What Is It Exactly That Makes You Special?

See Original Forbes Business Council Article 

Early in building Solpak, I would introduce myself at networking events and watch people's eyes glaze over.

“I'm in packaging.”

“Oh, cool. What kind?”

“For food.”

“Like for the meat platters at the butcher?”

“No, not really. More for prepared meals.”

“Great. Like the Styrofoam dishes for takeout?”

“Well, no. More like ready-made small dishes.”

“Ah. Wait, what is it exactly that makes you special?”

I did not have a good answer. Not because the answer did not exist. Because I had never been forced to say it in a way that made someone else understand why it mattered to them.

That conversation, repeated dozens of times, eventually led me to build something I now call the Promise of Transformation. It is the first question in the Sherpa Method, and the one that changes everything about how a business attracts clients.

Most businesses describe what they do. Features, deliverables, services. That is not what clients buy.

Clients buy a change in their situation. They buy a better version of something they are dealing with today. They buy the life after the problem is solved.

So the Promise of Transformation is not about your product. It is about what your client's life looks like after working with you.

This is where most founders get the story backwards. They cast themselves as the hero. The clever founder, the brilliant product, the company that saves the day. But your client is not looking for a hero. They are living their own story, and they are the hero of it. Your job is not to take their place. Your job is to be the guide who helps them win.

When you make that shift, your marketing changes. Your sales conversations change. You stop talking about yourself and start describing the life your client is trying to reach.

Forbes published the full piece today, May 21, 2026, in the Forbes Business Council series, under the title Your Client Is Not Your Target. They Are the Hero.

You are not the hero of your client's story. You are the guide. That is a smaller role. It is also a far more powerful one.