The CIM - Telling Your Story Effectively

You’ve spent years building a business worth buying. Now you have roughly thirty pages to convince sophisticated buyers that your company deserves their time, attention, and capital. The Confidential Information Memorandum isn’t just documentation, it’s a critical piece of marketing collateral in your exit process, and many business owners underestimate the effort required to create one that truly resonates with qualified buyers.

Executive Summary

The Confidential Information Memorandum, commonly called the CIM, serves as the primary marketing document in most business sale transactions. This document introduces your company to potential buyers, shapes their initial perceptions, and often influences whether they pursue the opportunity further or move on to competing deals.

For business owners in the $2M-$20M revenue range, CIM quality frequently affects the difference between attracting serious, well-capitalized buyers and watching qualified prospects lose interest. A well-crafted confidential information memorandum accomplishes multiple objectives simultaneously: it tells your company’s story compellingly, provides the financial and operational data buyers need for preliminary evaluation, addresses obvious questions before they’re asked, and positions your business favorably against alternatives.

In our experience, businesses with professionally prepared CIMs tend to generate stronger buyer interest and maintain more effective negotiating positions throughout the transaction process. While we observe this correlation consistently, we acknowledge that causation is difficult to isolate. Businesses investing in professional CIM preparation may already possess stronger fundamentals or more committed ownership. Conversely, weak CIMs can create friction that slows deals, introduces doubt, and may diminish both timeline efficiency and buyer confidence.

Critical caveat: CIM quality amplifies underlying business strength, it doesn’t replace it. No CIM, however polished, can overcome fundamental weaknesses in cash flow, customer concentration, or management depth that due diligence will reveal. Before investing in premium CIM preparation, ensure your business fundamentals are transaction-ready: stable or growing cash flow, clean financial records, resolved material legal or regulatory issues, and adequate management depth.

This guide examines what effective CIMs accomplish, identifies common weaknesses that undermine buyer confidence, and provides actionable frameworks for ensuring your confidential information memorandum positions your business for meaningful buyer engagement.

Introduction

When a potential buyer considers acquiring your business, they’re simultaneously evaluating dozens, sometimes hundreds, of other opportunities. Private equity groups, strategic acquirers, and sophisticated individual buyers all maintain active deal pipelines, constantly screening new opportunities against their investment criteria and existing prospects.

Your CIM is how your business competes in this crowded marketplace. It’s typically the first substantive look buyers get at your company after signing a non-disclosure agreement, and it shapes every subsequent interaction. A compelling confidential information memorandum can create momentum, generating interest that carries through due diligence and into negotiations. A mediocre one may create skepticism that proves difficult to overcome, even when underlying business fundamentals are reasonably strong.

What makes this document influential? First, for initial buyer screening, the CIM typically serves as the primary marketing document and shapes early impressions that often prove durable throughout the transaction process. Second, the CIM signals how professionally you’ve prepared for transaction marketing. Well-presented documents suggest the owner takes the diligence process seriously, while sloppy documentation raises questions about transaction readiness. Third, it provides an opportunity to establish a favorable initial narrative that shapes buyer evaluation, though buyer perspective ultimately derives from CIM content, management discussions, due diligence findings, and independent market research.

For owners planning exits within the next two to seven years, understanding CIM dynamics now provides time to address weaknesses before they appear in your eventual marketing document. The financial performance and operational characteristics you’re building today become the story your CIM will tell tomorrow.

Understanding the CIM’s Strategic Function

The confidential information memorandum occupies a unique position in the M&A process. Unlike pitch decks designed for quick presentations or data rooms built for deep due diligence, the CIM must simultaneously accomplish multiple, sometimes competing, objectives.

At its core, the CIM functions as a screening tool, but not just for buyers screening your business. It also helps you screen buyers. A well-structured confidential information memorandum attracts buyers whose investment thesis aligns with your company’s characteristics while naturally filtering out those who represent poor fits. This two-way screening saves time and reduces deal fatigue for all parties.

The CIM also serves as an anchor for valuation discussions. The way you present financial performance, growth trajectory, and competitive position establishes the framework within which buyers form their initial value perspectives. Buyers evaluate your company both against absolute investment criteria and against competing opportunities. Your CIM shapes how buyers assess your company’s story, but absolute financial performance and strategic fit remain primary drivers.

