sloppy seconds: why customers try your competitor first

There's a line that comes up stupid often. Like, I could set my watch by it at this point.

"Our best customers came to us after they got burned by someone else."

I get why it's a point of pride, being the one people run to after a competitor ducked things up says a lot about the work quality.

The point of friction is the 'after'.

Your best customers, the ones you'd clone if you could, went and picked someone else first. Paid them, worked with them, had a rubbish time of it... and then found you.

So basically, you're getting your competitors' sloppy seconds. 😬

Next to that I find a line of thought goes something like: run your own race, don't worry about what the others are doing, they'll expose themselves eventually.

An owner said that to me earlier this year, horse metaphor and all. Be a racehorse with blinders on, don't look at the horse to your left or your right, the others will show the world what they're not doing well.

And he's right, they do expose themselves.

To the customer who already signed with them.

Why do customers pick a competitor before you?

Basically, because they've made up their mind before they speak to you.

6sense surveyed nearly 4,000 B2B buyers for their 2025 report. Before contacting a single business, buyers already had a favorite, and that favorite won roughly 4 out of 5 times. 95% of the time, whoever won was already on the shortlist they wrote on day one.

So the real choosing happens while they're still on their own, reading websites, asking around, scrolling. And all they've got to go on at that point is what each business says about itself... which, sadly, is usually the same handful of things. Hands-on. Exceptional service. Decades of experience. Operational excellence. We actually pick up the phone.

I'm sure all of that's true for you.

It's also on the websites of the other 3 names on that shortlist, so it can't help them choose between you. So they pick the name they already know, or the one that feels safest, or whoever got back to them first.

And the part where you're actually better? They only get to see that once they've hired you.

Which is exactly how you end up saying 'our best customers came to us after getting burned'. From the outside, nothing told them you were the better pick, so it took a bad experience with someone else for them to find out.

👇

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BURN. IT. ALL.

Not the business. The bullshit around it.

This is the final episode of The Art of Positioning Podcast.

And no, this is not a neat little farewell episode where everyone pretends they had the plan all along.

Beatrice sits down with Elijah Drown, the person who helped turn a random conversation into this podcast, has been behind the scenes since day one, and has never been afraid to call her out when she is talking nonsense.

They talk about why The Art of Branding became The Art of Positioning. What changed when the podcast stopped trying to fit inside a familiar category. And what happens when you stop forcing a business, a brand, or a plan to keep going in a direction that no longer fits.

There is talk of letting go of control, unexpected opportunities, guru bullshit, AI templates, the category trap, and why “being nice” is not a positioning strategy.

But there is also a harder question underneath all of it:

What do you burn when you are done pretending the old way still fits?

"Burn it all" is up across platforms - listen here.

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Is "run your own race" good business advice?

For how you run the place, sure. Do the work properly, don't get pulled around by every shiny thing the competition does. Totally with you there.

For getting picked first? Not so much.

The owner I mentioned told me to Google where it comes from, so I did. It's Jimmy Iovine (record producer, Interscope, co-founder of Beats) in the HBO doc The Defiant Ones. Racehorses wear blinders because if they look at the horse on the left or the right, they miss a step.

But in the full quote he's on about what other people think. This person's opinion, that person's opinion. Basically, ignore the critics and go.

Which is kinda hilarious, because the way he built Beats was by looking straight at the horse beside him.

Back in 2006 his gripe was that Apple was selling $400 iPods with $1 earbuds (his words, to Inc). So the plan was, Apple makes the beautiful white thing with all the music in it, and he'd make the beautiful black thing you play it back on.

Then he looked the other way too. The pricey headphones back then were built for audiophiles and tuned to sound accurate. Beats tuned theirs to sound like the big speakers in a recording studio, all drama, and the audiophiles hated it from day one.

So, free earbuds on one side, audiophile kit on the other, and he went where neither of them were.

By early 2014, TIME was writing that Beats had turned headphones from the freebie thrown in the box into a fashion accessory people happily paid $300 for, with revenue past a billion dollars a year. A few months later Apple bought it for $3 billion.

He also told Inc he's always thinking about what Beats isn't, and what's missing. So yeah... the blinders were for the critics. The market, he was watching the whole time.

Should you ignore your competitors?

A few issues back I told you to take zero input from your own industry for a month, and I still stand by that. Don't take your rules from them.

Copying them is one thing. Knowing what your buyer sees when they've got you lined up next to each other is another, and that comparison is happening whether you look or not. That's where the favorite gets picked.

So look at them, only ever the way your buyer would. Whatever they all say, your buyer's already heard 3 times that week. Whatever none of them are saying or doing, that's the gap.

Which is pretty much what I asked that owner back then too. What happens if you use what the horses either side AREN'T doing?

What will the same positioning cost you in 2027?

This is landing right as we’re looking at next year's budget, so let's play it out. Same positioning, same claims, same everything, just a bit more spend behind it.

• You stay on the shortlist, just not at the top of it. Behind whoever they'd already picked before they spoke to anyone.

• You're fighting over the leftovers. If 4 in 5 deals go to the favorite, everyone else on that list is scrapping for the 1 in 5 that's left.

• Tighter times make it worse. Nearly 70% of the buyers in that same report said economic worries pushed them toward safer, known names. If 2027 stays tight, the favorite gets even harder to knock off.

• More marketing spend mostly buys more people seeing the same 5 claims as the other names on the list. You're paying to remind them of the shortlist you're third on.

• And right now, your best customers of 2027 are signing with someone else. You'll meet them next year, once they've been burned.

Blurgh. 🥴

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Inc. Magazine ran a piece last month where we spoke about avoiding that thin spread. When a rebrand is the answer, and when it's lipstick on a pig.

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How do you become the one they pick first?

You can't out-claim them, they can say 'exceptional' just as loud as you can.

So you go and stand somewhere they can't follow you into, and make sure buyers can see it while they're still writing that day-one shortlist, before anyone's had to get burned.

That’s what we do at Badassery by B, and we’re honed in on getting you that one major shift before 2027 rolls in and budgets are settled:

We stalk your competitors and the market properly, see exactly what your buyer sees when you're lined up side by side, and land on one direction they can't follow. Then a 90-day plan for what changes in how you sell, market, hire and decide, so it shows up in the business before your buyer has even reached out.

Before 5 November, I'm taking 5 owners through it.

So, how do you take this and roll?

🏏 Badass tip

Write down the 2 or 3 names your buyers line you up against. The ones they actually mention, which might not be the ones you'd pick.

Then be real with yourself. If a buyer wrote their shortlist today, before speaking to any of you, whose name goes at the top?

If it's not yours, DM me those names. That's how you grab one of the 5 spots, and I'll tell you the first place I'd look.

Your competitors will expose themselves, sure.

I'd rather your best customers didn't have to find that out the hard way first.

🦘 B