Different Is Better Than Better
Most service providers try to win by being better.
Better credentials. More experience. Higher-quality deliverables. A longer track record.
These things matter, but leading with them puts you in a comparison set with everyone else making the same claims. “Better” is a contest you’re always at risk of losing, because someone can always show up with more credentials, more years, more case studies.
Author Sally Hogshead put it simply: different is better than better.
But let me qualify that by saying we’re not talking about being different for its own sake. I mean different in a way that’s meaningful to a specific group of people, that resonates with a shared worldview, a shared frustration, and a shared belief about how things should work.
That kind of difference can’t be copied by adding a credential or undercutting on price. It lives in who you are and what you actually believe.
This is what I call the winning difference. Not the most impressive version of what already exists, but a genuinely distinct position that makes the right people feel like you’re the only person who really gets it.
What the Schlitz Story Actually Teaches
Hopkins didn’t invent anything. He also didn’t improve the beer. He found something true that no one had bothered to say, and he said it first.