Most importantly, the confidential information memorandum must build enough confidence to motivate action. Buyers who finish reading should understand not just what your business does, but why acquiring it represents a compelling opportunity worth pursuing through a complex, expensive transaction process.

Important perspective on CIM impact: While strong CIMs correlate with better transaction outcomes, both CIM quality and transaction success often reflect underlying business quality. A company with strong fundamentals, clean financials, and committed ownership is more likely to produce an excellent CIM and to close successfully, making it difficult to isolate CIM impact from business quality impact. CIM investment is most justified when business fundamentals are already strong; it cannot compensate for fundamental weaknesses.

The Anatomy of an Effective Confidential Information Memorandum

Successful CIMs share structural elements that facilitate buyer evaluation while maintaining narrative control. While core elements remain consistent across transactions, emphasis and detail level should vary based on business size, industry, and target buyer type. Understanding these components helps ensure your document accomplishes its strategic objectives.

The Executive Summary That Earns Continued Reading

Your CIM’s opening section must accomplish in two to three pages what the full document elaborates across thirty or more. This executive summary isn’t merely an abstract, it’s a carefully constructed argument for why buyers should invest time in detailed evaluation.

Effective executive summaries immediately establish what the company does, its market position, and the fundamental investment thesis. They highlight financial performance with enough specificity to demonstrate substance without overwhelming with detail. Most critically, they articulate why this opportunity exists now and what makes it compelling.

We recommend structuring executive summaries around three core questions buyers bring to every opportunity: What does this company do well? Why would I want to own it? What could I do with it that current owners cannot?

Company Overview and History

This section provides context for everything that follows. Buyers want to understand how the business reached its current position, what decisions shaped its development, and what the ownership transition history looks like.

Effective company overviews accomplish several objectives. They establish credibility through demonstrated longevity and stability. They explain business model evolution in ways that highlight adaptability and strategic thinking. They address ownership transitions honestly, since buyers know that prior transaction history affects current dynamics.

Prioritize historical context that illuminates competitive positioning, market adaptation, or value drivers. Minimize historical content that doesn’t connect to buyer understanding, but recognize that some context serves primarily to establish credibility and business evolution rather than direct value connection. Founding story matters when it illuminates competitive advantages or market positioning. Historical challenges matter when they demonstrate resilience and problem-solving capability.

Products, Services, and Value Proposition

This section must translate what you do into terms that resonate with buyers who may lack industry-specific expertise. Remember that your CIM will often be evaluated by financial professionals before it reaches operational decision-makers.

Structure this section to answer progressive questions: What do you sell? Who buys it? Why do they choose you over alternatives? What would they do if you didn’t exist?

The most effective confidential information memorandum documents we’ve reviewed accomplish something subtle here: they position the company’s offerings not just as products or services, but as solutions to specific customer problems. This framing helps buyers understand the depth of customer relationships and the difficulty competitors would face in displacement.

Market Analysis and Competitive Position

Buyers evaluate your company within the context of its market opportunity. This section must demonstrate that you understand your competitive environment while positioning your business favorably within it.

Effective market analysis sections accomplish several objectives. They establish market size in terms that support your growth narrative. They identify trends that favor your business model. They honestly assess competitive dynamics while highlighting sustainable advantages.

Market analysis structure varies significantly by industry. Technology businesses emphasize TAM/SAM/SOM frameworks, expansion revenue, net retention metrics, and recurring revenue characteristics. Service businesses emphasize labor economics, scalability constraints, utilization rates, and client relationship depth. Manufacturing businesses focus on capacity utilization, supply chain positioning, margin sustainability, and equipment condition. Retail and distribution businesses emphasize same-unit economics, location quality, inventory management, and supplier relationships. Healthcare services require regulatory compliance documentation, reimbursement analysis, and payor mix breakdown. Tailor your market section to the specific metrics your buyer type will scrutinize.

The credibility trap here involves claiming unique advantages that buyers can easily disprove. Rather than asserting you have no competitors, demonstrate why customers choose you over specific alternatives. Rather than claiming market leadership without support, show market share data or customer concentration metrics that substantiate your position.

Financial Performance and Projections

This section receives the most scrutiny and often determines whether buyers proceed to management meetings. The financial presentation in your CIM must be complete, coherent, and credible.

