why do difficult clients always find us?

Brought to you by The Art Of Positioning Podcast

Because your intake is already filtering for a type of client, you just haven't decided it's doing that.

The signal your firm sends before anyone picks up the phone tells people who you're for, how flexible you are, and whether price is where the conversation starts.

If difficult clients keep walking in, something in that signal invited them.

Isn't that just bad luck?

Nah, marketing brings people to the door. Positioning decides who walks through.

A firm with unclear positioning has an open door.

And you'd reckon that's a good thing, right?

But just because the restaurant down the road has an open door doesn't mean you're going in, nor does it mean you're going to like what you get.

An open door doesn't discriminate; it lets in whoever's looking, and right now that includes every price shopper, every scope-pusher, and every prospect who's already been turned down somewhere else.

Why does it keep happening even after you've updated the website? 👇

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Your brand needs to evolve. But what if you lose the customers who got you here?

Most companies treat repositioning like a marketing project. New logo, new tagline, done. But your marketing team can't fix what's broken in operations. Your sales team can't sell a story your product team hasn't bought into.

Customer experience leader Melissa Eaton and five-time CMO Amy Heidersbach have both guided businesses through repositioning without alienating loyal customers and they share their experiences of repositioning without losing customers in this episode of The Art of Positioning podcast.

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Positioning that stops at the homepage doesn't change the actual filter.

Let's just name some of the touch points here.

Like, the booking form, the discovery call structure, the first email reply.

They're still running on whatever default you set when you started. Or worse, and this is something I've caught myself doing A LOT, is they're at different points: you've made one decision, update what you remember to, but forget some bits.

Literally had someone say, hey I like that you've got your newsletter sign-up after booking a call, here's mine. I blanched and immediately ran to update them all.

So, you see, if nothing changed there, the signal didn't change.

Difficult clients aren't a mystery. They're just a perfect match for a vague signal.

So where does the signal actually come from?👇

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😎 Enjoying your read so far? I've built a diagnostic that shows exactly where your brand may be bleeding revenue.

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Time to get ahead of the competition.

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There are 4 places I use as go-tos with every client.

Pick one. The one that's genuinely, currently true about how your firm works:

• Competitor weaknesses — what everyone else in your space does badly that you already do well. And for the love of all that is glorious, please, please don't say service or that you care more. I'm sure it's true, but that's like saying you show up to dates is a differentiator 😑

• Customer journey entry point — map out the whole journey. Where is everyone else coming in? What are other openings that don't require you to completely change what you're doing?

• Your process or brand quirks — the slightly unusual way you work that makes delivery better. It doesn't have to be something absolutely insane (and yes, insane is subjective), it only has to be distinctive enough to be remembered.

• Industry norms you skip — things everyone in your space does that you quietly just...don't. Like Liquid Death coming in with metal cans, where everyone else is plastic bottles. (It helps here if you spend some time looking at how things are done in other industries)

Now you have to find what's specifically true within it. That's the actual work.

What does "finding what's specifically true" actually mean?

Picking one of the above gives you a general direction.

Let's dig in a bit more.

3 questions per lever — use whichever you chose:

If you chose competitor weaknesses:

• What do you do that you've never seen a competitor mention in their marketing?

• What have clients thanked you for that genuinely surprised you?

• What do competitors promise that you know they quietly fail at?

If you chose entry point:

• At what point in your process do clients usually say "I wish I'd found you sooner"?

• What's the first moment a new client realizes you're different from their last firm?

• What does a difficult client do in the first 30 days that an easy client never does?

If you chose process quirks:

• What do you do as standard that clients mention when they refer you?

• What part of your process would a competitor call overkill?

• What do you do that you've never seen described in another firm's service description?

If you chose industry norms you skip:

• What does everyone in your space do that you genuinely believe hurts the client?

• What have you stopped doing that most competitors still do — and never replaced?

• What question do new clients ask early on that you refuse to answer the way others do?

Your honest answers to those questions are where your positioning lives. Not the general direction. What's inside it.

How do I know if what I've found is real? AKA my positioning BS detector.

Run it through 5 questions. It either passes or it doesn't:

1. Specific — Can someone read this and know exactly what you do, who you serve, or how you're different? Or could it apply to most firms in your space?

2. Verifiable — If a prospect called your last three clients, would all three confirm this is true?

3. Meaningful — When your best clients chose you over a competitor, was it because of this? If they chose you for completely different reasons, this is a placeholder — and if you're not taking a real risk here, are you actually trying?

4. Differentiating — Would a competitor need to fundamentally change their business model to claim this? Or could they copy it by changing a few words?

5. Accountable — If you fail to deliver on this, would a client have grounds to say you didn't meet your promise? If it's too vague to be held to, it's too vague to mean anything.

You can find me using this BS dector in the new video series where I'm repositioning exisiting businesses based in the market and what can be found online about them, here's the latest.

What does passing actually look like?

Most positioning claims I see fail because they sound good and say absolutely nothing. Nadda. Regardless of the vigor and confidence it's said with.

Here's some ideation:

Competitor weakness — Industry | accounting:

"We close books and deliver financials by the 5th business day of the following month. Every month."

• Specific ✓ (5th business day, not "quickly" or "promptly")

• Verifiable ✓ (every client can confirm it, every month)

• Meaningful ✓ (any owner making staffing or pricing decisions based on monthly numbers cares deeply about this)

• Differentiating ✓ (most firms take 2–3 weeks)

• Accountable ✓ (one late delivery breaks the claim)

Industry norm skipped — Industry | wealth management:

"We don't touch a client's portfolio until their financial plan is complete and signed off. Doesn't matter how urgent it feels. Plan first, every time."

• Specific ✓ (plan before portfolio, no exceptions)

• Verifiable ✓ (every client experiences this sequence)

• Meaningful ✓ (anyone burned by product-first advisors immediately recognizes what this means)

• Differentiating ✓ (most AUM-based advisors go straight to investment recommendations)

• Accountable ✓ (if the portfolio moves before the plan exists, the promise is broken)

Neither can be stolen by a copy change. Both hold you to something specific that you make business decisions on. That's the bar.

🏏 Badass tip: Pick one lever → excavate → audit → install it somewhere real.

Step 1 (10 mins): Choose your lever. Write one honest paragraph about what's genuinely, currently true in that direction.

Step 2 (15 mins): Run the 3 excavation questions for that lever. Write the answers as they are, not as you wish they were.

Step 3 (30 mins): Take the strongest, most honest answer and run it through the BS audit. Fail more than two questions? It's not positioning yet — go back and find the real one.

Step 4 (today): Take what passes and install it in one entry-point touchpoint. Not the homepage. Somewhere that filters people before the first live conversation, be it a booking form, an auto-reply, a discovery call intro, or a proposal template.

Step 5 (next 10 inquiries): Watch what shifts. Not volume. Quality. Different questions, better-fit people, fewer fee comparisons. If nothing shifts, step back and review where it's being shown / how it's resonating (yep, ask these inquiries what made them reach out) / how it's being said, and adapt.

One final check worth doing: send your claim to someone outside your business who doesn't know it well. Ask if they can tell who you're for and how you're different. If they struggle, go back to step 3.

The real cost of not doing this

Every week the signal stays vague, the open door stays open.

Difficult clients don't hesitate at a vague signal. They walk straight through.

And bring comparison quotes, a scope that was never agreed to, and the assumption that "flexible" is your default policy.

Meanwhile, the right client is actively trying to figure out if your firm is for them.

If your positioning can't tell them, someone else's will.

One honest, specific, accountable claim installed in one real place is what changes who walks through the door.

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Need some help with it? Drop me a DM.