♦️ 12 differences between incumbents and challengers (and how challengers win)
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Every industry has its incumbents. Established players who come at the top of buyers’ category ladders. Like McKinsey and Accenture for consulting. Salesforce and Hubspot for CRM. Or Adobe and Canva for creative software. And then you have the challengers. New and upcoming players who try to get a hold in the market. They compete against the incumbents of their categories. Incumbents and challengers have key differences:
These differences dictate the laws of competition. So you should position your business accordingly. Challengers can’t beat incumbents by imitating them. They don’t have the same strengths. But yet, many challengers make the mistake of copying the incumbents. They go wide too early instead of going deep. They copy their safe, vague language. And they try to make their solutions similar. Guess what buyers choose then? Of course the “safe” choice. So if your brand is a challenger, don’t try to beat incumbents at their own game. Turn your size into an advantage. Be specific. Be different. Talk different. "We’re great at what we do. We just don’t know how to express our real value on our site."The result? Confused prospects. And confused prospects don’t buy. They scroll. They bounce. They forget. We help B2B brands find what makes them different and say it in a way that makes buyers think: “This is exactly what we need.” So your website and content don’t just sound better — they sell. Want to stop losing sales to weak messaging? Fill out this form, let's chat. You can reply to this email with your thoughts and feedback. I'd be happy to hear from you — I read and reply to all messages. And you can connect with me here on LinkedIn. Ozan |
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