Swap the logo on your website for a competitor’s, and there’s a good chance nobody would notice.

Swap the logo and nobody would notice

That’s not because your businesses are the same. You’re just using the same words. Friendly. Personalized. Client-focused. Those words feel safe and sound professional, which is probably why so many people in your industry use them. But when a customer reads three websites that all say the same thing, she can’t tell who’d actually be better for her.

Stand out from competitors with what you won’t do

You probably already know what makes you different. A lot of the time, it’s hiding in the things you refuse to do.

Think about the habits in your industry that make you wince, like the contract nobody can get out of, the quote that doubles once the work starts or the “custom” plan that’s clearly a template. Chances are you’d never do that to your own clients.

When you name the thing you push back against, customers get it right away, because they’ve lived it. They know what it’s like to be stuck in that contract or surprised by that bill. “No surprise fees” tells someone more about you than “transparent pricing” ever will.

Make it matter to her, and make it true

The difference has to matter to your ideal client, though, not just to you. Ask what the “normal” way costs your customer. Maybe it’s money, time or the feeling that nobody’s listening. Then say what she gets from you instead. “I don’t do long contracts” is a start. “You can leave any month, so I have to keep earning your business” tells her why she should care.

It also has to be true every single time. If you poke fun at surprise fees and then send someone an invoice with a charge they didn’t expect, the joke’s on you. Once you say it, customers will hold you to it.

This is where a bit of mockery can help. A little humour about a habit everyone in your industry recognizes makes your position stick. People laugh because it’s true, and by the time they’re done laughing, they know which side you’re on. Make fun of the practice, not the people doing it, and only joke about what you can back up.

Watch this in action

Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads for Claude are so good at mocking their competitor. They make fun of chatbots that slip a sales pitch into the middle of helpful advice, and by the end you know exactly where Claude stands: no ads. Notice they didn’t even have to mention their competition’s name.

It was so effective even Sam Altman weighed in

OpenAI’s CEO answered the ads with what’s basically an essay. He opened by saying they were funny and he laughed, then called them “clearly dishonest” and spent paragraph after paragraph explaining OpenAI’s side.

Video 2 made me laugh right out loud – tell me your favourite.

So here’s where all this lands. Sound like everyone else, and customers have to guess why they’d choose you. Instead, name the industry habit you’d never go along with, show what that means for the people you serve, and keep your word on it.

And if you can make the old way look a little ridiculous while you’re at it, even better. You can do it on your website or social profiles with a few honest sentences.