Choose You: Selling Without Trash Talk

A prospect looks you in the eye and asks, “Why should I choose you over someone else?” Your mind races, your pitch speeds up, and the urge to compare kicks in. We slow that moment down and turn it into a clear, confident answer rooted in discovery, principles, and proof.

We start with the questions that actually matter: revenue targets, sales goals, and the outcomes a client would recognize as success. From there, we outline a practical framework that replaces competitor talk with substance. You’ll hear how we set expectations for monthly access, create accountability with transparent reporting, and use simple decision rules to evaluate channels. A real client example brings it to life: when geofencing underperformed, we shifted budget into Meta ads plus organic content and saw an immediate lift while cutting costs. That pivot wasn’t luck; it was process.

Along the way, we dig into what real differentiation sounds like for small businesses. It isn’t louder promises or longer feature lists. It’s the discipline to tell a client when something isn’t working, the willingness to challenge assumptions, and the habit of making timely changes based on goals and data. We show you how to bake your “why us” into the sales conversation from the start so prospects don’t need to ask. If you’re ready to sell with integrity and win on clarity, hit play, take notes, and then share your own one-line differentiator with us.

If this helped sharpen your pitch, follow the show, leave a quick review, and share this episode with a friend who needs a stronger “why you.”

Chapters

• 1:20 Welcome And Focus For Today
• 1:51 Networking Story Sets The Stage
• 2:54 Discovery Questions That Matter
• 4:30 The Unexpected Sales Question
• 5:36 Defining Differentiation Without Negativity
• 7:46 Proof Through ROI And Pivots
• 9:48 Turning Lessons Into A Sales Pitch
• 10:38 Your Weekly Challenge And Close

