Find Out What Exactly Makes People Buy from You
Align your marketing messaging and strategy decisions around what matters most to your target customersThe Stand Out Blueprint clarifies exactly what makes your target customers want to buy and how to turn that into clear, compelling messaging you and your team can apply right away across marketing, sales, and strategy.
Why Even The Best Marketing Ideas Usually Fail
Here’s a story I’ve seen unfold countless times since 2011.
A company has tried new tactics, new agencies, a new website, even a full rebranding or positioning project. They execute marketing well. Their team is smart. But their results don’t match the effort or the budget.
The lack of growth is starting to stress everyone, even if it’s clear to everyone that they have good ideas.
If tactics and strategies that work for others don’t create the same results for you, it’s not that all those ideas are flawed. The problem is that what you communicate with your marketing doesn’t compel your target customers to buy.
If you don’t change what you say, you can’t expect better results. It’s like buying a new microphone and expecting people to suddenly listen to you more closely, even if you still say the same things.
On the other hand, when you know what exactly makes your target customers want to buy, you can make almost any marketing tactic work for you. The same channels and campaigns you’ve tried before start performing better.
This isn’t about nicer copy or branding fluff. This is not about executing things better. This is about finding what truly drives your best customers to buy from you.
You can then easily align all of your marketing around those exact ideas. You can also make strategic decisions that grow your advantages further, instead of following “best practices” or industry standards (which, by definition, lead to mediocrity).
Peter helped me increase my sales by 423%.
Almost no one can differentiate themselves in our industry, but now we have a marketing message that clearly separates us from competitors.
Peter brought clarity to our marketing. We’ve approximately doubled our online sales each year since then.
What Gets People to Yes
If your marketing isn’t delivering the results it should, the right question isn’t, “Which tactic would work better?”
The question should be, “What do our target customers need to hear to say, ‘yes’?”
That’s what the Stand Out Blueprint gives you: clear, strategic messaging guidelines on exactly what to say in marketing and how to say it, so people take action.
This isn’t a rebranding exercise, nor a slide deck of generic strategy lingo that could’ve been written for any company.
This is a process of identifying what truly drives your target customers to buy from you and then making it easy for your team (and external agencies) to get those ideas across in all of your marketing across channels and campaigns.
It also helps you make strategy decisions that align with your advantages. You can more easily prioritize the best opportunities, avoid efforts that won’t ultimately increase sales, and maintain your competitive advantages, no matter what your competitors do.
Peter has helped us clarify our messaging and focus on the most impactful aspects of marketing. We’ve been able to focus on doing marketing and sales, instead of spending time on polishing strategy or general pondering.
Even though I have coached thousands of business owners in developing their own marketing and message, I turned to Peter.
The [new messaging] helped us not just define our product’s greatest benefits, but also wording it in a way that put them into perspective for the buyer to understand.
Stand Out Blueprint
One core solution modified to match your team and goals.
The Stand Out Blueprint comes in three tiers, which can be further modified to match your situation better. Each tier is based on the same proven foundation (Tier 1). The higher tiers add in elements that help speed up implementation, strategic adoption, and team growth.
Tier 1: Strategic Messaging Clarity
This tier clarifies what you need to say in your marketing to immediately catch your target customer’s attention and make them take action toward buying. This is where we build the foundation: deep insight into how your ideal customers think, what motivates them to act, and what will make them choose you over any other option. It’s essential groundwork whether you’re trying to improve existing results or preparing to scale more effectively.
This tier typically requires 4-5 focused working sessions over 3-5 weeks (including a team training session). I’ll guide the thinking during the calls, uncover the core insights, validate and research the assumptions and options, and turn them into a clear, practical blueprint you can use across your marketing. All you need to do is join the calls. Your team is welcome to join, too.
What this enables next:
With your message clearly defined and activated, your campaigns become more focused, your marketing gets easier to manage, and your team knows exactly how to talk about what makes you stand out. It’s not just clarity — it’s clarity in motion, working across your strategy, brand, and day-to-day marketing.
Decision Lens: How Your Target Customers See You
Most messaging fails because it’s based on how you see your offer — not how your target customers see it. We clarify what they notice first, misunderstand, care about most, expect, fear…
Action Triggers: What Makes Them Move
We identify the specific thoughts, desires, or frustrations that trigger action. This isn’t just about what they say they care about or want. This is about what actually gets them to take action.
Comparison Research: What You Really Compete Against
You’re not just competing with direct competitors. We uncover what your buyers compare you to and how they see them, so we can position you in a way that gets past direct comparison.
Conversion Advantage: Why They Choose You
We’ll figure out what actually makes people choose you over all their other options. It’s not enough to just be different or “the best.” You need to become the preferred choice in their eyes.
Stand Out Message: The Core Message That Creates Demand
Your SOM is the distilled version of what you need to communicate in marketing to capture your target customers. It clarifies what makes them want to buy from you. It’s a blueprint for all marketing.
Message Delivery Guide: How to Make It Land Instantly
Marketing only works if people understand and believe it. We’ll have a session where we go over the best ways to communicate your SOM in the clearest, most believable and memorable ways.
