The first time many founders encounter the idea of a common enemy, it can feel like discovering a hidden lever in storytelling. You name a villain that your customers hate, and suddenly your pitch sharpens. Prospects lean forward because they recognise their own frustrations. Your team feels more united because everyone is pushing against the same thing. The technique seems simple and powerful, which is why it is so often adopted quickly and informally. Yet the very simplicity that makes it sticky also makes it risky. When leaders do not think carefully about what exactly they are asking their people to fight, the story begins to drift, and the consequences accumulate quietly inside the culture.
At its core, the common enemy is not just a marketing line. It is a structural element in your go to market system. You are choosing a force that your organisation will oppose every day in conversations, campaigns, and internal decisions. If that enemy is defined in a vague, personal, or exaggerated way, you invite your team to adopt unhealthy habits. They may slide into blame, stop listening, or oversell impact. None of this happens overnight. It shows up slowly in how reps speak about competitors, how teams talk about customers behind closed doors, and how honestly people feel they can describe trade offs.
One of the most common errors is turning people into the enemy instead of focusing on structural patterns. It can feel satisfying to position a rival company as the villain, or to caricature a type of decision maker as lazy, uncaring, or old fashioned. For a short time, this can energise internal conversations. However, it trains your team to attack individuals rather than the systems those individuals operate within. Over time, they show up to conversations ready to prove others wrong, rather than ready to understand constraints, incentives, and pressures. A healthier approach is to define the enemy as a pattern that cuts across companies and roles, such as decisions made purely on gut feel, manual workflows that waste time, or incentive models that reward short term gain over long term value. When you frame the enemy as a structure rather than a person, you protect curiosity and respect while still being sharp about what you oppose.
Another mistake appears when the chosen enemy sits far beyond the realistic reach of your product. Some teams declare that they are fighting bureaucracy, broken capitalism, or toxic work culture at large. These phrases sound bold and noble, but they collapse quickly when a buyer asks how your specific product, in their real environment, within the next year, will alter that huge target. If your product cannot move the needle in a visible, concrete way, you put your reps in a position where they either exaggerate impact or quietly lose faith in the narrative. A more grounded approach is to test the enemy against a simple filter. Can your current product measurably reduce this problem in a well defined use case within a reasonable time frame. If not, the enemy needs to be narrowed until your solution and your story are firmly connected. Your team should be able to say, we fight this specific problem by doing these specific things, which lead to this observable result, using real customer examples rather than hypotheticals.
Misalignment between the enemy you name externally and the way you operate internally is another source of damage. When a company claims to fight complexity but runs on chaotic processes, or claims to fight burnout while celebrating constant heroic overwork, people inside the organisation feel the gap instantly. The common enemy frame then turns into a slogan rather than a lived principle. Instead of creating unity, it generates cynicism. Before you announce the enemy, it is important to map it against your current values, rituals, and management habits. If you say that unnecessary manual work is the enemy, are you willing to simplify your own internal reporting. If you say you fight short termism, are you prepared to adjust the way you set targets and reward performance. When people see that you are willing to battle the same enemy inside the company that you describe to customers, the narrative gains credibility and power.
Leaders also underestimate how quickly a simple phrase can mutate once it enters the organisation. Often, the enemy is introduced in a single all hands meeting or a slide deck, then allowed to spread informally. Early adopters may use it thoughtfully. As time passes, new hires pick it up second hand, and individuals begin to improvise their own interpretations. A mild critique of outdated tools can slowly become harsh language that belittles current vendors or the people who chose them. Without clear guardrails, some reps drift into personal attacks or promises that the product cannot keep. The remedy is not heavy policing, but deliberate design. Write down a short, precise description of the enemy, a few examples of acceptable language, and a few examples of what crosses the line. Build this into onboarding and review real calls and campaigns for alignment. When someone steps over a boundary, correct it early and explain why you are protecting the tone as well as the content.
There is also a subtler behavioural trap. When the common enemy story is strong, it can become a crutch that replaces genuine discovery. Reps may begin to assume that every prospect shares the same frustrations as previous customers. They launch into the enemy narrative before they have confirmed whether it fits the situation in front of them. If it resonates, the call feels powerful. If it does not, the prospect experiences a sense of being pushed into someone else’s war. A disciplined use of the technique always sits on top of listening. The rep should infer the enemy from what the customer has shared, and offer it as a hypothesis, not as a fixed script. If the customer does not recognise themselves in that frame, the rep must be ready to adjust or abandon it. The story should serve discovery, not dominate it.
Context adds another layer of complexity. A common enemy statement that feels energising in one region, industry, or culture may feel abrasive or disrespectful in another. When a headquarters team defines the enemy without input from local markets, they unintentionally push a uniform stance into very different ecosystems. Local teams then face a choice between softening the message on the fly or using it as written and risking damage to relationships. A more sustainable approach is to involve representatives from different markets when crafting the enemy. Ask how it sounds in their language, what needs to shift for it to be culturally appropriate, and what local examples make it vivid without crossing lines. When local teams see their fingerprints on the narrative, they are more likely to use it consistently and confidently.
Finally, there is the risk of allowing the enemy to remain frozen while your product and market change around it. Early in a company’s life, the main problem you fight might be work stuck in spreadsheets. A few years later, your customers’ real pain may revolve more around fragmented systems, poor data quality, or misaligned metrics. If the enemy is never revisited, your team keeps reciting a story that describes yesterday’s reality. Prospects sense that disconnect even if they cannot articulate it. To avoid this, treat the enemy as part of your strategic hygiene. Periodically ask what customers complain about now, which parts of that landscape you address best, and whether your existing enemy still captures the heart of the problem. Often, you do not need a full rewrite. Small, precise adjustments can keep the narrative aligned with the world your customers actually live in.
When you look across these pitfalls, a pattern emerges. The danger does not lie in naming a common enemy, but in treating that choice as a one time messaging trick rather than an ongoing design decision. As a founder or leader, you are not only selecting an enemy. You are shaping where your team directs its emotional and cognitive energy, and how your customers are invited to interpret their own struggles. Used with care, the common enemy frame clarifies priorities, gives your sales story a memorable spine, and reinforces the culture you want to build. Used carelessly, it encourages aggression, erodes trust, and leaves your organisation fighting battles that either do not matter or cannot be won.
The question to hold on to is simple. If you stepped away from the business for a short period, would your team still describe and fight the same enemy in a way that feels respectful, accurate, and aligned with your product. If the answer is yes, your design is probably sound. If the answer is no or uncertain, it is a signal to revisit the narrative, the guardrails, and the internal practices that sit around it. The common enemy technique is most powerful not when it is loudest, but when it quietly guides behaviour, decision making, and storytelling in a direction that makes your company healthier and more useful to the people it serves.
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