"The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor." — Aristotle
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A sales leader I was coaching was stuck on a deal. The product was a data governance platform — essentially software that controls who can access what data inside a company. She'd had a strong first meeting with the prospect's leadership team, but despite a real ROI and solid technical case, the conversation had drifted to implementation complexity, cost, and timing. She hadn't been able to get a second meeting.
In our next session, I asked her how she had opened the pitch. She walked me through it: she opened with the company overview, moved quickly to product capabilities, and then walked them through why their current data setup created compliance risk.
I asked her one question: "Does this team think they have a data problem right now?"
She paused. "Not really. They think they have a growth problem."
So we changed the metaphor.
Instead of leading with capabilities and compliance, she reached out to request a second conversation. The prospect agreed to a brief call, and she opened differently: "Imagine your company is a city. Your data is the roads. Right now, some roads are open to everyone, some are closed to everyone, and nobody has an up-to-date map. You're trying to grow the city, but you can't do it safely until you know which roads go where."
In that conversation, the CFO leaned forward.
Why metaphors move people when logic doesn't
A metaphor does something that data and argument can't: it gives the listener a place to stand. Before they can agree with your reasoning, they need a mental model of the situation. A metaphor creates that model instantly, by connecting something unfamiliar to something they already understand.
For sales and BD professionals, this is the real work. In my experience, most buyers don't reject a proposal because the logic is wrong. They disengage because they can't picture the problem clearly enough to feel its cost. They haven't been given the right frame. A well-chosen metaphor provides the frame before the argument begins.
The key word is well-chosen. The wrong metaphor is worse than no metaphor at all — it creates a model that misleads. "Your data is like a library" is true in some ways and wrong in others; it implies the problem is about organisation rather than access, which changes what the buyer thinks the solution should be. The data-as-roads metaphor works because roads are about movement, control, and infrastructure — exactly the concepts that make data governance feel urgent to a growth-minded executive.
The metaphor you choose shapes what the buyer thinks the problem is — and what they believe the solution requires.
Finding the right metaphor is not a creative exercise. It is a diagnostic one. The question to ask is: what does my buyer already care about deeply, and is there a version of my problem that lives in that world?
The same diagnostic process played out in a different context. A BD professional selling a clinical conversation training programme opened not with a curriculum but with this: "Think about how pilots are trained — not just manuals and classroom sessions, but hours in simulators practising difficult situations before they ever face them in the air. That's what we're offering your clinical team." The administrator immediately understood. The metaphor didn't explain the product. It placed him inside the argument.
Watch It In Action
James Geary, author of I Is an Other, The Secret Life of Metaphor, a book on the pervasive role of metaphor in human thought, gave a 9-minute TED talk on why metaphors are not just figures of speech but fundamental to how we make decisions.
The section worth watching most closely is his explanation of how the metaphor used to frame a geopolitical crisis — whether it echoed World War II or something else entirely — changed the policy recommendations that followed. The frame came first. The recommendation followed. It is a precise demonstration of what the sales leader in this newsletter's opening was doing without knowing it.
Try This Week
Before your next pitch or proposal:
Identify what your buyer cares most about — not the problem you're solving, their primary concern. Growth, risk, talent, cost. This is the world your metaphor needs to come from.
Ask yourself: is there a version of the problem I'm solving that already exists in their world? Roads, bridges, weather, staffing, plumbing. The best metaphors are borrowed from something the buyer already manages, not something abstract.
Test it out loud before you use it in a meeting. Say the metaphor to someone outside your industry. If they immediately understand what's at stake, it's working. If they need you to explain it, it isn't.
From Elsewhere
In Thai culture, kreng jai (เกรงใจ) describes a social instinct for which English has no equivalent — a deep reluctance to impose on or inconvenience others, even when doing so would be entirely reasonable. A person with strong kreng jai might decline a favour they genuinely need, stay silent when they disagree, or defer to someone else's preference even when they have a strong one of their own. The concept is not considered weakness; it is considered consideration. More on kreng jai here »