Nobody Needs Another Helen Keller Quote

Last week I asked four entrepreneurs the same question. Four out of four couldn’t answer it.

It wasn’t a trick question, and it wasn’t complicated. The question was: what problem do you solve, and for whom?

Maybe I’m extra sensitized right now because I’m about to launch a Signal Branding Incubator. But lately I’m going berserk about how most people are trying to generate business today. A partial list:

The AI-generated dreck flooding LinkedIn posts, X articles, and email newsletters. The prompts must be, “Please write me a post about whatever everyone in my space is already saying. Weigh it evenly on the pros and cons, use language that won’t offend anyone, and finish with a conclusion nobody could possibly disagree with.” I spent the same amount of time reading that as you did writing it.

The cotton candy content clogging social media. Yes, it’s true, sleeping more is a life hack. Also true: the sky is blue. Tell me something I don’t already know. Better yet, make me question something I think I already know. (And FFS, no more inspirational quotes from Seneca, Helen Keller, or Henry Ford. I’m good, thanks.)

The entrepreneurs who think posting 300 times a day across nine platforms is branding. #Protip: shitposting slop absolutely creates a brand for you. Just not the one you’re hoping for.

The businesses slogging it out to be the “better” option. Okay — you’re better than the other 87 competitors in your category. Here’s the trouble with “better”: it’s a comparison, and every comparison needs a shared yardstick. The moment you agree to be measured against them, the customer picks the yardstick. And the one they reach for first is price. Be better, and you’re in a race. (A race that never ends.) Be a category of one, and there’s nothing to race against.

The businesses trying to breathe life into dying categories. If AI killed your business model, it’s dead. A new funnel, fresher sales copy, more cold calls — none of that resurrects a dead category.

Here’s how to tell the difference between a corpse and a bad year: if your value was in doing the thing, and the machine now does the thing, you’re in a dying category. If your value was in knowing which thing to do — and why, and when, and for whom — you’re not. Doing is getting commoditized. Judgment isn’t. And you can’t perform CPR on a corpse. It your category got killed, put a wreath on the coffin and move on.

The entrepreneurs who have no idea what problem they actually solve.

Which brings me back to those four entrepreneurs.

I was coaching them on how to build Signal in order to create Market Gravity. Signal is what makes exactly the right person stop and think, this is for me. Market Gravity is what happens next — business chases you instead of you chasing it.

So I started where I always start: what problem do you solve, and for whom? (We never even got to the part about how you solve it differently than your competitors.)

Four out of four couldn’t tell me. Three of them gave me a client avatar so generic it could be pasted into five million other companies’ marketing. Two of them changed the subject inside of a minute — to distractions like hiring another team member, increasing the ad budget, building a funnel, or doing more social.

Before you think I’m up here throwing rocks: I’ve struggled with this exactly the way you are. I spent 2023 and 2024 in a state of perpetual frustration, trying to understand why my old business dev models weren’t working like they used to. The market had changed and I was still trying to make my old approach work on it. The market didn’t care.

It took months of reflection, and many more of testing, before I understood what AI had actually changed.

Here’s what I learned…

Repetition doesn’t create Signal. Noise doesn’t create Signal. Screaming for attention doesn’t create Signal. Only value delivered to someone specific creates Signal.

So here’s my suggestion for you. Block off thirty minutes — not a quarter, thirty minutes. No devices. Get your favorite beverage, a notebook, and a pen.

Write one sentence: I help [a specific person in a specific situation] solve [a specific, expensive problem]. Then describe your superpower: how you do this differently than everyone else does.

If you can’t fill in those blanks without reaching for adjectives like “ambitious” or “growth-minded,” you don’t have a marketing problem. You have a clarity problem — and no hire, funnel, or ad budget will fix it.

Do that work first and everything downstream gets easier. Skip it and you can post 300 times a day forever.

Helping entrepreneurs solve their Signal problem is what my work with clients and Breakthrough U members is dedicated to now. But you don’t need me to write that sentence. Go write it.

You either cut through the noise, or you are the noise.

Peace,

— RG

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