Are you just better—or are you the only option that makes sense?
Don’t start with what you want to sell. Start with what they can’t afford to ignore.
THINK ON IT: Are you just better—or are you the only option that makes sense?
Your business might be humming along today—and if so, enjoy it. But don’t confuse being busy with being unbeatable.
Most businesses compete by trying to be “better.” Better price. Better features. Better service. That works—for a while. Until someone else comes along and matches or undercuts you. Better is fragile. It’s incremental. It’s easy to imitate.
To break through, you need to stop playing the better game and start playing a different one entirely. You need to create an offer that doesn’t just improve on the status quo—it rewrites the rules. Something so compelling, so unexpected, and so aligned with your customer’s priorities that it changes the conversation entirely.
That’s the power of a bold offer.
A bold offer doesn’t compete on comparison—it competes on clarity. It reframes how buyers see their problem and makes your solution the only one that makes real sense.
Bold offers answer three unspoken questions B2B buyers have:
Why should I do anything? (Is this problem worth solving?)
Why should I do it now? (Is it urgent?)
Why should I do it with you? (Are you truly different?)
Weak offers leave one or more of these questions unanswered. Bold offers knock all three out in a single stroke.
But to create a bold offer you can’t start with what you want to sell. You need to start with what they can’t afford to ignore.
It’s not just about repackaging your existing product with more polish or better messaging. Creating a bold offer is a strategic act of value creation. It may still use your current capabilities—but they are framed and delivered in a radically more compelling way.
It might mean:
Turning your service into a productized experience
Reorienting your engagement model around a quick-win pain point
Offering outcome-based pricing instead of hourly fees
Creating onboarding or support models that remove friction and build confidence
Bold doesn’t mean louder. It means sharper. It’s not about volume—it’s about precision.
And when you find that sharp edge—when your offer is both economically relevant and distinct—your entire business feels the lift. Sales conversations accelerate. Teams align around a clear value promise. And customers stop asking, “Why you?” and start asking, “How soon can we start?”
Isn’t that worth asking your team, “How can we become the only option that makes sense for our customers?”
In the Act on It section below I offer a roadmap to creating a bold offer for your business. (Premium Members only. Become a Premium Member. Paid subscribers get access to over 100 tools and how-tos on implementing strategic topics, including a 7-part series to help leaders build their own strategic capacity.)
"Customers buy for their reasons, not yours.” — Orvel Ray Wilson
Thanks for being a subscriber to Strategic CEO. If you enjoyed this post, please share it with a friend or colleague.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Strategic CEO to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.