed team members to move quickly and buy into the shared vision.
The first company never had a cohesive storyline of how changes were building on one another to reach a shared goal. It justified its decisions with a ‘move fast and iterate’ mindset and a fixation of ARR. This left employees scrambling and made the team feel as though decisions just ‘fell out of they sky’.
A company’s narrative arc is the story that outlines its journey: how it began, the problem it’s solving, the actions taken along the way, and its future direction.
Narrative arcs unite people. (See common B2B stories) They help a company learn from mistakes so that it can iterate rather than constantly re-innovate. They help companies scale without rigid hierarchies that depend on ‘in-the-know’ management. They reinforce direction without relying on people staying (which, in fairness, startups aren’t known for).
And Finance is the Biggest Storyteller of Them All
Finance tells the company’s story through data. We contextualize information to make decisions. We use organization-wide data, scenario analyses, and financial projections to explain how we got here, where we’re headed, and how. Numbers don’t take action. People do. As any finance professional learns quickly, you can’t just throw out one-off numbers and expect changes to happen. You can’t expect people to remember past numbers. It’s about embedding the storyline of your business into every model, report, and decision to drive results.
There is no way you can do all the things necessary to be a 10x strategic CEO if nobody knows the story you are trying to tell. So, be a torchbearer for your company narrative through your use of numbers, in your management reviews, in your budgets, and within your operational model.
1. The narrative arch
You need to paint a clear story of where you have been, where you are, and where you are going. This is your narrative arc that all your forecasts, models, and presentations should follow. At the most basic level, a good narrative arc contains:
A story of your past. How did you get here? What are the major hurdles you have overcome, and what major pivots led you to where you are now?
Where you are now. What is your current focus? Why is that your focus? What will it unlock?
Where you are going. What are you building moving forward (hint: product roadmap)? What is your vision, and how does it connect to your past?
There will be changes. Own up to them. Change is inevitable. The key is to be transparent with your team about what you were planning and why you have changed.
Knowing this story, keeps your advice clear. It keeps the teams informed and aligned. In the rest of the article, we will discuss where and how the narrative arc should be used from a finance perspective.
2. Build your narrative arc in your operational model
Too often, finance teams build the model, then slap together a PowerPoint every quarter to explain where the company is headed. Instead, the operational model should show the company’s progression over time in a way that reinforces the company's history. Here’s how:
In your company overview. Show the previous numbers in an easily understandable way so that it lines up with the ‘when we were in a garage’ stories.
Include a link to the company’s timeline. No need to get fancy, just have a link on the front that links to the company timeline in narrative format. Highlight the numbers in both, to give people enable people to identify the two.
Link to vision and principles. Nearly every company has a vision and guiding principles. Also, link this and refer to it in any comments made in the model.
Don’t be afraid of text. Consider using AI summaries that can be generated on demand to establish the narrative. If you have your past data structured, it will help turn your numbers into your story.
Creating your story is often done as a one-off exercise to pitch to investors. Mistake. The company's employees are the ones who need to buy in.
Tip: Whatever format or style you choose, keep iterating on it rather than changing it continuously. Frequent formatting changes make it harder to understand the narrative arc.
3. Ensure every decision has its own narrative arc
It’s not just the company-wide story that matters. Each decision has its own arc. Without a clear history, you risk starting from scratch every time or, worse, repeating past mistakes.
Why are your commission plans the way they are? Were past plans successful, or did they create perverse incentives? Are you refining a working model or fixing a past mistake?
How has capital allocation evolved? When did you start increasing investments in different areas? What drove those shifts, and how will that logic apply going forward?
What’s the story of your tech stack? This one’s often overlooked but crucial. Every tool has a reason for existing, and if the team knows why, they’ll be less tempted to rip and replace without understanding the trade-offs.
Where is pricing going next? Does the new strategy align with the company’s mission? Why change now? What risks surfaced in previous pricing shifts, and how will you mitigate them this time?
How does this decision reflect the company’s mission? Your partnership models → product roadmap → company mission should all align. If they don’t, you’re scaling without direction.
Stories linked to the past will help people understand decisions more quickly than any number. Use them to get people on board more fully and more quickly than simply showing the numbers.
Tip: Make it easy. “We have tried five approaches in the past and here’s why they didn’t work. We are now trying this sixth approach with new justification that will lead to better results.”
4. Show how your customers fit within the narrative arc
Yes, finance hears it all the time: “What about the customer?” And, let’s be honest, nothing is usually done about it. The default assumption? “We’re looking at all the customers. After all, they provide ARR, right?” No. That’s not enough. You need to build a tool or report that lets people see the customer dimension within the model. This should make it easy to:
Turn a single customer into a story. Simply allow a filter for one customer. Link that customer to their CAC, their purchase, their upsell, and their future expected revenue.
Show what happens to a lost customer. Choose a high-CAC customer who churned early and break down how that impacted the company. Feel free to use a burning cash emoji.
Demonstrate how customers transition between teams. As discussed in the operational model, show how each team’s performance affects the next team. For example: If implementation time increases, how does that impact upsell probability and future revenue (hint: the exact number)?
Make it easy to use. Standardize the model so people can select different customers and see what’s happening, either within the operational model or in a dedicated tool. The goal? Let teams play with the names they know and see how they make up the numbers.
Finance can unshroud numbers by showing the customers behind them. Build filters on key reports to allow you to see this easily.
Tip: Put names next to numbers. If the company booked X ARR this quarter, show the top 10 customers who contributed. It adds context and gives teams a real sense of ownership and impact.
5. Reinforce the narrative arc constantly
Nearly every major decision has a finance component. Whether it’s team-wide settings, management reviews, or business partner meetings, finance touches every part of the business. That means every interaction is a chance to reinforce the company’s story through numbers. You need to.
Talk the talk. Clearly articulate the story of what came before, where you are heading, and why—every chance you get.
Support with the relevant data (and don’t overwhelm with numbers). People remember a few numbers. Don’t bury the lead under a bevy of secondary numbers.
Use clear language. Don’t let numbers do all the talking. They are the background; the story is what’s interesting. Speak as if you’re explaining it to a friend who doesn’t know the business.
Tie to the last decision. Every change should connect back to the previous decision and why it’s changing now. This allows team members to feel like they are reiterating rather than reinventing.
Be transparent about mistakes and test. If you don’t have all the answers, say so. If a change is experimental or carries uncertainty, frame it as a test, not a final direction.
Make room for discussion. A well-told narrative encourages open questions, even from those unfamiliar with the numbers.
Onboard through stories. The operational model and financial narrative should be a key part of onboarding. New hires should be asked to explain the company’s narrative back to you. This reveals both their comfort level with numbers and how effective your storytelling is.
Hold others accountable to the same. When a team or leader proposes a new decision, ask them to frame it within the company’s existing narrative.
Finance sets the tone for how decisions are understood. If you want alignment, speaking in the company’s language, not just the language of numbers, pays enormous dividends.
Tip: For onboarding, consider “Know and Deliver” documents—simple guides outlining what people need to understand and what they are expected to contribute.
In Conclusion
Great companies have strong narrative arcs. They have origin stories. Team members know how they got there, where the company is trying to go, and why. These keep people on board as you scale and add new team members. Often, finance ignores these stories to its own detriment. Instead, finance should embrace the overarching narrative of the firm to improve decision-making and democratize actions that move the company forward.
Reinforce your company’s story through numbers.