Stand Out Messaging Roadmap: Create Immediate Momentum
We identify the marketing assets where your old messaging is most likely holding you back. The roadmap focuses on what your team can realistically tackle within a couple of weeks.
Tier 2: Message Activation + Strategic Implications
Tier 1 gives you the insight into what drives your target customers’ buying decisions.
Tier 2 builds on that and makes sure your message gets implemented across the organization.
If you already have a marketing team or agency in place, we roll out your new Stand Out Message in a way that’s practical, fast, and aligned across all touch points. We go beyond defining the right message and actually start using it in a way that improves your marketing, internal alignment, and even strategy decisions.
After tier 1, we work together (typically for a month or so) to make sure your team gets the new message implemented and your leadership team sees how to align decisions with what ultimately drives people to buy from you.
What this enables next:
With your message clearly defined and activated, your campaigns become more focused, your marketing gets easier to manage, and your team knows exactly how to talk about what makes you stand out. It’s not just clarity — it’s clarity in motion, working across your strategy, brand, and day-to-day marketing.
Messaging Rollout Sprint: Fast-Track Your Messaging Updates
In this short, focused sprint, your team rolls out the most impactful changes in your Stand Out Messaging Roadmap. We’ll work through key assets together in a way your team can learn from, replicate, and expand on. You get fast progress andlasting capability.
Brand Expression Guide: Align How You Show Up with Your Message
Your SOM tells what makes people want to buy from you. Your branding should reinforce those points. The Brand Expression Guide includes examples and guidelines that clarify what your voice and tone, writing style, and content formats align with your messaging points.
Strategic Advantage Briefing: Align Strategic Decisions with What Drives Sales
Once we know what drives people to buy from you, we meet with your leadership team to see how you could gain a larger strategic edge. This isn’t about changing your strategy, but rather making sure everyone sees what ultimately drives sales.
Tier 3: Scaled Messaging Systems
This tier includes everything from Tiers 1 and 2 — the clarity, the rollout, the leadership alignment — and adds what growing companies often need most: scalable systems, deeper collaboration, and ongoing strategic thinking.
It’s designed for companies with multiple products, buyer types, or marketing channels — where consistency and speed become hard to maintain, and where strategy needs to evolve in sync with growth. If you’re planning to increase spend, launch new campaigns, expand into new markets, or simply need messaging that stays aligned as things scale, this tier gives you the systems to do it.
After tier 2, we’ll go over the additional tools we develop for your team (typically 2 shorter workshops with 3-4 weeks between them). After another ~3 months, we also have another strategy session with your leadership team.
What this enables next:
Instead of rebuilding your messaging every time something changes, you’ll have systems in place to adapt quickly and stay aligned. New campaigns get off the ground faster. Teams stay on message without needing constant oversight. And strategy decisions get easier because your whole company knows exactly what you’re trying to communicate — and why it works.
Messaging Rollout Sprint: Fast-Track Your Messaging Updates
In this short, focused sprint, your team rolls out the most impactful changes in your Stand Out Messaging Roadmap. We’ll work through key assets together in a way your team can learn from, replicate, and expand on. You get fast progress andlasting capability.
Brand Expression Guide: Align How You Show Up with Your Message
Your SOM tells what makes people want to buy from you. Your branding should reinforce those points. The Brand Expression Guide includes examples and guidelines that clarify what your voice and tone, writing style, and content formats align with your messaging points.
Strategic Advantage Briefing: Align Strategic Decisions with What Drives Sales
Once we know what drives people to buy from you, we meet with your leadership team to see how you could gain a larger strategic edge. This isn’t about changing your strategy, but rather making sure everyone sees what ultimately drives sales.
What to expect [CHANGE]
Clear, Consistent, Effective Messaging
If what you say with them doesn’t make people take action, it doesn’t matter what marketing tactics, tools, or strategies you use or how well you use them. If what you communicate isn’t compelling, even the best execution of the best ideas won’t work.
- Gain clarity on what to say in marketing (and sales) to motivate your target customers to take action.
- Make sure all of your marketing creates a consistent, memorable image of you across channels, campaigns, and materials.
- Make it easy to brief writers, designers, agencies, and salespeople — they finally know what they need to get across to generate results.
Before:
“We had relied on our reputation for years. We were doing well, but no thanks to our marketing. Most campaigns barely broke even. We could reach the right people and when they agreed to a sales meeting, our conversion rates were solid. But the number of meetings didn’t justify the effort or budget we used.
After two years of trying any changes to our messaging we could think of and two separate messaging/positioning projects by big consultancies, our marketing was all over the place. Every campaign told a different story, yet nothing seemed to land.
At the same time, our competitors were growing by branding themselves as specialists in things we could do much better than they.”
After:
“We’ve seen significant growth for a few months straight now, which didn’t seem like a realistic outcome for us. It’s also a lot easier for us to create marketing materials because everyone in the team knows what to build around. We used to have long arguments about what to say, so now that we don’t waste time on that anymore, we’ve been able to move a lot faster than before. The agency we work with also has produced much better results before.”
