It's the same 🔬 EBH

Is it weird that so many companies say the exact same things about their company? Or rather, shouldn't it be?

Every startup (or “used to be a startup, but has grown too big to call themselves a startup by they really still see themselves as a startup”) will tell you, “We work fast. A year here is like seven at other companies.” Often followed by a practiced but slightly knowing laugh.

Every tech company will crow about how incredibly “innovative” they are, even if their idea of innovation is connecting to the same ChatGPT API everyone else uses. Often followed by, “Would you like to see a demo?”

Every pharma company prides itself on how working for them will help you save lives and make a real difference, all to biologists, chemists, and pharmacologists who quite literally all went to school for a bajillion years so they could save lives and make a difference.

And then there are all the companies who tell you how they have a great working culture and how they have great people working for them. As if every single company I’ve ever talked to doesn’t also say that. I assume the staff at most maximum security facilities would say the same if asked.

How does this happen?

I’m going to skip my cynical answer of how most businesses are legit terrified of doing something actually different (this comes from being asked multiple times to come up with an innovative solution only to have it rejected because no one else had done it before, to which I wonder where they got their definition of the word “innovative”). Instead, I will suggest two issues:

One: Competitive Boogeymen

When you’re locked in competition with another company, it is human nature to think the worst of them. They aren’t as cool as you. Their technology isn’t the same as yours (as if the same Mac boxes aren’t filling IT storerooms). Their culture isn’t as fun as yours (not that you can tell when both companies are using stock art on their career sites and social to illustrate their work experience). Their leadership isn’t as smart. Their conference room chairs aren’t as adjustable.

These thoughts shape our thinking so that when we start writing, we assume our company is in the driver’s seat. This opens the door to lazy strategy and lazier writing.

I mean, look at the claims you make on your career site, social posts, and job postings. Do you really think yours is the only company to which they apply? Really?

Two: Frame of Reference

How many jobs have you had? Half a dozen? A dozen? Given the millions of companies out there, you don’t know much. How could you? You have no frame of reference.

How can you know you’re innovative when you don’t know what it’s like to work at your three biggest competitors?

I assume people who say, “working here is like working seven years someplace else” assume we’ve all been working at the post office or something.

That’s why the first thing I do at any job is a competitive audit: What do they say? How do they prove it? What do they think makes them different? What will it take to make our claims more believable than theirs? Where is there an opportunity to be the Most or Only in this space?

Without a good audit, you’re going to wind up saying the same things everyone else says without realizing how it comes across.

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***This Newsletter Contains No ChatGPT***

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