Imagine this.
Someone in your network–a past client, a longtime colleague, someone who knows your work well–refers you to a perfect-fit prospect. They’re sold on you before the call even starts.
And even though you know better than to count your chickens before they hatch, you find yourself doing a little happy dance.
But when you get on the call, something’s not quite right. The questions they’re asking, the problem they think they need solved, the budget they’ve mentally allocated… they’re all pointed at a surface fix.
So you spend the first ten minutes recalibrating and gently reframing. You find yourself explaining that what they came in asking for and what they actually need aren’t quite the same thing.
The call goes fine. They get it and even agree with you.
And then they go with the surface fix anyway because that’s the problem they arrived with, and what felt most urgent.
You file it under “timing” and move on.
And then it happens again. A slightly different version of the same call. This time, on reflection, you start wondering if timing is really the whole story.
So you go back to your website and add a line that explains your process more clearly. You make it obvious that this isn’t just a surface fix, that there’s real strategy underneath. That way, if the next prospect reads it carefully enough, they’ll arrive with the right frame.
Or you think about briefing your referrers better so they have the language they need to set it up properly next time.
Both moves make sense. The problem felt like a communication gap, so you try to close the communication gap.
The problem?
It’s not a communication gap.
The prospect arrived with the wrong frame because the most portable, repeatable version of what you do, the part that travels easily in a quick introduction, is the surface output. It’s the thing people can easily name in a sentence.
The consultant gets referred to as “she helps companies run more smoothly.” The accounting firm gets introduced as “they do our books.” The interior designer gets described as “she has great taste.”
There’s an inherent challenge in selling a service that isn’t tangible. You can’t hand someone a finished product and let it speak for itself. What you actually do lives in the experience of working with you, and that’s nearly impossible to pass along secondhand.
So the deeper work doesn’t travel.
If it’s not already in the language people carry around about you, it won’t show up in the introduction.
That’s a marketing messaging problem. And it’s showing up in every place your business communicates, not just this one call.
If it’s happening in referrals, it’s happening everywhere.
- The prospect who lands on your homepage and can’t quite tell if you’re the right fit, so they browse for thirty seconds and leave.
- The discovery calls where you’re answering the same handful of questions every time. Questions you thought your website already addressed.
- The proposals where they hesitate at a price point you know is fair because they still don’t see the gap between what they asked for and what they actually need.
Every one of those moments is pointing at the same thing.
Think about how a doctor diagnoses a patient.
The patient comes in with a headache, fatigue, and trouble focusing. Individually, any one of those could mean a dozen different things. But together, they point at something specific. The doctor’s job isn’t to treat each symptom separately. It’s to connect the dots and figure out what’s actually causing them.
That’s what friction is in your business.
One confused prospect could be anything. One referral that arrived with the wrong frame could be timing. One discovery call where you spent the first ten minutes recalibrating could be a fluke.
But when you’re hearing the same questions on every call, watching referrals describe you in ways you wouldn’t, seeing proposals stall at the same point, and rewriting the same page for the third time—I hate to break it to you, but those aren’t separate problems.
They’re a pattern. And the pattern is pointing at the same thing every time.
Friction isn’t the problem. It’s diagnostic data telling you where to look for the underlying issue.
Here’s one example of how to read it.
If a prospect asks “how is this different from [competitor or alternative]?”, that’s good information. It’s telling you they don’t see why they should choose you over any other option.
Which means they’re going to default to comparing you on price, or they’re going to pick someone else who communicated what sets them apart more clearly. It also means you’re harder to refer, because the people who want to send business your way don’t have the language to explain why you’re the right choice.
Here’s a quick way to test whether you have a differentiation problem: pull up three competitor websites. Read their messaging. If you could swap your name for theirs and the page would still make sense, you’ve found the gap (and it’s costing you deals).
I pulled up three executive coaching sites at random. If I were looking for their services and landed on any of these, I’d have no obvious reason to choose one over the other.
And that’s the thing about a messaging problem. It’s not just about the words on the page. It’s about what those words are, or aren’t, doing for someone trying to decide.
So back to that call.
The one where the prospect arrived with the wrong frame, you spent ten minutes recalibrating, and they left with the surface fix anyway.
I think you know what I’m going to say by now.
The problem wasn’t the call.
The problem was that the most valuable part of what you do: the strategic depth, the diagnostic thinking, the work that actually moves the needle… was all lost in translation.
And until you address that messaging gap at the foundation level, the same call is going to keep happening.
Think about the cost of one client who chose somebody else just because their messaging was clearer. Now multiply that by every call where you spent the first ten minutes explaining what should have been obvious before they ever got on the phone with you.
Your website is where this shows up first. It’s also where you can diagnose it fastest and figure out whether the problem is strategic or tactical, foundational or execution-level, and what actually needs to happen next.
If you want to figure out what’s actually broken before you spend another dollar fixing the wrong thing, a comprehensive website audit is your next best move.
So here’s my question for you: What’s one place in your business where you keep seeing the same friction show up?
Click here to tell me about it. I read and respond to every single one.
Until next time,
Stacy
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