Name It to Tame It: Folklore Debt

There's a common arc in B2B. Early-days, an MQL-based demand system gets built. Growth explodes. A narrative about how MQLs drove company growth becomes cannon. New initiates into the company are steeped in the MQL narrative.

Then, conditions change — the market matures, the brand grows, buyers get more sophisticated — but the story about why the company grows doesn't change with them. When conversion rates fall, the explanation is execution: the system isn't being run right, or the wrong people are running it. What's actually happening is more interesting. As brand reach grows, more non-buyers find the content. MQL volume rises. Signal quality drops. The meaning of the metric changed but the narrative didn't.

We call stories like these Folklore Debt – stories that once accurately explained how an organization won but which have outlived the conditions that made them true. We wrote a guide to help organizations identify these stories — name them for what they are, honor where they came from, and consciously decide how much authority they should have over how you win today.

I'm sure we all have a Folklore Debt story to tell…even in our personal lives. What stories do we tell ourselves both personally and professionally that might ultimately be the thing holding us back?

Name it to tame it ✨ read our free resource here

@Kerry