Studio Note #73: Guilty by Association.
Sure is hard to be the good apple in a rotten bunch.
Yesterday I spent most of my day trying to figure out how to sell something without sounding like everyone else selling the same thing.
With Vendorfied, we're expanding a part of our business that gives contractors access to financing for their customers and capital for their own businesses.
The problem?
I get bombarded with financing offers every single day. Working capital. Business loans. Preapproved funding. Money available today.
Most of it goes straight into the trash.
And now I'm trying to reach people who are probably doing the exact same thing to my emails.
It's an interesting position to find yourself in.
I know what we're offering has value. I know there are businesses that could benefit from it. But none of that matters if the person on the other end has already decided what my message is before they've finished reading the first sentence.
Sometimes your biggest competitor isn't another business. It's every bad experience your potential customer has had with businesses that look like yours.
That's a difficult thing to overcome.
You can change the subject line. Rewrite the opening. Make the message more personal. Strip away the sales language.
But you're still asking someone to reconsider a category they've already learned to ignore.
I've spent a good part of my career thinking about how brands distinguish themselves from their competition. Usually, that means figuring out what makes a business different and finding a compelling way to communicate it.
But what happens when the category itself is the obstacle?
I'm beginning to think the challenge isn't figuring out how to make a better pitch.
It's figuring out how to earn enough attention that someone is willing to hear one.
I haven't figured that out yet.
But I spent all day yesterday thinking about it.