The Executive Marketing Expert's Guide to Turning Results into a Powerful Market Narrative
By Lisa Rangel
Once the conversation starts, what you say determines whether it goes anywhere. Many senior leaders have the experience, results, and credentials to open doors, but lose people's attention by simply reciting their career history. The problem isn't your track record—it's how you present it. This edition shows you how to turn your accomplishments into a compelling narrative that keeps people engaged and creates opportunities, whether you're in a coffee chat, a networking event, a recruiter call, a conference, or a board introduction.
What does "coffee chat" even mean
One of the most common mistakes I see at the executive level:
Someone asks "tell me about your background" and you launch into a chronological recap. You start with where you went to school. You walk through every role. You list responsibilities. By the time you finish, the listener has lost the plot and the conversation has nowhere to go.
Your resume already exists. The person across from you has either read it or doesn't care to. What they want is a sense of how you think, what kind of problems you've solved, and whether you'd be useful to know.
Build one strong story you can tell in two minutes. The kind that includes a problem, a turning point, and a result. Something that ends with the listener wanting to ask a follow-up question.
You can have three or four of these in your back pocket, ready to drop in when the topic calls for them. That's executive storytelling. Specific situations, specific decisions, specific outcomes. No org chart history required.
Slipping in your wins without sounding like you're selling
There's a way to communicate your results that feels natural in a conversation. It usually starts with the other person's situation.
If they mention they're dealing with a complex integration, you respond with something like "I ran into something similar at [previous company]. We had three different ERP systems and a 90-day timeline. What we ended up doing was..." and you walk them through your decision and the outcome.
You're sharing a relevant experience. That reads as useful information rather than a list of accomplishments. The win lands because it's contextual.
This is what senior leaders mean when they say someone is a strong communicator. The ability to connect your experience to someone else's challenge in a way that's useful and memorable, without making it about you.
Curiosity questions vs. lazy questions
The fastest way to demonstrate competency in a conversation is to ask the right questions.
There's a meaningful gap between two kinds of questions executives ask in networking conversations.
A lazy question is one you could have answered yourself with five minutes of preparation. "So what does your company do?" "How long have you been there?" These signal you didn't bother to look the person up. They reflect badly on you and waste the listener's time.
A curiosity question builds on something you already know. "I saw your team just expanded into the European market. What's been the most surprising part of that build-out?" "I noticed your company shifted away from agency partners last year. How's that decision aged?"
These are questions only someone who's done their homework can ask. They demonstrate competency before you ever say a word about yourself. They make the other person want to keep talking, and they make you memorable for the right reasons.
The most senior executives I work with often say their biggest competitive edge in conversations is the quality of their questions, not the quality of their answers. People remember the leaders who made them think.
And one more thing about questions: it's okay not to have the answer when someone asks you something. The strongest executives I know are comfortable saying "I haven't worked through that yet, but here's how I'd start thinking about it." That confidence in uncertain territory reads more credibly than a polished but generic response.
Making asks without feeling like a cheese bucket
Eventually, you'll need to ask for something. An introduction. A recommendation. A meeting with someone in their network. A reference. A conversation about an open role.
Most executives hate this part. Which is why most executives are bad at it.
A few rules that help:
Be specific. "Do you know anyone at [company]?" lands very differently from "I'm hoping to connect with someone in finance leadership at [company X, Y, or Z]. Anyone come to mind?" The second version makes it easy to say yes.
Ask once, clearly. Don't bury the ask under five paragraphs of context. State what you'd value, why you're asking them specifically, and how you'd make it easy for them to help.
Give the person an exit. Add something like "no pressure if this doesn't fit, just thought I'd ask." Lowers the stakes for them and makes them more likely to help.
Reciprocate before, during, or after. Send the article. Make the introduction in the other direction. Comment on their LinkedIn post. Asking is much easier when you've been giving for a while already.
The goal is to make the ask feel like a normal part of a relationship, never a transaction you're forcing on someone who barely knows you.
What this looks like in practice
Imagine you're getting on a coffee chat next week with someone you've never met. They're a peer of your boss's boss in another industry. You got the introduction through a former colleague.
The version most executives default to: small talk, walk through their background when asked, talk about their current role, ask what the other person does, half-listen for a job opening.
The version that builds your market presence: research them in advance. Know two or three things about their company and current focus. Open with something specific about their work. Tell one tight story when they ask about your background. Ask a question that shows you've thought about their world. Slip a relevant win into context when it fits. Listen more than you talk. Make a clear, specific offer to be helpful before the call ends.
That's twenty minutes that turns into a real professional relationship. Multiply that by two or three conversations a month for a year and your market presence looks completely different than it did when you started.
The track record was already yours. What changed was how you talked about it.
Key Takeaways
Coming Next Month
In Edition 7, we're getting into the 11 mistakes I see executives make over and over with their careers. Some are about how you show up online. Others are about how you network, how you work with recruiters, how you write your resume, and how you negotiate. Most of them are quiet, so nobody tells you you're making them. All of them are fixable.
If you found this valuable, share it with an executive in your network who needs to hear it.
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The Chameleon Resumes team, led by CEO Lisa Rangel, stands out as the premier executive resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and job landing consultancy. As the only firm hired by LinkedIn and recognized by Forbes in this space, we bring unparalleled expertise to your career advancement journey. Our proprietary 4-Stage META Job Landing System™ is the culmination of decades of corporate and executive recruiting and executive resume writing experience. This proven methodology is designed to position you strategically for your next 6- or 7-figure role, ensuring you stand out in a competitive job market.