Historical financial presentation should include all available years of performance data under current ownership. A minimum three years if available, though the relevant period depends on company maturity and business model transitions. A five-year-old business providing three years of data is fully compliant; a stable twenty-year-old business providing only three years might raise questions about what earlier periods looked like. Present data consistently and reconcile to audited or reviewed statements where available. Key metrics should be highlighted and contextualized: revenue growth rates, margin trends, EBITDA performance, and working capital dynamics.

Note on financial documentation prerequisites: The timelines discussed in this article assume existing financial records in reasonable order. Businesses lacking reviewed financial statements, experiencing inconsistent revenue classification, or maintaining undocumented EBITDA adjustments should add six to twelve months for financial cleanup before CIM development begins. Many businesses in the $2M-$20M range work with bookkeeper-level accounting rather than reviewed statements. Addressing this gap is often a prerequisite to CIM preparation, not part of it.

Adjustments to EBITDA require particular attention. EBITDA presentation varies by buyer type. Private equity buyers expect normalized EBITDA removing all one-time items and personal expenses. They’re modeling leveraged returns and need clean cash flow baselines. Strategic buyers often prefer “as-is” EBITDA to understand standalone business cash generation before synergies. Individual buyers may require more detailed explanation of adjustment logic and may be less familiar with normalization conventions. Align your adjustment approach to your likely buyer type, and ensure every add-back is defensible and documented.

Financial projections present a delicate balance. Different buyer types approach projections differently. Private equity buyers expect detailed growth assumptions they can model independently and stress-test against their own scenarios. Strategic buyers often focus on historical performance and adjust for synergies themselves. Conservative or scenario-based projections can sometimes build more credibility than aggressive single-point estimates.

Two to three year projections typically work for stable, predictable business models with historical performance patterns that support extrapolation. Growth-stage or volatile business models may warrant shorter projections with more explicit assumption documentation, or scenario-based presentations that acknowledge uncertainty. If your business has eighteen-month average customer contracts, projecting three years requires explicit assumptions about renewal rates. If you operate in a cyclical industry, projections should acknowledge cycle positioning.

Management and Organization

Your confidential information memorandum must address buyer concerns about transition risk. Who runs this business? Will they remain post-transaction? What happens if key individuals depart?

Effective management sections introduce key personnel with enough detail to establish credibility while highlighting the organizational structure that would survive individual departures. This section should demonstrate that value resides in systems and processes, not solely in individuals.

For owner-operated businesses, this section must honestly address owner involvement and articulate realistic transition scenarios. Buyers discount businesses with concentrated key-person risk, so demonstrating management depth directly impacts valuation.

Growth Opportunities and Investment Thesis

This section articulates why acquiring your company represents a compelling opportunity. What could a new owner accomplish that you cannot or have chosen not to pursue?

Effective growth sections identify specific, actionable opportunities rather than vague possibilities. Geographic expansion opportunities should specify target markets and investment requirements. New product opportunities should identify development status and market validation. Operational improvement opportunities should quantify potential impact.

Critical honesty check: If your business has limited growth opportunities, don’t invent them. Buyers will discover overstatement during due diligence, and credibility damage extends beyond the specific claim. Instead, position the business on its cash generation strength, stable customer base, and mature market position. These are legitimate value propositions for the right buyer. Not every business needs to be a growth story; stable cash-flowing businesses attract buyers seeking different return profiles.

The strategic framing here matters enormously. You’re not just selling a business, you’re selling a platform for value creation that justifies paying a premium today for returns that materialize tomorrow.

CIM Strategy by Business Size and Buyer Type

CIM emphasis should vary based on your business size and most likely buyer type. Treating all businesses and buyers identically suggests inexperience with actual transaction dynamics.

Size-Based Segmentation

For businesses in the $2M-$5M revenue range: Individual buyers and search fund entrepreneurs are more common at this level. CIM presentation should emphasize clarity, owner-operator feasibility, and straightforward business model explanations. These buyers often have less M&A experience, so avoid jargon and provide context that institutional buyers would already understand. The CIM may be shorter (twenty to twenty-five pages) with more emphasis on operational simplicity and transition support.

For businesses in the $5M-$15M revenue range: Mixed buyer pools including both individual buyers and institutional investors. CIM presentation should balance accessibility with institutional rigor. Include both narrative explanations and detailed financial analysis. This range often requires the most flexible CIM approach, potentially with different emphasis sections for different buyer types.

