Your buyers already know what makes you the obvious choice. Getting them to say it out loud takes a better question than the one most owners ask.
The Clarity series starts with an uncomfortable claim: the thing that makes you the obvious choice is usually invisible to you, because to you it is just how the work gets done. The fastest way around that blind spot is to ask the people who chose you. Most owners do ask — and then ask in a way that guarantees a useless answer.
- “Why did you choose us?” invites a verdict. You want the evidence behind it.
- The most valuable detail is almost always what nearly stopped them.
- Five conversations is enough. You are listening for a repeated phrase, not a statistic.
The question that gets you nothing
People are generous, especially to a business they liked enough to buy from. Ask why they chose you and you will hear that you were easy to deal with, the price seemed fair, someone recommended you. All of it true. None of it usable, because a competitor could put the same three sentences on their homepage tomorrow.
The problem is not the buyer. It is that the question asks for a verdict, and a verdict is a summary with all the detail removed. What you actually want is the moment they decided, and the thing that nearly stopped them deciding.
- “You were really easy to work with.”
- “The price seemed fair.”
- “You came recommended.”
- “Two others quoted without ever coming to look.”
- “You were the only one who told me I did not need the bigger unit.”
- “My neighbour said you actually turn up on the day you say.”
Who to call
Five conversations will do it. Choose buyers from the last six months so the decision is still fresh, and lean towards the ones who took a while to say yes. A buyer who agreed immediately cannot tell you what nearly stopped them, because nothing did — and that hesitation is the part you are mining for.
The four questions
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What were you doing about this before you called us?
This establishes the alternative they were living with. Often it is not a competitor at all — it is doing nothing, or doing it themselves badly.
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Who else did you look at?
You will get the real shortlist, which is rarely the one you assume. Owners benchmark against the best in the industry; buyers benchmark against whoever answered the phone.
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What nearly stopped you?
The most valuable question in the set. The hesitation names the thing you had to overcome, and whatever overcame it is usually the edge you cannot see.
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What would you tell a friend who was hesitating?
People are markedly more specific on someone else's behalf than their own. This question routinely produces the one sentence you can use verbatim.
How to hear past the politeness
Ask the question, then stop talking. The first answer is the polite one; the useful sentence almost always arrives after the pause you are tempted to fill. If you get a compliment, follow it with “what makes you say that?” and wait again.
When a buyer stops using your words and starts using their own, you have reached the useful part of the conversation. Write that sentence down exactly as they said it, not tidied up.
What to do with the answers
You are not looking for a statistic. Five people is not a sample, and treating it like one will send you chasing percentages instead of language. You are looking for the same phrase twice.
When two unrelated buyers describe you the same way, that is not a coincidence — it is your position, already written in words a buyer would use. Take it into the one-sentence format in Finding Your Obvious-Choice Edge and see whether it survives being said out loud to someone outside your industry.
Common questions
What if we do not have five recent buyers?
Ask the ones you have, then add the two most recent people who enquired and did not buy. A lost buyer will tell you what was missing far more directly than a happy one will tell you what was there.
Should we record the calls?
Ask permission, and take notes on exact phrasing either way. The value is in the buyer's own words, and those are the first thing lost when you write up a conversation from memory an hour later.
Who should make the calls?
The owner, for the first five. It is tempting to delegate, but the point is to hear the hesitation yourself — second-hand notes arrive already summarised, which is the exact problem you started with.
