You’ve got a solid offer. A decent website. A sales process that makes sense on paper.
And buyers still aren’t choosing you.
I see this constantly. And in most cases, the problem isn’t the product, price, or competition. It’s that to the buyer, you look exactly like everyone else.
The Mistake Most Sellers Don’t Know They’re Making
When I work with sales and marketing teams, I hear the same thing over and over: “We just need to do a better job communicating our value.” And so they spend months and sometimes millions on this…
But that’s not the real issue.
The real issue is that their value sounds identical to everyone else’s value. Better service. More experience. A proven process. These aren’t differentiators — they’re table stakes. And the buyer’s brain treats them accordingly.
What Snickers Got Right
Think about Snickers chocolate bars. A commodity, right? No…
Snickers isn’t selling chocolate. They’re not even selling a snack. They’re selling the cure for hangry — “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” Everyone knows this feeling (this problem). Snickers solved that. Now, it’s an idea belongs entirely to them.
Snickers didn’t find a better message. They found a problem no one else owned. That’s the move.
The Science Behind Why Buyers Forget You
This isn’t guesswork. In 1933, German psychologist Hedwig von Restorff ran a series of memory experiments and documented what became known as the Von Restorff Effect.
The finding is simple and brutal: the human brain instantly forgets what blends in and locks onto what stands out.
In my experience working with founders and sales teams, this effect shows up everywhere: in marketing copy, sales talk tracks, in demos, in proposals. It’s all rather average and hard to differentiate one from another.
To be clear, this is not about being louder (although that can work). Rather, it’s about being distinct.
The Green Apple Test
Here’s how I explain it to clients.
Imagine a bucket full of green apples. Your eyes move right past them and focuses on the one red apple. That’s the one you remember.
Your buyers are running this test on every one they evaluate — usually unconsciously. The question is whether you’re the red apple or just another green one.
Before & After example:
Before: A consulting firm leads with “We deliver results through a proven, people-first methodology.” Yawn. Seller-focused buzz words that any firm could claim. Zero specificity. Nothing concrete.
After: Your quotes take 45 days to close. Your competitors close in 12. Find out where the 33 days are hiding in a 20-minute teardown of your sales process, before you spend a dollar.
The Red Apple Rule
I use something I call the Red Apple Rule when auditing a client’s positioning.
It goes like this: if I put your core message side by side with three of your competitors, is there anything — one thing — that a buyer could only attribute to you? Not a better version of what everyone else says. Something categorically yours.
If you can’t pass that test, you’re a green apple. And the Von Restorff Effect will bury you in the bucket.
How to Find Your Red Apple
Start by ignoring what you think makes you good.
Instead, ask: what do our best clients say only we do? What outcome do we produce that no one else even talks about? What’s a unique perspective I have in my space? What’s the thing we do that competitors would struggle to credibly claim?
Something in these questions is your red apple. It might be a result. A method. A twist. A guarantee. A point of view. But it has to be genuinely yours — not a shinier version of the category standard.
Once you find it, lead with it everywhere. Not buried in slide three. Not hidden in the “why us” section. First line. First impression.
Stop Blending In
The Von Restorff Effect doesn’t care how hard you’ve worked or how good your product actually is.
It only responds to one thing: distinctiveness.
Find your red apple. Lean into it hard. And stop giving buyers a reason to forget you.
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