Lesson 1 of 5
Say who it's for and why you, in one sentence
One sentence: who you're for and why they should pick you
The idea
Two burger places sit on the same street. One says “tasty food for everyone”. The other says “the best smash burger in town, ready in five minutes”. Which one do you remember? Which one would you send a friend to?
The second one has a position: it decided who it's for and why you'd pick it. You get there in three steps.
Step 1
Split the market
Into groups that buy for different reasons
Step 2
Pick your group
The one you can serve better than anyone
Step 3
Own one idea
What they should think of when they think of you
Then write it down as one sentence in four parts.
- 1
Who it's for
One group, described by their problem
- 2
Instead of
What they'd use if you didn't exist
- 3
Why you
The one difference they care about
- 4
Proof
Something a stranger can check
Must-haves
- What every option already has
- Missing one rules you out
- Never your headline
Your difference
- What only you do, that they care about
- The reason to pick you
- Say it everywhere
Today, with AI
More people now meet your business inside a ChatGPT answer before they see your website. Ask it for “a tool that writes proposals from a client brief”, and it repeats the clearest sentence it can find about each tool.
A vague sentence used to cost you clicks. Now it can keep you out of the answer completely.
What AI does well
Writing twenty versions of your sentence in a minute, and showing where your rivals all say the same thing.
Where it goes wrong
Left alone, it writes a sentence that fits everyone, which means it says nothing.
What stays yours
Choosing who you're for. Pick the version you'd defend to a customer's face, then try it on five real ones.
Check yourself
Do it in the studio
Try it here first
Write your sentence
Fill in the five parts for your own business. The sentence builds itself; copy it into the studio in the first step below.
Yours
For freelancers and small studios who lose evenings to proposals, Quoteleaf turns a client's brief into a priced proposal in two minutes, unlike proposal tools and the Google Doc they copy every time. Paste a real brief and see.
- 01
Open Your report → Documents and Read Marketing strategy: how the studio describes you and your customers now.
free - 02
On Your report → Competitors, pick the closest rival. Open their homepage and copy their first sentence. For a full study, Spy on a competitor, 25 credits.
free - 03
Paste your sentence into In your own words → Where I am taking it. Press Save — the team reads it from now on: every specialist reads it first.
free - 04
Run Roast my homepage and check that your first screen says the same thing.
free
Done when A stranger reads your first screen and can tell you who it's for and why you.
Go deeper
University courses on the same topic, if you want to go further.
Wharton
Marketing Management (MKTG 6110)The core course: choosing customers, positioning, pricing and more
London Business School
Marketing, in the MBA coreThe basics of marketing strategy and how to judge a marketing plan