Have you ever looked at a competitor and wondered how they manage to look so much bigger, more established and more successful than you?

Their website looks impressive. They’re constantly appearing on LinkedIn. Their branding is polished. Their case studies look fantastic. They seem to be everywhere. And yet you know the reality.

You may have more employees, more customers, more experience, more revenue, perhaps even a better product.

So why do they look like the market leader?

In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean Makin explores the gap between the reality of a business and the way the market perceives it.

Because customers can’t see your turnover, management accounts or record-breaking quarter. They judge your business by the signals you put into the world, your website, visibility, positioning, branding, case studies, customer evidence and the way you communicate.

We look at how consistent visibility can create perceived scale, why strong positioning can make a smaller specialist look more authoritative than a much larger generalist, and how social proof, case studies and confident communication can dramatically change the way a business is perceived.

We also look at the danger of competitor envy. A company making lots of noise isn’t necessarily more successful and copying everything your competitors do is rarely a sensible strategy.
Instead, the question is: What are they communicating that you’re failing to communicate?

If your business has grown but your marketing hasn’t kept pace, you may not have a business problem at all.

You may have a perception gap.

And closing that gap doesn’t mean pretending to be bigger. It means making sure the outside world can see the strength, experience and credibility that already exists inside your business.

Marketing, Properly! – practical marketing thinking for business leaders who want better decisions, clearer strategy and considerably less marketing theatre. 


Produced in Scotland.