Vagueness creates Shallow Clients. Specificity creates Leverage.

“I help businesses build websites that do marketing better.”

That was my positioning when I started in Canada. It attracted everyone—crypto sites, side hustle vendors, anyone who needed a website and could pay.

I said yes to all of it. Bills were coming. I couldn’t afford to turn anything down.

The portfolio grew to ten projects. But I couldn’t show it to anyone.

When I met prospects from real companies, I had nothing to prove I could work at their level. The projects were executions of instructions—no strategy, no thinking. Just following briefs.

I’d worked in Vietnam in marketing and branding for years. I understood positioning and differentiation. But none of them showed in my work.

Every conversation exposed the gap. They needed proof I could contribute strategically. I had proof I could use design software.

The worst part: every shallow project I accepted made the problem worse. Each one attracted more of the same.

The trap wasn’t the clients. The trap was my fear.

Vagueness forces prospects to compare you on PRICE

When you’re vague about who you serve and what problem you solve, PRICE becomes the only comparable metric.

They can’t compare your THINKING (you haven’t shown it). They can’t compare your APPROACH (you haven’t articulated it). They can’t compare the OUTCOME (it’s not specific enough to visualize).

I had the same conversation dozens of times: “Your quote is higher than the freelancer on Upwork. What makes you worth more?”

I’d try to explain my marketing expertise. But if that value isn’t demonstrated in the portfolio or articulated in the positioning, it’s just claims.

Competing on price means you haven’t created any other dimension to compete on.

When you’re vague, prospects default to the only metric they can see: cost. Not because they’re cheap. Because you haven’t given them a different way to evaluate you.

The loop: Vagueness creates more vague clients

Vague positioning attracts anyone. Accept everyone because you’re afraid to say no. Build shallow portfolio. Can’t attract better clients. Need revenue, accept more shallow clients. Portfolio gets shallower. Loop tightens.

I kept thinking more clients would solve it. But my lead funnel was designed to attract anyone. So it did.

I was creating the shallowness I was trying to escape.

The exhaustion wasn’t from volume. It was from doing work that didn’t require what I actually knew. Conversations where I couldn’t speak about what I actually saw. Projects that didn’t compound into anything.

I knew I needed to change. But specificity felt like turning away money.

If I specialized in study abroad consultancies, what about the real estate agent? The weed ecommerce shop?

Fear kept me vague. And vagueness kept me trapped.

I’d rather do labor jobs than serve clients who keep me shallow

September 2025. Vietnam. I was on a trip with EQX, a Canadian startup I’d been working with. The CEO, Kevin Hoang, told me he saw me as a web developer.

I wanted to be seen as a marketer. Someone who understood positioning, strategy, how to make offers resonate. The one who can create bigger value for the team.

But everything I’d worked on proved him right. Every conversation. Every deliverable. Every project.

I couldn’t argue with it. I don’t have any concrete proof.

That’s when I strongly decided to stop everything.

I took labor jobs. Server. Kitchen work that didn’t require pretending I was building something meaningful.

I’d rather do ordinary labor than please shallow clients for shallow projects that go nowhere.

My desire to think different and choose a different path is stronger than any freelance hustle.

Labor jobs gave me something freelancing couldn’t: freedom of thought.

The work was simple. My mind could think clearly. No client demands. No shallow briefs to follow. No pretending that executing their checklist was strategic work.

I earned money without giving up my ability to think about the direction I actually wanted.

That space created the possibility of serving people I could contribute the most value to.

Not just anyone who could pay. People who actually needed what I specifically offered.

Most founders never give themselves that space. They stay busy serving clients who keep them exactly where they are.

You can’t develop depth while drowning in shallow work.

Vague positioning forces shallow interpretation

When your positioning is vague, prospects interpret your value using their existing framework (shaped by every other shallow provider they’ve encountered).

You say “strategic consulting” and they hear “PowerPoint decks.” You say “marketing strategy” and they hear “Facebook ads.”

This isn’t their fault. It’s yours.

Vagueness forces interpretation. When people interpret, they default to the shallowest meaning they know. Shallow is familiar. Shallow is comparable.

Three things happen: You attract everyone (most wrong for you). You compete on price (the only visible metric). You build the wrong portfolio (shallow work attracts more shallow work).

What Specificity actually kooks like

Look at Baronfig. They don’t sell “notebooks and stationery.” They sell “tools for thinkers.”

Their positioning is specific: for people who think on paper, who want distraction-free analog tools, who value quality and simplicity over features and options.

That specificity filters. Digital-first people don’t buy from them. People who want cheap notebooks from Amazon don’t buy from them. People who need 50 SKUs to choose from don’t buy from them.

