Welcome to your weekly check in. Every week, The Scale Signal cuts through the noise to give you one perspective shift, so you can scale smarter without losing your sanity.

This week, we're looking at why comparison is killing your growth, and what happens when you stop trying to be better and start focusing on building connection instead.

Let’s go.

~ 8 minute read

You're doing your groceries. You turn the corner and there are two displays of jam. One has 24 varieties. The other has 6.

Which one catches your attention?

It could be the start of a bad joke. It was actually a piece of research conducted in the early 2000s.

Well as it turns out, the 24-jam display attracted more attention. People stopped, looked, seemed curious. The 6-jam display got less initial interest. But interestingly, when it came to actual sales, the 6-jam display sold ten times more.

More choice created curiosity. Less choice created action.

The insight wasn't really about jams. It was about friction. When you simplify the decision, people move. When you add complexity, even if it looks like you're offering more value, you slow them down.

I often see the same pattern with how people talk about their businesses.

They list everything they do. All the ways they're better. All the features. All the benefits. All the value they provide. It feels like good marketing. In practice, it's the 24-jam problem. You're creating work for your customer at the exact moment you need them to feel certain.

And in a market where everyone's saying roughly the same things, where AI is flooding channels with content that sounds professional but generic, friction kills fast.

The question isn't whether you're better. The real question is simply whether someone gets excited when you explain what you do.

🧠 The Founder’s Edge

Here's what often happens when founders talk about their businesses.

Most of them focus on comparison. They're explaining how they're different from competitors, why their approach is better, what makes them stand out. It sounds strategic. After all, how many times have you heard you needed to build a USP? But in reality, it is also a trap.

As soon as you position yourself as "better than," you're competing on someone else's terms. You're playing their game. And whoever has the bigger budget, the longer track record, or the more recognisable brand will eventually win that fight. Said differently, it's probably not you.

And there's something else that happens too. When you lead with comparison, whether you like it or not, you're asking your customer to do mental work. They have to evaluate. They have to weigh options. They have to think.

That's friction. And friction doesn't just slow decisions, it often makes them stall.

So rather than asking how you can be better, why don't you start asking yourself how you can be the obvious choice instead?

When someone hears what you do, they should lean in. Not because you've listed features or explained benefits, but because something just clicked. They feel it before they think it.

That's not about being louder or more clever. It's about connection. And connection doesn't come from comparison. It comes from something very intangible: you've struck a chord.

🧭 The Sanity Check

Sometimes founders spend months refining their message. They can explain their business clearly. They know their value proposition. They've mapped out their competitive advantages.

Then they're chatting with someone new, explain what they do, and get a polite nod before the conversation moves on. (You know the nod. We've all done the nod.)

These moments tell you everything.

If you can't make someone excited about what you do in a casual conversation, your marketing won't do it either. And somehow imagining that your message will miraculously connect behind a screen is simply foolish. Marketing is just that same conversation, amplified through a different channel.

Now the issue isn't usually that your business is wrong (I mean, it can be, but let's assume it's not). It's that the way you're talking about it is flat. It's rational. It's feature-focused. It doesn't make one feel anything.

And people don't buy rationally. They buy emotionally. They justify their purchase rationally afterwards.

But here's what makes this hard to see: you know your business intimately. You know what problems it solves, how it works, why it matters. That depth of knowledge makes it almost impossible to hear yourself the way a stranger does.

Strangers don't have your context. They don't know the category. They're not comparing features. They're not doing detailed analysis. They're getting on with their life and asking themselves one question: "Is this for me?"

If the answer isn't immediate, you've lost them.

And this is very often where I see founders go wrong. They think the problem is that their messaging needs to be more refined. But clarity isn't the issue in that case. Connection is.

And it's not about charisma or sales skills. It's about whether you've done the work to understand what your customer actually cares about. Not what you think they should care about. What they actually feel.

🚀 Freedom at Scale

So how do you shift this?

The work starts with letting go of comparison. Stop asking how you're better. Stop listing features when you're talking to people. Stop trying to out-position competitors. And yes it's hard but frankly if you're not a no brainer to the person you're trying to reach, then you're probably going to have a very expensive business model to maintain over the long term so you probably want to get this right early on.

So, the quick sanity check:

When you're inside the business, you can't necessarily see what's creating friction or what would actually make you get to the next stage. That's where an outside view can help massively and remove the guesswork.

I'm always keeping a few free 1:1 strategy sessions open to work through exactly this. Think of it as a founder to founder conversation. I'll give you my honest view on what’s holding your business back right now, and what would need to change for growth to become lighter instead of heavier.

👉 Book your free 1:1 Strategy Call.

Let’s do it.
Marie

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​This newsletter reflects my personal views and experience. It is not intended as professional advice. You are responsible for how you interpret and apply any ideas shared here, and Scale and Sustain accepts no liability for outcomes resulting from their use.