For businesses in the $15M-$20M revenue range: Institutional buyers dominate (private equity groups, family offices, and strategic acquirers). CIM presentation should meet their standardized expectations for financial disclosure, growth documentation, and management depth analysis. These buyers review hundreds of CIMs annually and expect professional presentation quality and data completeness.

Buyer-Type Emphasis

For Private Equity Buyers: Emphasize financial transparency with clean, normalized EBITDA and clear adjustment documentation. Highlight management team depth and their commitment to remaining post-transaction. Focus on growth opportunities with specific investment requirements and expected returns. PE groups model leveraged returns so give them the numbers they need to build their investment case.

For Strategic Buyers: Emphasize market positioning and how your business complements theirs. Highlight product-buyer fit and potential synergies. Focus on customer relationships, competitive positioning, and integration opportunities. Strategic buyers often care more about market access and competitive advantage than pure financial returns.

For Individual Buyers: Emphasize operational simplicity and realistic owner involvement requirements. Address key-person risk mitigation directly. Provide clear guidance on transition support and what the business requires to operate successfully. Individual buyers often have less financial sophistication so make sure your document is accessible without sacrificing substance.

Common CIM Weaknesses That Undermine Buyer Confidence

In transactions we’ve observed, certain CIM weaknesses appear associated with reduced buyer interest. These weaknesses often reflect underlying business issues, so causality isn’t always clear. A CIM with poor financial transparency may indicate both documentation problems and fundamental business issues that would independently reduce buyer interest. But addressing these patterns improves presentation quality and buyer perception.

Insufficient Financial Transparency

The most damaging weakness involves financial presentations that raise more questions than they answer. Unexplained revenue fluctuations, margin inconsistencies, or working capital anomalies create doubt that extends beyond the specific issues.

Buyers approaching your business assume that the CIM represents your best effort at favorable presentation. When that presentation contains gaps or inconsistencies, they wonder what you’re hiding, even when the answer is simply poor documentation.

Generic Market Analysis

Many CIMs contain market analysis that could apply to any competitor in the industry. Generic statistics about market size and growth rates don’t help buyers evaluate your specific opportunity.

Effective market analysis connects macro trends to your company’s specific performance and opportunity. Industry growth matters only insofar as it supports your growth trajectory. Market size matters only in context of your realistic addressable opportunity.

Unsupported Claims and Assertions

Every claim in your confidential information memorandum should be either self-evident, supported by included data, or verifiable through readily available sources. Claims that buyers cannot verify create credibility problems that extend beyond the specific assertion.

This applies particularly to competitive positioning claims, customer satisfaction assertions, and growth opportunity projections. If you claim industry-leading customer retention, show the data. If you assert superior product quality, document the evidence.

Poor Document Quality and Presentation

CIM quality often correlates with transaction-preparation quality, though both may simply reflect underlying business sophistication and ownership commitment. Documents with formatting inconsistencies, typos, or unclear organization suggest that the same carelessness may characterize the diligence process.

Professional presentation doesn’t require expensive design. It requires attention to detail, logical organization, and clear communication. Buyers should never struggle to find information or wonder how sections connect.

Missing or Inadequate Risk Discussion

Most sophisticated buyers expect CIMs to acknowledge material risks. CIMs that ignore obvious challenges or present unrealistically positive pictures often create skepticism rather than confidence.

Effective risk discussion demonstrates sophisticated understanding of your business and market. Acknowledge challenges while explaining mitigation strategies. This approach builds credibility while positioning you as a trustworthy counterparty.

Framework for CIM Development

Creating an effective confidential information memorandum requires systematic preparation. Based on our experience, this process typically spans four to six months of active work, though outcomes vary significantly based on starting financial documentation quality, business complexity, and execution consistency. While presented linearly below, actual CIM development typically involves multiple iterations as financial analysis reveals business issues requiring attention.

Phase One: Information Gathering and Analysis (Two to Four Months)

Before writing begins, compile documentation. Financial statements should be reconciled and adjustments documented. Customer data should be analyzed for concentration, retention, and profitability patterns. Operational metrics should be standardized and trended.

This phase also involves competitive analysis and market research. Your CIM must position your company within a market context that supports your narrative while remaining credible to buyers who may possess independent market knowledge.