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:54

Hey y'all, what's up? Welcome to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. I am your host, Shelby McFarlane. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode with me. I love to be able to share all of my tips and tricks for marketing your small business wherever you are, however you need to. Um, and I am here to give you all of all the strategies and the things that you should do. So today I want to talk about an interesting question that I was asked um last week at a consultation. So I met, so you know how important networking is, right? And I met a gentleman who owned an insurance agency here in town at a networking, like leads group. I actually filled in for a client because she couldn't make it and she needed someone to fill in her spot for the day. So I said, sure, yeah, I'll go, I'll fill in for you, I'll meet some new people, that's great. Um, it happens to be the part of town I don't network a lot in, so that was another reason why I said yes, because I don't always say yes to different leads groups around for sure, because sometimes if you only go once or twice, you don't really get a lot of business out of it. Um, but anyway, so I met him at this Leeds group and um we finally connected like a week later, and then we scheduled a time to meet in person. Um, again, I don't normally meet in person, but it was here local, so I was okay with that. I do a lot of virtual consultations because it's easier for me, it's easier for the people I do work with, um, and it's just a lot sometimes a little bit more compatible for schedules and less uh less hard to like try to get a good time. So I go in and I meet with him, I meet his whole team, and we're talking about like his goals for marketing. Those are some of the questions I ask are like, what are your goals for marketing? What have you been doing for marketing? Um, like what budget do you have? A lot of times I don't get an answer for that one. Um, and then also I will ask, like, okay, well, if this is what you're doing now, what would you like to see different in the future? And that's a really important question for me to ask because a lot of people do start um they'll do marketing, but then they don't know what they like or don't like about it, right? They'll be like, well, you know, I do social media, but it doesn't really work for me. Or I do a lot of networking stuff and that doesn't really work for me. And it's like, okay, well, actually, let's get down to like if it doesn't work for you, so what would be the goal on the other side of that? What would have to happen for it to work for you? What would that result look like to you? So we went through all of these. Um, he had a really good grasp on like his marketing as a whole. He knows where he's going, he has his goals lined out for 2026. Um, he knows what kind of budget that he's working with, he knows what he wants to make. So having that marketing budget, you have to know, okay, this is what my revenue goal is, or this is what I want to try to get to, this is my sales goal, that type of thing. So we went through all that, and I went through my proposal. I had my computer there, I'm like setting it all up, and I'm explaining to him, okay, well, this is well due for this amount of money, and he's like, okay, okay. And then he comes at me with a question I have never been asked before. He said, So why should I choose you over somebody else? Like, what do you do differently? And when I like younger Shelby would have like jumped on, right? I would have been like, oh, well, I would have had all these like answers really fast. But the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that I don't really need to jump to an answer. I just need to kind of like think about it for a second and then answer. And I sat there and I'm like, man, in my mind, I'm thinking, I've never been asked this question before. I've always been like asked, like, okay, what can you do for me for how much money? And I'll let you know. And then they go and they do their compare and contrast on who they like and who they don't like. And I just kind of assume that most people choose over like what the budget is or if they like the person or something like that. So my answer to him was, you know what? I have no idea what those people are offering you. I don't know how much they charge, I don't know what their services are, I don't know what their niche is. I also don't know how long they've been doing this. So I told him, I know that I've been doing this for 13 years. I know that I'm good at what I do, and the thing that I hope sets me apart from other people is that I'm 100% authentic and transparent with you. I will tell you when things are going bad, I'll tell you when things are going good, and then also you have me as your salesperson. A lot of times you will have um a salesperson and then you have like a point of contact. And so in my business, I make sure that my clients know they can reach out to me. They have an opportunity to talk to me one time a month at minimum. If they need me more than that, they're more than welcome to call me, text me, email me. Um, but at least they know like that expectation. They have at least 30 minutes with me every month that is on the calendar for them. So I'm going through all this and telling him about that. And he if he ended up hiring me on the spot, which was insane because I don't normally have people say yes like right then. And it made me feel great, but also thinking back now, I'm like, okay, well, that was a week ago, and how can I actually answer that question better? I'm just trying to like formulate an answer to that because maybe I can work that answer into my sales pitch now, where they don't have to ask me that question. I'm already answering that question in my sales pitch. So that's my challenge to you today. How are you different from your competitors? But also, why should somebody choose you over them? And this is without talking trash. Like, I will not talk trash about my competition. I do not do it. I you will not hear me say a bad word about them in public on a freaking social media post, you'll never hear me talk about it at a networking event. I think it's very important to not start negativity or spread negativity because that will come back. So, how are you gonna sell yourself to somebody over your competitor without talking shit about them, essentially? So, how are you gonna do that? Because man, is it easy to jump on that wagon of like, oh well, I can blah blah blah blah blah, you know, well, they don't do this, this, this, and this. It's like, oh, let's stop talking about what they don't do. Let's start start talking about what you do that sets you apart. That's also it could be something that they do, right? Because in my mind, I'm like, well, I guess this competitor could do the same thing as me. They could do the three posts a week, they could do SEO, they could do this many uh updates on the website, they could do this, they could do that. I don't know what they do, and so it was important for me to not focus on what they do or don't do and focus on what I can actually give my client. That's authenticity, that's open communication, that's transparency. If you ask some of my clients now, I will literally tell them, like, you know what, this marketing thing did not work for us. So next month we're gonna do this, this, and this. Or I've even done geofencing for a client. We've done it for about three months. I'm looking at the numbers and I'm like, ah, this is just not right. And I'm asking what the ROI is on her end. So I switched that geofencing budget to a meta ad budget, and we increased our ROI immediately. She saw an immediate return. We started doing organic posts plus social ads on Meta with the same amount of money. Actually, I think I saved her a hundred dollars a month that we were doing on geofencing. So those are the types of things that my clients can expect from me. And now that I've been asked this in an actual consultation, I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna start selling myself that way. And those types of moments are so important to me. Like, how can I learn from that moment? I mean, doing this for 13 years, and I just learn, like, oh, you know what? In my sales pitch, I should probably tell them like this is why you should choose me, instead of like, hey, these are the results that I've gotten, these are the things that I can do for you, and and take that, but then layer it with you also get open communication with me. You also get transparency. If things aren't working, I'm gonna be straight up with you. You also get any kind of uh like I guess the word would be um suggestions, or you could get professional advice about your marketing. Like, I am not afraid if someone comes to me, I'm not afraid of being like, that's not gonna work. Or why don't we change your goals to this? Or why don't we um why don't we sit over here and think about putting more money towards this way? I'm not afraid to challenge somebody when they have their mind set on something because I'm a professional in marketing for a reason. They're a professional in their business for a reason, and then together we can make it successful. So again, your challenge this week. I want you to take this podcast. I want you to think about how I can sell myself and tell somebody I am better than my competitors without saying the words, I am better than my competitors. I'll catch you next week on another episode of Marketing Happy Hour Podcast. See ya.