Prospects choose a competitor after a great sales call when they can’t see how your positioning and messaging set you apart from the other options they’re weighing.
A client of mine is a co-founder of a leadership development consultancy. Before we ever worked together, she was on a call with a prospect she really wanted to work with. The call went really well, and she knew they were a perfect fit for her work.
This prospect hadn’t come through a referral, though, so the conversation felt different from the ones she was used to having. Nobody had vouched for them ahead of time, and partway through the call she caught herself fumbling for what to say about why they should choose her firm.
Later, she learned they’d signed with another firm. The worst part?
She knew exactly who it was, because she had met the founder once and walked out of that conversation decidedly unimpressed. (In her words: he was kind of a tool.) She never doubted that her own firm offered more value and expertise.
She never found out why they picked his firm over hers. What she did realize is that nothing she said on that call showed the prospect the difference, and she knew she needed to get ahead of that. So she started hunting for someone to help her with her positioning and messaging.
If your business has grown through referrals, you know how this works.
Referrals feel easier because the person on the other end shows up already at least partially sold. Someone they trust did your pitch for you before you ever said hello. Everywhere else, you have to earn that trust by showing why you’re the pick over every other option.
3 signs buyers can’t tell why you’re the one to pick
If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve had at least one of these happen to you:
→ You hang up convinced it’s a yes, and then you hear nothing.
The conversation flowed and they were nodding along the whole time, and you hung up already picturing the kickoff. Then you send a follow-up and watch it sit in their inbox.
Eventually you see on LinkedIn that they went with someone else (I’ve had this happen and it sucks), or hear they didn’t hire anyone at all.
Nobody tells you why, so you start replaying everything you said and inventing your own reasons, which is definitely not what you want rolling through your mind the second your head hits the pillow at night. (Not that I know, or anything.)
→ You keep watching other businesses get picked.
You sit through a conference keynote and your competitors are the ones being introduced as leaders in the field. They’re on the panel, on the podcast, posing with the award, and you’re in row ten, clapping, knowing you belong up there too.
Here’s the story most of us tell ourselves.
💭 It’s politics, or you have to pay to play, or it’s a budget thing, or you just have to wait your turn.
Some of us stare at the stage, baffled, because we can’t figure out what those folks did that we haven’t.
That’s exactly where the leadership team at the consultancy from my story found themselves. She and the other leaders kept going to events and watching their competitors get named leaders in their field, and they knew they should be on those stages.
The committees, panel organizers, and podcast hosts making those choices go with the people who stand out, and the firm hadn’t given them any reason to see how it was different, or that it belonged on the same playing field.
→ You lose to a competitor on something you could have done.
Someone sits through your call, nods along, then hires another firm because they believed that firm offered something you didn’t. Later they find out you could have helped with that exact thing, and they say, “Wait, you do that?” Awkward for everyone.
They sized you up against what they assumed you do, and that assumption came from whatever everyone else was saying while you weren’t saying it.
Why doesn’t rewriting your website fix a positioning problem?
The usual move is to decide it’s a website problem. So you rewrite the homepage headline for the fourth time, tweak your LinkedIn headline, maybe swap out a tagline.
You know the real issue is messaging somewhere underneath, but you don’t know what research to do first, so shuffling words around is the only move you have.
Competitor research: the missing piece
If you’ve done audience research, you’re already way ahead of most other businesses. You sat down with your buyers and wrote down the exact words they used to talk about what they want and what worries them, and you built your messaging on that.
There’s still one piece that often gets overlooked, though.
When you talked to your buyers, did you ask what else they were considering before they chose you? I call those your alternatives. That means every option a buyer weighs besides you: other firms, hiring in-house, doing it themselves, or doing nothing. Chances are you never thought to ask, because you were pretty sure you already knew who you were up against. And if you did ask, you probably weren’t sure what to do with the answer.
Who are your buyers really comparing you to?
Here’s the catch with being pretty sure. When you write out the options your buyers are actually weighing, there’s almost always at least one you hadn’t thought of.
We all think we’re more unique than we are. That’s not a dig; it’s a legit documented social psychology finding. As humans, we systematically overestimate how different, how rare, or how novel our own positive traits and ideas are.
So in business, that means we genuinely believe our approach is more original than it is.
Why you sound like everyone else without noticing
Even once you find the list, it’s hard to see how much you sound like everyone else from inside your own business. There’s psychology behind that one too.
🤓 Just to sound extra geeky, it’s called institutional isomorphism, and it’s where we unconsciously mirror each other over time until we just become indistinguishable.
Here’s what that sounds like in real life. Imagine you’re a consultant who works with nonprofits.
→ This is a line you could find on almost anyone’s LinkedIn:
“I help nonprofits navigate change and build sustainable organizations so they can maximize their impact.”
→ Now here’s the version most business owners think sets them apart:
“I help mission-driven nonprofits through transition as a strategic partner who genuinely cares about their mission and their people.”
The two things I hear most are strategic thinking and truly, genuinely caring about clients. But if you offer a high-touch, high-ticket service, shouldn’t both of those just be expected? Plus, everyone else is claiming them too.
→ Now compare it to this:
“I help nonprofit boards stabilize their organization after a sudden leadership exit or a funding crisis, including stepping in as interim executive director, so the mission can keep going while they figure out what’s next.”
Only a few people can say that.
Knowing who’s on the list is only half of it. If you don’t know what to look for, you can spend hours on your competitors’ websites and walk away with nothing but a vague feeling that everyone sounds the same.
You have to be strategic about it. There are specific things to look for, ways to analyze what you find, and patterns to spot. When I start working with a new client, I dig into their competitors’ websites, sales pages, and LinkedIn posts with exactly that in mind.
If you’re like most people, it’s hard to see how much this work really matters until you’ve done it.
What’s one lost client worth to you?
Picture the client you lost that you really shouldn’t have. Perfect fit, easy conversation, and then they signed with someone else. What was that one client worth to you?
If the answer is more than $250 and three hours of your time, you should definitely check out what I’m doing on November 10. If it’s less, feel free to skip this one.
Get chosen
Think back to my client on that call. She knew her firm offered more value and expertise, and she didn’t have the words to show it.
Get Chosen is a live, three-hour workshop where I walk you through finding the alternatives your buyers are really weighing, what to look for in how each one markets itself, and the patterns that show you where you can stand out. You leave knowing why someone should pick you over every one of them and how to say it. November 10 is the only date on the calendar right now
Here are two comments about a previous workshop:
“In a short workshop, she got me to reconsider my positioning and redo my messaging. And she had proof for everything she suggested or taught.” – Adriana Tica, Growth & Marketing Strategist
“[This workshop] made the research feel meaningful instead of mechanical, and it gave me a much deeper understanding of the people I want to serve. As a result, writing my new copy has become dramatically easier and far more aligned.” – Risa Haasbroek, Mindset Coach
If you have any questions about whether this is a good fit, just hit reply and tell me what you’re hesitant about. Your time is valuable and I don’t want you to waste it if this isn’t for you.
Save your seat here.
Until next time,
Stacy
P.S. If you’d like to “try before you buy”, I’m teaching a 30-minute Lightning Lesson on October 29 (recording if you can’t make it live) called “Find the 4 alternatives actually competing for your clients.” It’s $0.
