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Have you ever looked around your industry and wondered how you’re supposed to stand out when so many people offer the same thing you do? 

 

In this episode, I’m chatting about why bringing more of yourself into your marketing can help you stop competing on what you do and start showing people why they might want to do it with you.

 

What I Chat About:

• What a street full of artists in Sevilla taught me about standing out in a crowded industry
• Why offering the same service doesn’t mean you have to market it the same way
• How your personality, experiences, values, perspective, and process differentiate your business
• Why everyday conversations and experiences can become some of your best storytelling content
• A simple way to look at what happened in your life last week and turn it into marketing this week

 

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If you spend enough time online, it’s easy to convince yourself that your industry is too saturated. There are thousands of accountants, consultants, coaches, website designers, marketers, and other service providers talking about similar topics and selling similar services. You can start wondering why someone would choose you when they have so many other options.

I was reminded of this recently while walking around downtown Sevilla, Spain, where I live. There were artists everywhere. It felt like every few feet I came across someone else creating and selling their work. Technically, they were all doing the same thing: creating art and trying to sell it to people walking by.

But their work didn’t feel the same at all. One artist painted traditional Spanish scenes with bulls and flamenco dancers. Another created portraits of famous people on textured paper that looked rough around the edges and slightly imperfect. Another was creating an incredibly detailed chalk drawing directly on the ground. There was even another artist painting Spanish landmarks.

They were in the same city, on the same street, selling the same general thing. Yet each one gave people a completely different reason to stop. And people did. There were potential buyers gathered around all of them.

That experience made me think about how often we look at competition in business and assume that because someone else does what we do, we need to find an entirely new way to describe our services. But standing out isn’t always about inventing something nobody else offers. Sometimes it starts with allowing people to see more of the person behind the service.

 

Your Service Isn’t the Only Thing People Are Choosing

 

There are a lot of marketers online. Some specialize in ads, while others focus on funnels, analytics, content creation, conversion, messaging, or lead generation. Even people who use the same professional title can have completely different approaches to their work.

The same thing happens in almost every service-based industry. Two people can both call themselves website designers, but one may specialize in Squarespace while another works exclusively in WordPress. Their processes may be different. Their ideal clients may be different. Their design styles may be different. Even the experience of working with each person may feel completely different.

This is something I saw often when I worked primarily with financial professionals. Someone once asked me how I could write marketing content for multiple accountants without everything sounding the same. On the surface, it was a reasonable question. After all, accountants often need to talk about many of the same topics: tax season, estimated tax payments, deadlines, bookkeeping, and tax strategies.

But once I started talking to my clients, they never felt the same to me. One accountant might build her business around family and talk openly about creating a company that allowed her to spend more time with her children. Another might care deeply about sustainable living and allow those values to shape the way she communicates. Someone else might prioritize self-care and have strong boundaries around how she runs her business.

Those details matter because people aren’t only evaluating a list of services. They’re experiencing your perspective, your process, your personality, your values, your experiences, and even the way you make them feel. Your professional expertise matters, but the way you bring that expertise to your clients is part of your marketing too.

 

The Human Side of Your Business Is Part of Your Differentiation

 

When we think about differentiation, we often immediately look at competitors. We analyze their offers, websites, content, pricing, positioning, and messaging and ask ourselves what we can do differently. There is value in understanding the market, but differentiation doesn’t only come from looking outward.

Sometimes you need to look inward. How do you approach your work? Why do you run your business the way you do? What experiences have shaped the advice you give clients? What do you believe about your industry that affects how you serve people? These things may feel ordinary to you because you live with them every day, but they can be exactly what helps someone understand your business.

This is one reason I care so much about the human side of marketing. Strategy is important. I can look at competitors, conduct a SWOT analysis, identify strengths and weaknesses, and find opportunities. But I also want to know what’s happening in someone’s life and business because those experiences often reveal the stories that make their marketing more personal.

You don’t necessarily have to turn every part of your personal life into content. Bringing more of yourself into your marketing isn’t the same as sharing everything. It’s about recognizing the parts of your experiences, values, personality, and perspective that naturally connect to the work you do and deciding which ones you’re comfortable sharing.

When you start looking at your marketing this way, the question begins to change. Instead of constantly asking, “How can I be different from everyone else?” you can start asking, “What is already different about the way I think, work, communicate, and serve my clients?”

 

Your Best Marketing Stories May Already Be Happening Around You

 

One of the interesting things about storytelling is that people often believe they don’t have enough stories to tell. In reality, I’ve found that stories naturally come out when I’m simply having conversations with my clients.

Sometimes a client call can feel like two people catching up about business and life. We’ll talk about what has been happening, what they’re working through, something a customer said, something that frustrated them, or something they recently realized. The client may not think anything particularly important was said, but I’ll hear something and immediately recognize that there’s a piece of content hiding inside the conversation.

That’s because we don’t always recognize our own stories as stories. We tend to think something needs to be dramatic, deeply personal, or life-changing before it’s worth talking about. But storytelling in marketing can start with something much smaller: an observation, a conversation, a client interaction, a decision you made, or something you noticed while walking through your city.

That’s exactly what happened with the artists in Sevilla. I wasn’t attending a marketing conference or sitting down to brainstorm content ideas. I was walking around the city and noticed several artists working near one another. The experience made me think about differentiation, competition, and why having a lot of people in the same industry doesn’t mean everyone is offering the same experience.

Your everyday life can work the same way. Instead of separating “content ideas” from everything else you experience, start paying attention to the moments that make you think about your work differently. Those connections are often where some of your most natural storytelling begins.

 

Storytelling Helps People Understand Why You Are Different

 

Storytelling isn’t valuable simply because stories make content more interesting. For a service provider, storytelling can help potential clients understand the things that are difficult to communicate through a list of services or credentials.

A website can tell someone that you’re an accountant. Your LinkedIn profile can list your certifications. Your services page can explain your packages. Those things establish what you do, but they don’t always communicate what it feels like to work with you or why you approach your work differently from another professional with similar qualifications.

Stories can fill in some of those gaps. They allow you to demonstrate your values instead of simply listing them. They can show how you think through problems, what you notice, what matters to you, and how your experiences influence the way you serve clients.

This is especially important when your industry feels crowded. If everyone is talking about the same evergreen topics, trying to win by finding an entirely new topic can become exhausting. Your perspective on a familiar topic can be the differentiator.

The artists I saw in Sevilla didn’t stop creating because other artists were on the same street. Each artist brought a different style to the same general craft, and there were people interested in buying from each of them. Your marketing can do something similar by helping people see the individual behind the service.

 

Start With What Happened Last Week

 

If bringing more storytelling into your marketing feels overwhelming, you don’t need to create an elaborate brand story or dig through your entire life looking for something meaningful to say. Start much smaller.

Think about what happened in your life and business last week. Maybe you had a conversation with a client that changed how you thought about something. Maybe you made a business decision and realized why it mattered. Perhaps you noticed something while running errands, traveling, spending time with family, or simply going through your normal day.

Then ask yourself how that experience connects to your business. What did it make you think about? Is there a lesson you can pull from it? Does it demonstrate something you believe about your work? Could your ideal client relate to the experience or learn something from the connection you made?

That’s essentially what I did with a walk through Sevilla. I saw a group of artists, noticed how different they were despite working within the same craft, and connected that observation to something I talk about all the time in marketing: standing out.

You can do the same thing. Your story doesn’t need to be extraordinary because it already has something your competitor’s content can’t duplicate: it happened to you. When you connect those experiences to your expertise, your marketing starts giving people a clearer picture of not only what you do, but who they’re choosing to do it with.