Timeline variance: Businesses with clean, reviewed financial statements and existing customer analytics may complete this phase in eight to ten weeks. Businesses requiring significant financial cleanup, customer data compilation, or operational metric development may need four to six months. Or should complete financial cleanup before formally beginning CIM development.

Phase Two: Narrative Development (Four to Six Weeks)

With information compiled, develop the core narrative that will structure your CIM. This narrative should connect your company’s history, current performance, and future opportunity in a coherent story that builds toward a clear investment thesis.

The narrative must balance promotional positioning with credible presentation. Buyers expect favorable framing but discount obvious exaggeration. The goal is presenting genuine strengths compellingly, not manufacturing advantages that due diligence will disprove.

Phase Three: Document Creation and Review (Six to Eight Weeks)

Draft development should involve multiple stakeholders: financial advisors who ensure metric presentation meets buyer expectations, legal advisors who review disclosure adequacy, and operational leaders who verify factual accuracy.

Review cycles should test the document against buyer perspective. What questions does each section raise? What information would buyers need to verify claims? Where might skeptical readers challenge assertions?

Review cycles should improve clarity and credibility, but recognize diminishing returns. After two to three thorough review cycles, additional feedback often reflects personal preferences rather than genuine buyer perspective improvements. Set a finalization date and commit to it. Publishing a good, timely CIM is better than endlessly iterating toward impossible perfection.

Phase Four: Quality Assurance and Refinement (Two to Three Weeks)

Final preparation involves detailed quality review: formatting consistency, calculation verification, cross-reference accuracy, and presentation polish. This phase also includes preparing supplementary materials that support CIM content during buyer discussions.

Total typical timeline: Based on our experience, four to six months of active work from information gathering through final QA for businesses with reasonably clean financial documentation. Add six to twelve months if significant financial cleanup, accounting upgrades, or documentation development is required first.

CIM Development Paths and Investment Analysis

Professional vs. DIY Approaches

Many growing businesses work with M&A advisors or CFO consultants to develop CIMs. Based on our market observations, professional preparation typically costs $15,000-$50,000 for initial development, with additional costs of $5,000-$15,000 for revisions, supplementary materials, and updates during the marketing process. This investment includes strategic narrative development, financial presentation optimization, and buyer-perspective testing that most business owners lack experience providing.

Other owners write initial drafts internally, reducing direct costs but accepting quality and credibility risks. DIY CIMs work best for businesses with strong internal financial and analytical capabilities (typically those with experienced CFOs or controllers who understand transaction dynamics).

A middle path involves developing initial drafts internally and engaging professional advisors for review and refinement. This approach reduces cost while capturing professional perspective on buyer expectations and presentation gaps.

Decision framework:

• DIY approach works best when: You have an experienced CFO or controller with M&A exposure, strong internal financial documentation, and realistic assessment of document quality
• Professional preparation justified when: Targeting institutional buyers with standardized expectations, lacking internal M&A experience, seeking optimal presentation of complex business situations
• Hybrid approach optimal when: Strong internal financial capabilities but limited narrative development or buyer-perspective experience

Total Cost Accounting

CIM preparation requires significant investment beyond professional fees. Based on our observations, total economic cost typically includes:

• Professional fees: $15,000-$50,000 for initial preparation, plus $5,000-$15,000 for revisions and updates
• Internal team time: 100-150 hours for businesses with clean financials; 150-250+ hours if financial cleanup required. At typical owner/executive opportunity cost of $150-$300 per hour, this represents $15,000-$75,000 in indirect cost
• Opportunity cost: Four to six months of management attention during preparation period

ROI framework: On a $5M business valued at 4x EBITDA, professional CIM preparation of $25,000-$50,000 represents 0.5-1% of potential transaction value. If professional preparation increases qualified buyer interest, reduces timeline by thirty to sixty days, or improves negotiating position by even modest amounts, the investment typically generates positive returns. But this ROI calculation only applies when underlying business fundamentals support successful transaction completion.

When Not to Invest in Premium CIM Preparation

Premium CIM preparation makes sense when you’re committed to an exit within eighteen to twenty-four months, business fundamentals are strong and stable, and financial documentation is solid. But several scenarios suggest lighter preparation or delayed investment.

