Skip to content
Lesson 7 from ten years in business
For a long time, I did not realise I thought differently.
Not in a dramatic way or in a way that announced itself. It was more that I would be in a meeting or a conversation and I would ask a question that made everyone pause, or I would look at a problem and see something that nobody else seemed to be seeing, and I would think, surely everyone is noticing this?
Apparently not.
It took a while for me to notice. Actually, I didn’t notice at all. It was pointed out to me (by my partner Josh) that I did genuinely approach things differently. Now I have to admit, I was not entirely sure whether that was a good thing.
Different, as most of us learn fairly early in life, is not always celebrated. It can make you the awkward one in the room. The one who asks the inconvenient question. The one who will not just go along with the consensus because the consensus feels comfortable.
And that’s not always a relaxing way to operate.
But it turns out, in business and in marketing especially, it’s extraordinarily useful.
Where different thinking lives
Strategy lives in different ways of thinking.
If you approach every problem the same way everyone else in your industry approaches it, you will produce the same solutions everyone else produces. Which means your clients get what they could have got anywhere. And that means there’s no particular reason to choose you.
The businesses that stand out, that build genuine positioning, that create marketing that actually cuts through, are almost never the ones following the formula most closely. They are the ones who looked at the formula and asked whether it was actually the best way, or just the most familiar one.
Different thinking creates positioning and asks better questions. It finds the angle that everyone else walked past because they were too busy following the path that was already there.
And that’s where Starfish came from. Not from looking at what other marketing consultants were doing and trying to do it better. Starfish came from looking at what small businesses actually needed and asking how to genuinely provide that, even if it looked different from the conventional model.
The uncomfortable side of it
Thinking differently does not always make you the easiest person in the room.
Why?
Because you ask questions that slow things down and you challenge assumptions that other people had already accepted and moved past. And you see problems that have not surfaced yet and feel compelled to name them even if the timing is awkward.
There have been moments in ten years where I have had to decide whether to say the thing I was seeing or let it go because the room was not ready for it. Sometimes I got that call right and sometimes I did not.
And there is a version of different thinking that tips into contrarianism, where you are different for the sake of it, where you challenge things not because you see something worth challenging but because agreement feels like surrender. It’s important to remember that the latter version is not useful, it’s just noise.
The distinction that matters is whether the different thinking is in service of a better outcome. If it is, it is worth the discomfort. If it is just about being the one who sees things differently, it is worth examining the motive.
What this means for your marketing
If you have a genuine point of view, a real perspective on your industry, a way of thinking about your work that is actually different from the mainstream, that is not something to stand down or apologise for.
It is your positioning, your (to use marketing jargon) your Unique Selling Proposition (commonly referred to as your USP). In non-marketing terms, think of it as why people choose to do business with you. .
It’s easy to try to please everyone, especially when you're running a business. You might find yourself smoothing out your edges just to be safe. But if you’re trying to attract everyone, you end up attracting no-one and you end up being forgettable. If there's nothing real to grab onto, people just move on.
Your different thinking, the way you see problems, the questions you ask, the things you will not compromise on, is what makes you interesting to the right people. Lead with it.
How to actually do it
1. Stop apologising for the questions you ask
If you consistently see things others miss, or ask things others do not, that is a skill. Treat it as one. The right clients and collaborators will value it. The ones who find it inconvenient are probably not your people anyway.
2. Develop your point of view deliberately
What do you actually believe about your industry? What do you think is being done wrong? What would you change if you could? These are not just interesting questions, they are the foundation of genuine positioning. Write them down. Be specific. That is your marketing.
3. Use AI as a thinking partner, not a thinking replacement
AI tools are useful for exploring ideas, pressure testing arguments, and generating perspectives you had not considered. What they are not good at is replacing the distinctively human, distinctively you quality of genuine original thinking. Use them to sharpen your ideas, not to produce ideas that could belong to anyone.
4. Seek out the uncomfortable question in every situation
Whatever room you are in, whatever project you are working on, whatever strategy you are reviewing, ask yourself what question nobody is asking. Not to be difficult, but to be useful. That question is usually where the most important thinking lives.
5. Build your marketing around your perspective, not just your services
What you do is less interesting than how you think about what you do. Your perspective, your point of view, your particular way of approaching problems, that is what attracts the right clients. Lead with that in your content, your conversations, and your positioning.
Your action this week
Write down three things you genuinely believe about your industry that the mainstream would push back on.
Not provocative for the sake of it. Genuinely held perspectives that come from your experience and your thinking. Then ask yourself whether any of those beliefs are showing up in your marketing. If they are not, that is your starting point.
Ready to stand out for the right reasons?
Most businesses do not have a service problem. They have a positioning problem.
If your marketing sounds a lot like everyone else in your industry, or you're struggling to articulate what makes your business different, it might be time for a fresh perspective.
At Starfish, I help businesses uncover what makes them genuinely distinctive and turn that into marketing that attracts the right ideal clients.
Thinking differently is not a liability in marketing. It is an asset, and often the most powerful one a small business has. Get in touch here.
This is part of a series expanding on the lessons from ten years of running Starfish.
Lesson 1: Do what you say you will
Lesson 2: Do not put a lit pipe in your pocket
Lesson 3: Empathy can be learned
Lesson 4: Different is not evil
Lesson 5: Curiosity beats assumption
Lesson 6: You Do Not Have To Agree, But You Do Have To Listen
Lesson 7: Thinking differently is the point
Next up: Lesson 8: Community matters.
Frequently Asked Questions about business positioning
How do you turn different thinking into a genuine competitive advantage?
The key is making your thinking visible. Different thinking that stays inside your head does not differentiate you in the market. Different thinking that shows up in your content, your conversations, your positioning, and the way you talk about your work is what creates genuine distinction. This means being willing to share your actual perspective, including the parts that might not resonate with everyone, rather than defaulting to safe, generic messaging that could belong to any business in your category. The right clients are attracted by specificity and genuine point of view, not by the attempt to appeal to everyone.
Why do so many small businesses end up marketing themselves the same way as their competitors?
Uncertainty plays a big role. When you are not sure what will work, looking at what others are doing feels safer than forging your own path. There is also a tendency to conflate professional with generic, as though having a distinctive voice or perspective is somehow less credible than sounding like everyone else. The reality is the opposite. In a crowded market, sounding like your competitors is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make, because it means your ideal clients have no clear reason to choose you specifically.
Can thinking differently be learned, or is it something you either have or you do not?
It can absolutely be developed, though it starts with permission more than technique. Most people have genuinely distinctive perspectives that they have learned to suppress because different has not always been rewarded. Giving yourself permission to ask the inconvenient question, to challenge the assumption everyone else has accepted, to say the thing that the room is not saying, is where it begins. From there, it is about practice. The more you exercise that muscle, the more natural it becomes, and the more you start to see the value it creates in your thinking and in your work.
