Who has said yes to something just to reach a wider audience? No blame here, most of the time it’s the easiest way to go.

As businesses grow, they want to appeal to more people, keep everyone in the room happy, and reduce risk. None of those choices is wrong on its own. But put together, they leave the business sounding like everyone else, right when it needs to stand out the most.

Have a think about what brought your first customers to you. It was probably something specific. Maybe a strong opinion, something a bit niche.

Those people picked you because you were not like the others, not just because you were safe. Simply put, you stood out.

Then, as the business grows, that starts to fade.

You soften the message so it can speak to more people. You add a few more services, so the positioning has to stretch to cover all of them. More people get a say on the final copy, so the sharp lines get rounded off.

And somewhere in there, you start borrowing moves from the bigger competitors, because it looks like the safe and established way to do things.

Here is the catch with that. A bigger audience does not respond better to a safer message. It responds to one it can actually remember.

So you become easier to forget for the people you are chasing, and less exciting for the ones who already loved you.

Once that happens, there is only one thing left to compete on. And that is price.

The fix is not to stay small. It is to grow your reach while keeping your edges sharp. And the bigger you get, the harder it becomes to say no to things, even though that is exactly the skill you need most.

So try this one. Pull up your homepage next to your three biggest competitors. Cover the logos. Do you think someone could still point to yours?

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This is taken from the weekly email written by one of our directors, Roberto Boi. Every Thursday he shares observations, ideas and perspectives from the work we’re doing day to day at Dilate. If you’d like to get it delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up here.