Everything Looks Good. Everything Sounds Good. How Do We Stand Out?

How to effectively sell in a world filled with template slop

I was gonna write about something else this week but I read brendstack’s post about Template Slop and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I now see template slop everywhere. You will, too, soon, if you don’t already. Next time you fire up Instagram (or any social) you’ll notice a lot of the posts you see look like this:

10 Reasons Why Your Funnel's Not Working (+ photo of a cute dog with cone)
3 Things to Do This Week to Get More Followers (+ photo of hot girl in crop top)
25 Things I'd Do If I Was Starting Over (+ photo of wistful stare out of window)

The problem with this approach, as Brenda points out, is that it works. Hooks work. Dogs and hot girls in crop tops work. Good design works.

We all have access to the same playbooks, and we’re all at the mercy of the same algorithm. So all of us are looking (and sounding) the same. We all sound good. And we all sound the same.

The hard part about this as a marketer is that I don’t think you should stop posting with hooks. I don’t think you should abandon offer creation. These things are effective, and that’s why people do them (and teach others to do them, too).

I also think you should be using these templates in the beginning. I don’t think you should be paying a brand agency for a brand when you have access to such good design. (I talk more about that here)

OK, so you’re marketing your services. You’re going to use hooks, avail yourself to publicly available design, and (hopefully?) look like a lot of others just like you.

What will help you stand out?

A Point of View

Y’all knew his was gonna be my first one. Your point of view, your sharp take on your industry, is now more valuable than ever. It takes your hooks from predictable to something people actually want to read.

If you don’t have a point of view yet, you need to start with positioning. Again, more important than ever. Get clear on who you’re talking to, what tension you resolve, and why you’re uniquely positioned to address it. If you need help, start here:

Want Easy Sales? You Need Specificity.

Being 1% Less Lazy

You mad at me for saying this? Don’t be.

A lot of people are taking a trend or a hook and just repurposing it without much thought.

I’m asking you to take 3 minutes on any hook or trend to think about how it might relate to your specific POV. How it might help your audience. How it might be more entertaining. How you might put your own spin on it.

Yes, this is annoying. Yes, it takes more effort. And no, you can’t make your Claude agent do it for you.

But I predict that quality content is going to be more of a premium than ever- and if you’re just posting to fit a calendar, you’re going to be penalized for it as audiences will recognize it more easily.

The secret to quality content is being just a little more effortful. Like 1%.

Expertise

Content that looks and sounds good has to be backed up by expertise and substance. I’m guessing you have this in spades. Make sure your that when you’re talking about your business that your expertise is at the forefront.

Personality

The ability to convey your personality digitally is a very, very underrated skill. People want to buy from someone they know- or feel like they know.

If you’re using design templates in your first year (again, I think this is a smart decision!) that means your copy - what you say and how you say it - is doing some heavy lifting.

My advice here: write, write, write, write.

Write about your process, your successes, things that make you mad, things that no one thinks about but you. A reminder that I send out ideas for what to write about every week to all my subscribers - including free ones!

The more you write about your work, the more your voice will emerge. The more you post, the more you get comfortable with your voice being out there. Trust me. (And remember- there is no getting around putting yourself out there. Just start.)

That’s it for now.