Why you??
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Hey Reader, There's nothing worse than a great sales call with someone you'd love to work with, right up until the end, when you hear: "We'll get back to you. We're talking to a few more people who do what you do." And you know what happens next. The decision gets made in a conversation you're not in, by comparing you to people you've never met, on a question nobody asked you directly: Why you? Every time I open Threads lately, there's another offer strategist, business coach, or sell-in-the-DMs type explaining that positioning is what sells your offer. Fix your positioning and the offer sells itself. 🙄 Which is funny to me, because the first time I taught positioning in a workshop, back in 2020, I said the word and no one knew what it was! Six years later it's the word on everyone's lips. I don't think that's a coincidence. AI made it very cheap to sound baseline competent. Anyone can have a clean website, a tidy “what I do” statement, and a three-step process by lunchtime. Expertise is easy to fake now. So when your potential client can pull up a handful of people who do what you do in one search (or one prompt), and you haven't answered "why you?", it gets answered by whoever was easiest to describe. But I'd bet that just reading the words "why you?" made something in your chest tighten a little. Because the answer is in there, jumbled up with years of client work and the things you know that you can't quite say out loud yet. Ask most experts to describe why someone should choose them, and you get a pause, a laugh, and then a list of services. You're the last person who can see your own difference clearly. Back in March I wrote about what positioning actually is for consultants and service providers, and I've just updated it. Because one part of positioning is what I see missing from nearly every website I audit, and it's the part that gives you the words for "why you?" when you're not in the room.
Grab a cuppa and check it out. Starting Thursday, I'm spending the next four weeks on this question: why you. Exploring how experts get positioned, how they get remembered, and what it takes to have a point of view people repeat. I haven't talked about this part of my work in a long time, and in the age of AI, it’s a conversation we need to have. When you read the words "why you?", which one are you? Confident. You've got the answer, and you can say it cold. Jumbled. The answer's in there, but it comes out as a list of everything you do. Blank. Nothing. A pause, a laugh, and a subject change. Hit reply with one word. What comes back is going to shape the next five weeks. Yours in rebellion,
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Make Marketing Suck Less
Marketing strategies for solo business owners who sell outside the online business bubble. Messaging and marketing for consultants, service providers, and experts whose clients live in the real world—where funnels don't work and referrals matter more than reels.