The people who recognize themselves pay premium prices for notebooks.

Look at Fletch PMM. They don’t sell “product marketing services” or “positioning consulting.”

They sell “homepage positioning and messaging for early-stage B2B SaaS startups, Seed to Series A.”

That specificity filters. Enterprise companies don’t hire them. B2C companies don’t hire them. Series C startups don’t hire them. Agencies wanting general marketing don’t hire them.

Only early-stage B2B SaaS founders with homepage problems recognize themselves.

That eliminates comparison to general marketing agencies, eliminates comparison to fractional CMOs, eliminates comparison to design firms.

When you need that specific thing, there aren’t dozens of options. There’s Fletch.

They created a different category by being radically specific.

Or take CXL. They don’t position as “marketing training” or “online courses.”

They position as “B2B marketing and AI courses taught by real operators.”

Not marketing professors. Not general marketers. Real operators who’ve done the work.

That specificity filters. People wanting cheap marketing courses don’t buy from them. People wanting theory from academics don’t buy from them. People wanting B2C tactics don’t buy from them.

Only B2B marketers who want to learn from practitioners recognize themselves.

Different teacher credibility, different audience, different price.

These aren’t the biggest brands. They’re growing businesses that got specific about who they serve and what transformation they create. That specificity is what allowed them to grow without competing on features or price.

Specificity means Focus. Focus means saying NO to the hundred other good ideas

Steve Jobs once said: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

He continued: “I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

When I repositioned around “Fewer, Deeper Clients,” I had to say no to hundreds of opportunities I could have served.

Everyone who wants more clients: said no.
Everyone who wants quick fixes: said no.
Everyone who isn’t exhausted yet: said no.

Those aren’t my people. Trying to serve them dilutes what I actually offer.

Most practitioners can’t make this choice. They see all those opportunities disappearing and panic.

But trying to say yes to everything means you’re focused on nothing.

You’re in the vague center, competing on price because there’s nothing distinctive about serving everyone.

Jobs told Nike’s CEO Mark Parker: “Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.”

That’s what specificity requires. Getting rid of the crappy opportunities (the ones that pay but don’t energize you, that build the wrong portfolio, that attract more of what you don’t want).

Specificity feels like turning away money. But vagueness turns away the right money while accepting the wrong money.

Every shallow client is an opportunity cost (time that could have built work that compounds).

Saying no to the hundred other opportunities protects your capacity for the right ones.

Specificity creates Leverage, eliminates competition, enables premium pricing

Leverage: Generalists compete with everyone. Specialists compete with no one.

When vague, you’re in the same pool as hundreds of providers. When specific, you’re the only one who solves that problem, for that client, in that way.

A study abroad consultancy founder can hire any marketing consultant. Or she can hire me (the only one who combines deep understanding of the study abroad industry with marketing strategy expertise).

Not dozens. One. Specificity eliminates comparison.

No Competition: When you’re specific, you’re not competing. You’re creating a different category.

I’m not in the “make websites” category. I’m in the “help service businesses escape the shallow client trap” category.

There is no competition in that category. I defined it.

When clients recognize the specific problem you’re naming, they don’t compare you to anyone else. That recognition eliminates competition.

Proper Pricing: When you compete on price, you can’t charge what the work is worth. When you exit competition through specificity, you’re charging for transformation.

That consultancy founder didn’t hire me for a website. She hired me because I showed her she was being pulled into a competitive herd because she lacked her own direction.

You price based on transformation, not execution.

Specificity is the only exit

I spent two years to learn the lesson of vagueness. Accepting everyone. Competing on price. Building the wrong portfolio.

Every shallow project made the next one more likely. Every vague conversation reinforced that I was interchangeable.

Vagueness wasn’t protecting me from risk. It was guaranteeing mediocrity.

You’re vague because you’re afraid. Afraid that specificity will lose opportunities.

That fear costs you everything: The clients you want. The portfolio that proves your value. The pricing that sustains your business. The work that energizes you.

Specificity requires: Saying no to the hundred other good ideas. Choosing one thing. Giving up everything else.

Specificity creates: Leverage (you become the obvious choice). No competition (there’s no one to compare you to). Proper pricing (you charge for transformation).

The deep clients are exhausted from shallow providers. They’re looking for someone who sees what they can’t see.

But they can’t find you through vagueness.

Specificity filters. Wrong people leave immediately. Right people recognize themselves instantly.

That recognition only happens through specificity.

Choose your focus. Say no to the hundred other things.

Stop competing on price by becoming incompatible.

Specificity is the only way out.