Exploratory-phase planning: If you’re not committed to a specific exit timeline, focus on information gathering and financial documentation rather than narrative development and professional polish. Premature CIM investment may waste resources if you ultimately choose alternative paths.

Declining business fundamentals: If revenue is declining or margins are compressing, fix the underlying business issues before investing in premium presentation. A beautiful CIM showcasing a declining business wastes resources and delays necessary operational improvements. No CIM quality can overcome negative trends that due diligence will reveal.

Inadequate financial documentation: If your financial records require significant cleanup (missing reviewed statements, inconsistent revenue classification, undocumented adjustments) complete that cleanup before investing in CIM development. CIM preparation assumes financial foundation; it doesn’t create it.

Undisclosed material issues: If you know due diligence will reveal significant problems (pending litigation, customer concentration risk, regulatory concerns) address these issues or develop disclosure strategies before investing in CIM preparation.

Multiple strategic options under consideration: If you’re genuinely uncertain between exit, recapitalization, management buyout, or continued operation, premature CIM investment may lock you into a narrative before you’ve chosen a direction.

CIM Investment Failure Modes

CIM investment can fail to generate returns in several scenarios:

• Underlying business issues emerge during preparation: Financial analysis reveals problems that make the business less attractive than assumed
• Market conditions deteriorate during development: Economic shifts reduce buyer appetite or valuation expectations
• Owner commitment wavers mid-process: Owners decide not to proceed after significant preparation investment
• Buyer pool proves smaller than anticipated: Actual market interest fails to match expectations
• Due diligence reveals CIM overstatements: Credibility damage from discovered discrepancies undermines transaction

These failure modes argue for realistic assessment of business readiness and market conditions before committing to premium CIM preparation.

Actionable Takeaways

Twelve to Twenty-Four Months Before Marketing: Begin assembling historical financial data and documenting EBITDA adjustments. Address any accounting inconsistencies or reporting gaps that would complicate CIM preparation. If you lack reviewed financial statements, this may require six to twelve months of accounting upgrade before CIM development begins. Develop customer analytics that demonstrate retention, concentration, and profitability patterns. Assess whether your financial documentation foundation is strong enough to support CIM development.

Six to Twelve Months Before Marketing: Engage advisors to develop CIM strategy and narrative framework. Conduct competitive analysis and market research to support positioning. Begin preparing management team for their role in buyer presentations. Clarify your likely buyer type based on business size and characteristics, and tailor preparation accordingly.

Three to Six Months Before Marketing: Complete CIM draft development and review cycles. Prepare supporting documentation for data room. Develop responses to anticipated buyer questions. Finalize document with commitment to timeline rather than endless iteration.

During Marketing: CIM refinement ideally happens before formal marketing launch based on advisor feedback and internal review cycles. Limited mid-marketing refinement may be possible if clear patterns emerge from early buyer feedback, but expect the core CIM to be substantially locked once buyer distribution begins.

Immediate Action Items: Evaluate your current documentation against CIM requirements. Identify gaps in financial records, customer data, or operational metrics. Confirm that business fundamentals (stable or growing cash flow, clean financial records, adequate management depth) are transaction-ready. If fundamentals require work, address those issues before investing in CIM preparation. Begin addressing documentation weaknesses that would limit CIM effectiveness. The sooner you start, the more options you preserve.

Conclusion

The confidential information memorandum represents a significant opportunity to establish a favorable initial narrative around your business sale. A well-crafted CIM can attract qualified buyers, establish favorable valuation anchors, and create transaction momentum that carries through closing. A weak CIM may generate skepticism that extends deal timelines and complicates negotiations.

But the relationship between CIM quality and transaction success reflects a deeper truth: both typically stem from underlying business quality, documentation rigor, and ownership commitment. Strong business fundamentals can sometimes overcome mediocre CIM presentation, but no CIM (however polished) overcomes fundamental weaknesses in cash flow, customer stability, or management depth.

For business owners planning exits within the coming years, the time to think about CIM effectiveness is now, while you still have opportunity to address weaknesses in underlying business performance and documentation. Every quarter of strong results, every improvement in customer concentration, every improvement in management depth becomes material for the story your CIM will eventually tell.

The businesses that command premium valuations and attract ideal buyers rarely achieve those outcomes through transaction-phase heroics alone. They achieve them through years of building businesses that tell compelling stories, and then telling those stories effectively when the moment arrives.