Why your first attempt at your edge always sounds generic
The sameness trap for senior SEs and revenue pros. The three reasons the first version is never sharp, and one thing to do this week.
Tuesday’s article named the sentence I hear most: I know what I bring, I just cannot say it without sounding like everyone else. Here is why that happens, and why it is not a writing problem.
Walk into any room of senior solutions engineers, account executives, or revenue leaders and ask them to describe their value. You will hear the same five words. Consultative. Strategic. Technical and business-minded. Customer-obsessed. Trusted advisor. Every one of them is telling the truth. Every one of them sounds identical.
This matters because the read on you is built from language, and if your language is category language, the read cannot distinguish you from the category. You are handing decision-makers the exact words that keep you filed under your function. The sameness is not a cosmetic problem to fix with better adjectives. It is the mechanism that holds the ceiling in place.
If you keep landing on words that sound like everyone else, the next pieces in this series are about getting underneath them. Start with the free sequence.