(Based on conversations with the CEO of the market-leader company in a professional service industry.)
1. What makes someone likely to buy from you
This section clarifies how we’re defining your target customer in a way that gives you a natural advantage.
2. What differentiates you most effectively
This section clarifies why your target customers choose you over all their other options, so you know what to highlight in marketing.
3. Your Stand Out Message
This tells exactly what you need to communicate with marketing to immediately stand out as the best option for your target customers.
4. The best methods to communicate your Stand Out Message
This section lists the most effective methods for communicating each part of your Stand Out Message.
5. Strategic considerations
This section shows how the Stand Out Message guides non-marketing decisions such as pricing, customer experience, or product/service development.
6. Practical branding guidelines
This section clarifies what you want people to associate to you. It’s not a logo or a list of fonts, but rather practical guidelines for what makes for effective branding.
7. Example headlines, article topics, etc.
This section turns your Stand Out Message into practical, copy-pasteable form to make it easy to get started using your Message.
8. High-priority marketing materials to create
This section lists the specific marketing materials that you should prioritize creating or updating to see the greatest impact.
Stand Out Message Compared to Common Messaging Aides
Developing your Stand Out Message Blueprint is an extremely quick and light project for you. It can often be done in only 2-3 weeks and typically all you (and/or your team) need to do is attend 3 calls.
Value Proposition
A value proposition describes “the value you provide your customers.” As necessary as it is for you to know that, it doesn’t translate easily into actual marketing.
Your Stand Out Message is about what motivates people to buy. Instead of trying to convince people to want something they don’t already want, your marketing makes them see they can get something they’re already looking for.
Unique Selling Proposition
A unique selling proposition (USP) describes “a unique characteristic of a product or service.” Much like value propositions, it’s hard to create marketing based on it.
Your Stand Out Message focuses on the differences that matters most to your target customers. It clarifies what makes them prefer your product or service and tells exactly how to communicate it in marketing.
Branding
Branding usually refers to the visuals that support your message. It can also refer to becoming more distinctive. Both of those things rely on a sharp marketing message.
Your Stand Out Message tells what your branding should highlight. It guarantees your marketing is distinctive by keeping the messaging coherent across campaigns and focuses it on what people care most about.
Using Your Stand Out Message in Practice
Your Stand Out Message clarifies what your marketing should communicate to create the first impression of, “That’s exactly what I’ve hoped to find!”
The Message itself combines two things: what motivates people to buy and what makes them choose you.
The goal is for the whole messaging blueprint to make it easy for you to create marketing materials. It also guarantees that all of your marketing messaging is consistent and creates a cohesive image/brand.
Website
Your website is one of the few marketing materials that influence nearly every potential customer.
For many, it’s where they form the first impression of you. For others, it’s where they go when they’re considering buying.
Your Stand Out Message clearly lists the specific ideas to build your website around. In many cases, you can even copy-paste parts directly to your website.
Advertising
Your Stand Out Message tells what exact ideas to build ad campaigns around, so you have the best chance of seeing great ROI right away.
Another benefit of building advertising campaigns based on a clear message is that, even if the individual advertisements focus on different details, they form a cohesive image.
Content and social media
You know what makes you stand out from the competition. You also know what kinds of people appreciate your differentiators the most. So, you can easily pick topics that attract the most likely customers.
You also automatically highlight exactly what makes those people want to buy.
Business development
Your Stand Out Message tells what advantages you should develop further. That guides decisions from product/service development to customer experience.
But it goes beyond marketing and ties in with almost all business decisions from pricing to product development and from resource allocation to customer experience.
In just 4 or 5 months we were so far behind in work we had to hire more people to cover the work.
We’ve always known that we need a marketing message that tells concretely, yet interestingly, what [our service] is about, but developing a clear message hasn’t worked out. The result was a better way to explain what we basically already knew ourselves.
Peter first improved my messaging, so it became clearer what to focus on to stand out as the best option for my potential customers. He has guided my marketing strategy and given clear guidance on how to implement things. I have broken my revenue goals multiple times since then.
Schedule Your FREE Stand Out Strategy Session
During your free video call consultation, we will discuss:
- How your current positioning and messaging works
- Where you have the greatest potential for growth
- What next steps you could take to see significant improvements
- If there is a good fit, how we might work together
There's no assumption or pressure to hire me at the end. However, these sessions are meant for people who are genuinely interested in possibly working together. If you want to just send me a message, send an email to contact {at} petersandeen.com
Within 2 weeks… I got more clients paying for my high-end program than I did in the previous 6 months.
Talking with Peter, after so many years of hype and over-promise with other marketers, is like landing on a sane, calm, more intelligent planet. I’ve always wanted a “me” for my own marketing, and I found him in Peter, the marketer’s marketer.
I was stuck trying to develop my [messaging] on my own. I couldn’t quite see what would excite a client enough to hire my company. [Now] I can see it in people’s eyes that they understand how beneficial my services could be to solving their issues.