How to Influence the Fox Through Content (and Why You Won’t Get Through Without His Circle)
One of my favorite books, Power Base Selling, features a character called the FOX. Not the highest title, but someone who sits at the intersection of influence, trust, and informal power that opens the door for your project inside a company.
I’ve been thinking about how you can influence the fox before the first meeting - through content.
But here’s what most people get wrong: they think influence starts with the pitch deck. It doesn’t. It starts months earlier, in the information environment the fox inhabits daily.
What the Fox Actually Cares About
Let’s get this straight: the fox doesn’t care about your product features. He’s not impressed by your roadmap or your API documentation.
He cares about:
P&L and personal risk. How will this affect revenue, margins? What happens if the experiment fails? How he’ll explain this to the board when someone inevitably asks why he greenlit a project that didn’t land. The fox is thinking three moves ahead - not about your product, but about his own position after your product either works or doesn’t.
Internal politics. Who will this empower, who will resist. Which conflicts you’re resolving, which new ones you might create. Every decision in a large company is a redistribution of power. The fox knows this. He’s calculating who he’ll strengthen, who he’ll weaken, and what alliances he’ll need to make this work.
Career and reputation. Will he become the person who “brought in a new level of play,” or the one who “burned the budget on toys.” This is the difference between getting promoted and getting sidelined. Between being known as someone with vision or someone who fell for vendor hype.
His pack’s experience. What are his peers at other global companies doing? Which cases worked for them. The fox doesn’t want to be first, it’s too risky. But he doesn’t want to be last either cause that’s embarrassing. He wants to be second or third, right in that sweet spot where it’s still innovative but proven.
Simple frameworks for complex decisions. How to make a decision based on 1-2 criteria. How to explain this to the CFO in two slides. Because at the end of the day, he needs to defend this decision in rooms where people have 30 seconds of attention span and zero patience for complexity.
Notice what’s missing from this list? Your technology. Your innovation. Your “revolutionary approach.” The fox assumes you have those. What he’s buying is something else entirely.
The Mistake Everyone Makes
Most vendors create content for the fox. Educational webinars about their product. Case studies showcasing their technology. White papers explaining their methodology.
The fox doesn’t read any of it.
Know who does? His circle. His right hand. The head of strategy. The external consultant who has his ear. The peer from another company he texts after board meetings.
This is where Power Base Selling gets interesting. Holden’s whole methodology is built on understanding that the fox isn’t operating alone. He has what the book calls a “power base” - a network of influence that surrounds him, informs him, protects him.
If you can’t reach that power base, you can’t reach the fox.
How Influence Actually Works
Write not “for the fox,” but for his circle
The fox might never read your LinkedIn post. But his colleagues do. His consultants do. The people in his network who he actually listens to.
They become the bridge. “Hey, saw this piece about how pharma companies are handling digital transformation. Sounds like what we’re dealing with.”
That’s how you get on the fox’s radar. Not by pitching him directly, but by becoming part of the information diet of the people he trusts.
Make the fox the hero of the future story
Here’s what I learned from years of positioning work: the fox doesn’t buy solutions. He buys narratives where he wins politically.
Your content needs to show him a path where he’s the leader who saw the trend before others. Who had the courage to push through internal resistance. Who delivered results while everyone else was still in analysis paralysis.
Frame the story so he can see himself in it. Not as someone who bought your product, but as someone who transformed his organization.
Give him language to defend the idea
Strong content works when your paragraph ends up in his email to the CFO. When your framework becomes part of his argument to global leadership.
This is why analogies matter. Frameworks matter. Simple, memorable ways of explaining complex things matter.
When he’s in that meeting defending the budget, he needs words. Your words. But reframed as his insight.
I’ve seen this work beautifully. You write a piece about “the three types of digital transformation mistakes.” Six months later, a fox is presenting to his board using those exact three categories. Did he credit you? No. Does it matter? Also no. What matters is you’re now the trusted source his head of strategy keeps forwarding to him.
Work with his pack
Power Base Selling emphasizes this: the fox isn’t alone. He has a circle: his right hand, head of strategy, external expert, peers from other companies.
If you influence them, you influence him.
This means creating different types of content for different members of the pack. The CFO needs ROI frameworks. The head of strategy needs competitive intelligence. The external consultant needs thought leadership that makes them look smart when they reference it.
You’re not creating one narrative. You’re creating an ecosystem of narratives that all point in the same direction.
Innovation clubs as entry into the circle of trust
Here’s something most vendors miss: the fox doesn’t want to be sold to. He wants to be part of a conversation with his peers.
This is where closed, invite-only events become powerful. Not webinars. Not conferences. Small, off-the-record gatherings where 8-10 executives at his level share what’s actually working.
You’re not presenting. You’re hosting. You’re creating the space where his circle feels heard, where they can be honest about failures without it ending up in the press.
Through this kind of forum, you stop being a vendor. You become the person who convenes the conversation, who has access to insights from across the industry, who knows what everyone else is doing.
You’re no longer knocking on the door from outside. You’re sitting at the table.
Social proof at his level
The fox needs to know that people like him - VPs from global pharma, digital directors from Fortune 500s - are engaging with you.
This isn’t about testimonials on your website. It’s about creating content that demonstrates, subtly, that you operate at his altitude.
When you write about how a digital transformation worked at a company everyone knows, or when a recognizable executive comments on your post, or when your analysis gets picked up by industry publications, you’re sending a signal: “We’re in the same tier.”
Small formats that travel
Here’s something I learned from watching what actually gets shared inside enterprise companies: it’s rarely the 20-page white paper.
It’s a one-slide framework. The three-paragraph email summary. The single compelling graphic that someone can drop into a Teams chat without context.
The fox operates in Slack channels with other executives. In WhatsApp groups with his peers from other companies. In quick emails at 10pm.
Create content that fits those channels. Not everything needs to be a full article. Sometimes the most influential thing you can create is a single image that captures a complex idea.
Strategic positioning, not chaos
The fox doesn’t trust people who jump between trends. Who were all-in on blockchain last year and all-in on AI this year.
He trusts people who have a consistent point of view. Who develops one theme over time, who becomes the authority on that specific thing.
This is hard. It means saying no to the hot topic of the week. It means being willing to be known for one thing rather than trying to cover everything.
But it’s how you become part of the fox’s mental map. “That person knows digital transformation in pharma.” “That firm understands Salesforce-native mobile.” “They’re the ones who understand how consulting models are changing.”
When you occupy a clear position in his mind, you’re no longer competing for attention. You’re the default reference point.
The Long Game
Influence doesn’t start with an intro or meeting. It starts with how deeply you’re integrated into the fox’s information field and his circle’s.
Content, clubs, closed formats - these are ways to enter a room you formally don’t have access to.
But here’s the thing about this approach: it takes time. You’re not going to write one article and land a meeting with a Fortune 500 VP.
You’re building a presence. You’re creating the conditions where, when the fox’s organization is ready to move, your name is already familiar. Where his team already thinks of you as a trusted voice. Where the external consultant he relies on already considers you credible.
By the time you actually meet the fox, you’re not a cold contact. You’re someone whose thinking he’s already been exposed to, through the people he trusts.
That’s when sales becomes something else entirely. Not convincing, but confirming. Not pitching, but having a strategic conversation between peers.
The fox has already decided you’re worth listening to. Now you just need to not screw it up.