QUICK ANSWER: What is the new business formula for the digital age? The new business formula, shared by entrepreneur and author Daniel Priestley at ChannelCon EMEA 2026, replaces the traditional model of product, place and business brand with four elements: Intellectual capital, an ideal customer persona, a key person of influence and an elegant business model. Together, they help IT service providers (ITSPs), vendors and distributors stand out in commoditised markets, attract high-value customers and use AI to grow demand, not just capacity.
The IT channel is moving into a new era, and the businesses that thrive in it will be built differently. That was the message from Daniel Priestley, award-winning entrepreneur, bestselling author and business strategist, in his business keynote at ChannelCon EMEA 2026 in London.
Drawing on more than two decades of starting, scaling and exiting businesses, Priestley laid out why the old rules of growth no longer apply, and introduced a new business formula designed for the digital age. Here are the key takeaways.
Growth Starts With Demand
Every business runs on a simple equation of supply and demand. Profit comes from high demand and constrained supply. Priestley pointed out that most channel leaders put their energy into the supply side: Automating delivery, adding tools and building capacity. Demand gets far less attention. When supply rises and demand stays flat, margins shrink. The opportunity right now is to put the same energy into building demand for what you do.
Three Shifts Reshaping the Channel
Priestley describes three forces changing the way channel businesses win customers.
AI is compounding fast. By his estimate, AI capability is doubling roughly every seven weeks, so decisions made two months ago reflect a world that has already moved on. Comparing this moment to the Industrial Revolution, Preistley urged leaders to run their business as if they were starting from scratch today. Businesses that pair human expertise with AI will set the pace.
Attention runs on a new algorithm. Every business depends on attention. Recommendation engines have moved from the social graph (who you know) to the interest graph (what is trending for people like you) and now to the semantic graph, where AI understands what each person wants to see. Businesses that create content for this new algorithm, especially short-form video, can match their expertise with exactly the right audience. Priestley described it as a free call centre making one-minute introductions to your target list.
A generational handover is coming. Many business owners are approaching retirement over the next decade. Their businesses will be sold or closed, and Priestley sees a major opportunity for channel leaders to acquire them, often through vendor-financed deals.
The Old Formula Has Run Its Course
For decades, the formula for building a business was simple: Pick a product, pick a place and build a business brand. Today, products and services are easy to compare, and anything easy to compare becomes a commodity. Customers can ask an AI assistant to shortlist providers in seconds. Location matters less than ever. And people give their attention to people, far more readily than to company logos.
The New Business Formula
Priestley introduced a new formula that has four parts: Intellectual capital, an ideal customer persona, a key person of influence and an elegant business model.
1. Intellectual Capital
Intellectual capital is your story: The projects you have delivered, the problems you have solved and what you learned along the way. Most businesses are sitting on hidden assets because they are always looking forward. Building intellectual capital means pausing to look back. Map your timeline, add up your combined value and impact, and turn those numbers into proof stories. Identify the moments when your team did something special that your ideal customer would care about, quantify the results and explain how you did it, step by step.
2. Ideal Customer Persona
Not every customer values your work equally. Priestley shared a breakdown in which roughly 1% of customers account for about 15% of total spend, the next 9% account for about 45% and the remaining 90% account for about 40%. Your growth depends on knowing exactly what that top 10% looks like and serving them well.
Value depends on who you are talking to and when. It peaks very early in a buying journey, or very late, when the need is urgent. It also scales with the size of the customer: The same work is worth far more to a larger organisation. For many small and mid-sized ITSPs, a focused niche is the clearest route to customers who see the full value of what they offer.
Priestley illustrated this with a story about why Rolls-Royce stopped attending car shows. At car shows, it was the most expensive car in the room. At boat shows, next to yachts, it looked like a bargain. Your task is to find the boat show for your business: The market where your offer is clearly worth the investment.
3. Key Person of Influence
Attention is the currency of the digital age, and people connect with people. Priestley estimates a personal brand to be 20 times more valuable than a business brand. Customers warm to a person first, commit to a product next and grow loyal to the business brand over time. Your goal is to become a key person of influence in your industry. He recommends these three steps:
- Sharpen your pitch. Use a five-part structure (name, same, fame, aim and game) to communicate your points of difference in 30 seconds. Then teach your whole team to pitch the same way.
- Create digital assets. People typically notice you for the first time after seeing you around 11 times, so consistent content matters.
- Show up in the right places. Podcasts and similar platforms put your solutions in the spotlight. Measure the value an appearance returns over time, rather than the time it takes to record.
- A gift: A free resource you share when you first meet someone.
- A product for prospects: A low-commitment experience, such as a weekly introductory webinar.
- Your core product: Your main offering.
- A product for clients: Added value that keeps customers engaged and loyal.
4. Elegant Business Model
An elegant business model keeps supply and demand in balance. Many businesses use AI to automate processes and increase capacity. Priestley urged leaders to use AI to increase demand instead, by helping more people discover, understand and trust what they do. He recommends an ascending transaction model built on four types of offers:
- A gift: A free resource you share when you first meet someone.
- A product for prospects: A low-commitment experience, such as a weekly introductory webinar.
- Your core product: Your main offering.
- A product for clients: Added value that keeps customers engaged and loyal.
Priestley cited Google research showing that people need around four experiences with a business before they trust it. Rather than pushing prospects through the traditional funnel towards a purchase, he suggested building a marketing playground: A set of experiences people can explore at their own pace before they buy.
Put the Formula to Work
The digital age rewards businesses that know their story, know their best customers, show up as trusted voices and use technology to grow demand. Start with one step this quarter: Document three proof stories from your recent projects, or define the top 10% of customers you most want to serve. The GTIA community is where channel leaders compare notes on exactly these challenges. Connect with peers at a GTIA community meeting or local chapter meetup, and join us at ChannelCon Europe 2027, 26–28 October 2027 in Birmingham. Registration is now open!
FAQs
What are the four parts of Daniel Priestley's new business formula? Intellectual capital, an ideal customer persona, a key person of influence and an elegant business model. The formula replaces the traditional approach of picking a product, a place and a business brand.
Why is the traditional business formula less effective today? Products and services are now easy to compare, especially with AI assistants, and easily compared offers become commodities. Location matters less, and audiences give their attention to people far more than to business brands.
How should IT businesses use AI to grow? Use AI to increase demand as well as capacity. AI-powered content and recommendation algorithms can help more of the right people discover, understand and trust your business.
