Why customers don't choose you (and how to fix it)

Why should customers choose your business over the competition?

That is the most important question you can answer as a founder — and one that most founders can't answer.

Or they come up with a weak answer:

Quality
Team
Personality
Caring for their customers

While all of those are necessary for running a successful business, they don't cause customers to buy from you.

Think about it.

If your ideal customers visit 10 vendor websites (including yours) and they all say the same thing ("we're the best," "we're the leading," "we actually care"), there isn't a clear reason to choose you.

All you've done is positioned yourself as a commodity — one they can easily replace if they find a better price.

So, how should you answer that question?

Let's dive in.

Why Choose You?

Before we talk about how, let's look at why you need a better answer to that question.

Finding your competitors has never been easier.

Buyers can find 1000s of your competitors in 2-5 seconds on Google or ChatGPT.

Gone are the days when your business is the only one your ideal customers are considering.

Statistics say that buyers are very far along in the purchasing process before talking to sales, often 60% to 80% complete, having already identified their needs, researched solutions, and largely established requirements, with many choosing a preferred vendor before any sales interaction.

They are researching you and your competitors.

If your marketing efforts are clearly communicating why they should choose you, you've already lost.

Provide a Better Answer

So, how do you provide a better answer to the "why you" question?

Here are some tips I share with my clients and I follow myself when uncovering that reason:

Avoid Basic Requirements

Take this accounting firm that booked a discovery call with me.

According to the hero section of their website, they think you should buy from them because they are accurate, diligent, and personalized.

But let me ask you a question.

If you were looking for an accounting firm for your business, would you even consider hiring one that wasn't accurate, diligent, or personalized?

I'm guessing no.

Accurate, diligent, and personalized are basic requirements clients look for when hiring a vendor to handle their accounting.

That means this accounting firm met the basic requirements to be a vendor, but didn't give us any reason to choose them over all the other accounting firms that met those basic requirements.

Swing and a HUGE miss.

Be the Opposite

Ultimately, you're giving people a choice.

They can choose your way of doing things or a competitor's way of doing things.

That means the answer to the "why you" question needs to pass the opposite test — the opposite of your reason needs to be a legit reason for people to buy.

Take this insurance company I found online.

They believe you should buy from them because they care about their customers.

Let's break this down.

Does "we care about our customers" pass the opposite test?

The opposite is a company saying you should buy from them because "we hate our customers."

Who does that? Who hires a vendor because they legit hate their customers?

NO ONE.

In this case, "we care" is a basic requirement of doing business, not a differentiator.

Be Different

The best way to answer the "why you" question:

Highlighting your differentiation.

Something that:

you do exceptionally well
your ideal customers want or need
your competitors can't or won't do

Take Define Instruments (one of our clients) as an example.

Their differentiator is clear in their hero section.

They turn data into a prioritized to-do list.

That's something their customers want and need, something they do exceptionally well, and something that none of their IoT competitors do or talk about.

It's different, and it helps them answer the question "why Define?"