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2025 September, 4 - Effective communication is no longer a “nice to have.” It is a decisive factor in how companies are perceived, how they build trust, and ultimately, how they grow. A strong message is the invisible thread that connects organizations to their clients. Yet, crafting such a message is anything but simple.

According to Piet Saegeman, four “horsemen of messaging failure” can undermine this effort: inconsistency, incompleteness, inefficiency, and incomprehension. Each of these weakens customer trust and negatively impacts perception.

Piet’s expertise comes not from theory alone but from more than 25 years of hands-on experience across industries, from Business Development at Apple and Product Marketing at Showpad, a sales enablement solution. What began as frustration with sales inefficiencies evolved into a curiosity-driven exploration of how people make decisions.

By observing thousands of commercial conversations, Piet identified recurring patterns which, combined with his interest in brainscience, led to the creation of the 5 INTENTS™Model, a practical framework for strategic messaging aligned with the natural flow of the buyer’s journey.

On August 28 2025, he shared this expertise with start-ups from the A6K ecosystem during an exclusive masterclass, equipping participants with actionable tools to design more impactful communication strategies.

The Five Intents Explained

1. Fascinate – “Why should I care?”

Spoiler alert: nobody cares. Until you make them.

The first hurdle is attention. Customers do not care about a company until it gives them a reason to. Piet emphasized that fascination must be grounded in the client’s context, never in the company itself.

Many levers can be used, among which:

• Pain – addressing urgent, visible problems;
• Gain – highlighting opportunities and aligning with prospects’ objectives;
• Risk – raising awareness of future exposure or missed chances.

2. Educate – “What is it?”

Once attention is captured, customers need to categorize the solution. Humans rely on mental shortcuts, so positioning matters.

Piet demonstrated the abstraction ladder, moving step by step from the product itself to its positioning, benefits, use cases, results, and finally to its broader impact.

3. Differentiate – “Why you?”

Markets are noisy. To stand out, companies must articulate a single, unique, and defensible advantage. According to Piet, complex competitive matrices often confuse rather than clarify. Instead, messaging should highlight the one thing no competitor can credibly claim.

4. Validate – “Is it safe?”

Trust is built with evidence. Guarantees, hard data, and social proof are powerful tools. Piet underlined that validation is about reducing risk for the buyer, not boasting about achievements. Customer testimonials, expert endorsements, and proof of performance serve as powerful trust signals.

5. Motivate – “Where do I sign?”

The final step is moving the customer to action. Here, urgency is key — but it must be authentic. Piet warned against artificial pressure tactics. Instead, urgency should come from real scarcity, external constraints, pivotal events in the market, or other drivers.

The contrast between the current problematic reality and the future promised state provides the motivation to act.

Messaging across organizational levels

Another crucial insight shared by Piet is that messaging must adapt to different levels of decision-making:

• Operational – focused on ease of use and day-to-day improvements;
• Managerial – concerned with efficiency, execution, processes, and costs;
• Strategic – centered on long-term value, competitiveness, and shareholder impact.

Using his well-known “Spice Girls metaphor,” Piet reminded participants that each level has its “favorite” — its own priorities and preferences. Yet, the story must work for all simultaneously.

From theory to practice

Beyond the theoretical framework, participants had the opportunity to ask questions and engage in one-on-one sessions with Piet. These personalized exchanges allowed start-ups to adapt the 5 INTENTS™ framework to their own communication challenges and turn insights into concrete next steps.

Key Takeaways

Before wrapping up the masterclass, Piet shared some final key takeaways to help start-ups sharpen their messaging and storytelling:

• Narrative is a competitive advantage – A great product can lose to a better story.
• Clarity beats cleverness – If clients need effort to decode your message, it has failed.
• Messaging must evolve – Reviewing it every 3–6 months ensures alignment with changing markets.
• “Your story is your strategy” – as Piet reminded us, quoting Ben Horowitz.
  

Insights from the start-ups

Piet was genuinely amazed at the technology being created at A6K. Here are 5 things that stuck with him:

• “Half of industrial CO₂ emissions come from low-concentration sources. Hard to capture. Until now. ARK Capture Solutions is doing it—cost-effectively, and scalable.”
• “The chips we need in the future may be closer than we think. There’s no reason to be dependent on foreign chip manufacturing. Decommissioned smartphones hold viable chips. Citronics - circular electronics know how to extract and reuse them at scale.”
• “Optical transceivers are not just commodities. Building them locally with advanced robotic manufacturing and firmware transparency unlocks a critical edge: cyber resilience. (ESTEL)”
• “Brain power is now a climate lever. By embedding intelligence into industrial systems, Ionect is taking hydrogen production and CO₂ reduction from impossible to flexible, fast, and local.”
• “Extreme conditions make great case studies. Revalio's water circularity solution has been tested in the Belgian Antarctic research station, and it’s ready for mainstream industry.”

Proof that the one-to-one exchanges at the end of the masterclass benefited both sides, providing Piet with insights into the innovative startups and highlighting their strong potential.

We extend our gratitude to Piet Saegeman for sharing his expertise with generosity and precision, and to the A6K start-ups for their active participation. This masterclass was a powerful reminder that in business, as in life, the better story wins. (Learn more at www.yamazoni.com).

And a special thanks to ARK Capture Solutions, Calyos, Citronics, Contracto, ESTEL, Insens, Ionect, Kabandy, Matgenix, Revalio and VerticalCompute for their participation, which made this masterclass highly engaging and productive.