Davos Messaging That Drives Real Deal Outcomes
Effective messaging at high-stakes events like Davos can mean the difference between a promising conversation and a closed deal. This article breaks down practical strategies that turn networking opportunities into concrete business outcomes, drawing on insights from seasoned deal-makers and communication experts. Learn how to structure your pitch, align interests, and create momentum that extends beyond the initial handshake.
Deploy What So What Now What and Brief
For high-stakes environments like Davos, we use the 'What? So What? Now What?' framework to ensure our public and private messaging are 100% aligned. It's an incredibly useful model for forcing clarity of thought by linking high level ideas to specific action steps. The 'What?' is our public panel's core message: the high level industry insight. The 'So What?' is the connect-the-dots, how that macro trend maps down to our message for this particular stakeholder we're meeting with behind closed doors. The 'Now What?' is the concrete, pre-defined objective for this private deal meeting.
The major artifact we create to prepare is a single page 'Bilateral Opportunity Brief' that we build with this structure:
1) Public Context: One sentence including the 'What?'.
2) Bilateral Implications: Two or three bullets about the 'So What?' in the context of their particular business.
3) Desired Outcome: The single most important 'Now What?' we want to accomplish in this meeting. This is the stopping place we will coalesce around with them.
4) Key Questions: Strategic questions that move the discussion in the right direction toward that outcome.
5) Drafted Next Steps: A proposed action item, with owner and timeline, so that it's very easy to commit to on the spot.
Match Interests and Tie Handshakes to Steps
Interest must be aligned in order for progress to be made
The panels create permission.
The Private meetings create movement.
The artifact hopes the two never drift apart—and that every handshake has a next step attached but that's not always the case, nor nature of many humans.
Unfortunately, many of the Davo's agenda doesn't align with the concerns of majority of the citizens. However it strongly aligns with commercial interest in business relationships which benefits some but not always the majority.
Anchor Authority and Order to Achieve Outcomes
I align public messaging with deal objectives by anchoring talking points to decision authority, decision sequencing, and achievable outcomes. Messaging is built around who actually holds authority at each stage, and public talking points reflect outcomes that are already agreed in principle, even if commercial or legal terms are still under negotiation. This reduces the risk of daylight between what is said publicly and what can realistically be executed behind closed doors.
The single artifact that consistently produces tangible next steps is a Decision-Sequencing Brief. It is a one-page document that separates decisions into three categories: decisions that can proceed immediately, decisions that are affected by external factors such as regulatory approval or counterparties, and decisions that must never be parallelized because they create downstream risk. This structure prevents paralysis, preserves momentum, and allows teams to keep moving forward even when parts of the deal are constrained, while protecting the integrity of later strategic choices.
Contrast Beliefs and Actions for Audience Fit
The framework we use is the "what we believe in" vs. "what we do". This isn't a strict opposition, obviously. It's hard to explain what exactly you do without explaining why you do it (e.g. "what we believe in"). The division, however, helps separate this things for the purpose of different audiences. You wouldn't want to present industry specific solutions to a wider audience — mostly because it won't help them. But to explain the strategy we used to come up with it? It works like a charm. On the flip side — your team is already on the same page as you in terms of beliefs, so cut the unnecessary fluff and go straight into the weeds.
