Open five B2B homepages in your market. "Built for growth." "All-in-one platform." "Best-in-class." "Scale with confidence." You could swap the logos and nobody would notice. The words are interchangeable. The effect is nothing. Nobody leans in. Nobody thinks "that's me."
The first instinct is to blame the copywriter. Hire a better one. Run another workshop. Test new headlines. The copy isn't the problem. It's a symptom of something else.
You haven't decided who you're for
Companies sound the same because they haven't answered the hard questions: Who exactly is this for? What exactly changes for them? Why us and not the next option? Without those answers, every headline is a guess. When you guess, you grab the same safe phrases everyone else uses.
"Best-in-class" is what you say when you can't say what makes you best. "All-in-one" appears when you can't name the one thing you do better than anyone. "Built for growth" appears when you're not sure who is growing or what growth even means for them. These phrases are placeholders. They're comfortable. They're also invisible.
Better writing won't fix it
Clear messaging comes from clear positioning. If you don't know who you're for, you can't write a headline that makes them stop. If you don't know what changes for them, you can't promise it. If you don't know why they'd choose you, you end up with claims that could apply to anyone.
You hire a copywriter. A good one. They tighten the sentences. Improve the structure. But they're still working with fog. They can make the fog sound more professional. They can't make it specific. You need to know who you're for first. Then the writing gets easier.
What you actually need
To sound different, you have to be different in a way you can say. That means:
- One group you're willing to own. Not "B2B companies" or "growing teams." A real group with a real situation.
- One outcome you promise that others don't. Not "save time" or "increase efficiency." Something specific you could put in quotes.
- One reason they'd choose you. Not "we're the best." The specific reason someone would pick you over alternatives.
When those are clear, the copy gets easier. The writer finally knows what to say. They're not guessing. They're translating something that exists.
Answer the questions first
Before you rewrite the homepage again, answer the questions. Who exactly is this for? What exactly changes for them? Why us? If the team can't agree, that's the real work. Not the copy. The copy will stay generic until you know who you're for.
Test it this way. Can you write one sentence that would make someone say "that's me" in under three seconds? If not, you don't have a copy problem. You have a positioning problem. Fix that first. Then the words change on their own.
