The asset your competitors can't copy

“We’re all basically doing the same thing.”

I hear some version of this from MSP owners constantly. Same tools, same services, same response-time promises as the competitor down the street. And when prospects can’t tell two providers apart at the service level, they default to comparing the one thing they can measure: price.

To an extent, I get it. At the service level, it’s easy to see why.

But if your prospects can’t tell you apart, that’s not a market condition. That’s a choice. Nobody commoditizes you. You commoditize yourself.

I want to show you the way out — using a call I reviewed recently.

In our fractional sales management programs, I listen to a lot of sales calls. Most follow the same process, because it’s the process we coach. What I get to hear is different people executing that process in their own way.

I listened to a proposal call from OrlanTech — Keith Coker, the owner, alongside Ryan, his sales rep — pitching a registered investment advisory firm.

Ten minutes in, it was obvious: Keith’s superpower is storytelling.

He covered the same talking points you probably cover. Company history. Service quality. Culture. But he never stated a single one as a claim. Every one came wrapped in a story.

Most people say: “We’ve been around 25 years — we’re stable, we’re not going anywhere.”

Keith tells the story of the day Countrywide — a client representing 48% of his revenue — went under. On top of another major client’s bankruptcy, he lost roughly two-thirds of his business. He could’ve filed bankruptcy and restarted clean. Instead, he laid off half his team, mortgaged his home, ran credit card balance transfers, and paid back every dollar within two years. He hasn’t carried debt since. And it’s why no client today makes up more than 5% of OrlanTech’s revenue.

Think about who heard that story: a firm that manages people’s life savings. “We’re financially stable” is a line on a slide. That story is proof — with a client concentration policy attached.

Most people say: “We’re big enough to handle anything, small enough to care.”

Keith tells the story of his peer group: twelve MSP owners across the country with agreements to share everything. Their engineers swap live threat intel in shared channels — one company spots a vulnerability, the rest are protected within hours. And if any member gets hit with a disaster or major cyberattack, the others send engineers on-site to help them recover. Every owner in the group has signed that agreement.

His framing: you get the resources of a national organization without ever being treated like a number.

No local competitor can match that. No roll-up can claim it.

Most people say: “Our people are our greatest asset.”

Keith says: “We used to hate coming into work.”

Then he walks through what changed. Hiring on values instead of résumés. Paying top dollar because one right person outproduces two cheap ones. Firing a large client who disrespected his team — and the team rejoicing. The result: essentially zero resignations in five years, and the one guy who left asked to come back six months later.

He even told them about the acquisition offers. He hears from buyers two or three times a day and has walked away from strong multiples — because he’s watched owner after owner in his peer group sell, service tank, and every employee leave. “That’s not who we are.”

As a coach, here’s what I heard underneath all of it.

Keith never once said, “We’re not the cheapest in town, but we’re not the most expensive either” — the line that’s in damn near every sales playbook, including ones I’ve written. He didn’t need it. By the time pricing came up, “we’re going to be a little more expensive, because I pay my people better” was the obvious conclusion of everything he’d already said.

The stories pre-handled the price objection. They differentiated him without the “what makes us different” slide. And the peer group story drove a wedge his competitors can’t pull out — they can’t copy it, and they can’t respond to it.

Three of the hardest jobs in sales. Done by stories.

I can hand the same sales process to two different companies. I do it all the time — it’s the business I’m in. Process is transferable.

Stories aren’t.

I can’t tell you which stories to tell, where to place them, or how to frame them — because the moment your storytelling follows a formula I created for you, the stories stop being yours. And “yours” is the entire point. The near-death year, the client you fired, the money you turned down — those only happened to you.

Your services compete in a market of hundreds. Your stories make you a market of one.

Proof of the difference: after that call, I told the team we’re reverse-engineering Keith’s stories straight into the sales playbook so Ryan can tell them too. I can do that because they’re OrlanTech’s stories — as much a company asset as their documentation or client list. They transfer to Ryan.

They will never transfer to you. The moment they do, they stop working.

Which means somewhere in your company’s history sits a set of assets your competitors can’t touch — and odds are you’ve never put them to work.

If you take one thing from this, take this: Never make a claim you can’t back with a story.

Write down every claim you make in sales conversations. Great service. Great people. Stable. Responsive. Then dig through your history for the moment that proves each one. The 2 a.m. save. The client you walked away from. The worst year you survived.

You already have the stories. You’ve just been compressing them into the same clichés as everyone else.

So the next time you catch yourself thinking “we’re all basically the same,” hear what you’re really saying: we’ve all been telling the same story.

The services might match. The stories never will.

Adios,

Ray

P.S. — This whole newsletter ran on Keith's stories. So I had him on the podcast to hear more of them.

The year half his revenue vanished in a single month — and why he mortgaged his house instead of filing bankruptcy. The seven heart attacks that finally forced him to let go of the business. And why, in a competitive bid, he wants to be the highest price in the room.

If the sales call was a glimpse, this is the whole picture of the guy behind the stories.

Watch it on YouTube: