Two founders asked me the same question this week, in different words: why are the right customers not finding us? Both were attracting the wrong prospects, and one of them said he felt he was kissing a lot of frogs.
Both websites listed everything the business did. Both founders could tell me, without pausing, exactly who they wanted to work with. When I explained what I saw on the page, I told them nothing they did not already know.
What held them back was a worry I recognised, because I had it myself when I launched Addoli. Fewer enquiries feels worse than too many, so the page stays broad, just in case.
Key takeaways
- A vague proposition tells everyone they are welcome, so it attracts the wrong buyers and puts off the right ones.
- Buyers and AI tools both match their needs against the fit criteria on your page, so unstated criteria mean you are matched to everyone or no one.
- A visible “who it is not for” line works like a price ticket: it filters out the wrong buyers and gives the right ones confidence.
Why am I attracting the wrong prospects?
Because your proposition tells everyone they are welcome. When a page does not say who it is for, every visitor has to decide for themselves. Some guess wrong and enquire. Some guess wrong the other way and never get in touch. Many cannot be bothered and simply leave.
You then spend your own time qualifying out, by hand, before a sale is even in play.
I made this mistake myself. When I launched Addoli, my list of services was very broad and almost nobody could tell me what I actually did. The logic felt sound: attract the enquiries, then see what fits. I could not risk losing an opportunity.
What I had not counted was the time it cost. I spent hours listening to people describe what they wanted, realised halfway through that it was not work I wanted to do, and then looked for a polite way to say so. It is a particular kind of tiring, because nobody has done anything wrong. The page invited them in, and they came.
The invite goes out in both directions
Attracting the wrong prospects is easy to spot. An email or message arrives, a meeting goes in the diary, and you work through a full week of calls to learn that they are not your ideal customer, or that you are not the right fit for them.
The right enquiries are far harder to see. A c-suite leader who would have been a perfect fit reads a page that lists everything under the sun, assumes you must be generic, and moves on to someone who can solve their specific problem. You never see the enquiry that did not reach the contact button.
That is the real cost of a vague proposition. It fills your week with the wrong conversations, and it tells the buyer you would love to work with that this is probably not for them. It is one of the four failure patterns I describe in why your proposition is losing ground.
Consider a simple case. You and your biggest competitor both know that firms with fewer than 20 employees will not buy from you. Your website does not say so. Your competitor’s page states it clearly. Where do the small firms send their enquiries? Whose diary absorbs the extra time? And which of you does the larger prospect contact first?
The hardest part is that you cannot see this from inside. You know too much about your business to read your own page as a stranger does. That is the work I do through The Proposition Architect, which looks at a proposition from the outside in: who it attracts, who it puts off, and what the page says that you did not mean to say.
Why AI search raises the stakes
There are now two readers sorting your website. The first is your prospect. The second is the AI tool your buyer asks for a shortlist.
Both match what they need against the fit criteria you have written down: who you provide your products and services to. If you do not state the criteria, there is nothing to match, and you are matched to everyone or no one. If your buyer asks an AI tool for a shortlist before they use a search engine, this matters even more. [ADD SOURCE LINK]
A vague proposition tells the right buyer that this probably is not for them.
Tom Wood
Three ways the wrong invite goes out
Most vague propositions send the wrong invite in one of three ways. If you recognise one, you probably recognise the other two.
The menu
Every service you offer is listed with equal weight, because each one might be the one that wins. The visitor cannot tell which you are actually good at, so they assume none. Think of walking into a restaurant with 100 items on the menu. You freeze, order the wrong thing and regret it.
The silent price
There is no guide to cost or scale, so the right buyer worries they cannot afford you and the wrong buyer assumes you are cheap. Both stay in the funnel for the wrong reasons. It feels like a great job advert with no salary, or worse, the word “competitive”. Do you really want to spend hours on applications and interviews to find out it is not enough?
The pipeline trap
In a previous role, we spent a huge amount of time on discovery meetings, pitches and beauty parades. Many times we lost to lower priced alternatives, yet we still did the same tap dance, knowing the outcome before it started.
It carried on because the business measured pipeline, not business value secured. A full pipeline meant the budget was there, so nobody asked how much time and energy went into meetings we were never going to win. A full pipeline can hide a great deal of waste. It looks like activity, and it is often the cost of not being specific about who you are for.
Fewer enquiries feels worse than too many, but not when those fewer enquiries sit exactly in your sweet spot and your conversion rate is high because of it.
The painting test for pricing
Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. You see a painting you would love to own, but there is no price on it. You wonder whether it is £300 or £5,000, and you do not want to look foolish by asking. So you walk away from something you could have afforded, without ever knowing.
Now flip it. The price is on the wall. If it is beyond you, you move on and nobody has wasted a minute. If it is within reach, you come over and ask about it.
I used to co-own a contemporary craft gallery, and we always made sure the price tickets, particularly on jewellery, faced the right way so customers could see them clearly. A visible price does two jobs. It filters out the people it is not for, and it gives confidence to the people it is.
A “who is this for” fit line works the same way. It saves the buyer the awkward question, and it saves you the moment at the end of a long conversation when you quote the price and both of you squirm because you already know the answer. I would much rather someone looked at my pricing and decided it was too much for them than have that conversation after an hour of discovery.
What a fit line actually does
A “who it is not for” line is not a rejection. It is a signal.
Writing the Fit section of my new home page showed me something I did not expect. Saying who I am not suitable for sharpened who I am suitable for far more than any list of services had. It is the same reason I wrote the Addoli Manifesto. Once you say what you will not do, the things you will do become much clearer, and I feel far more comfortable saying them to someone now.
It does not only turn people away. A few months ago, someone asked to meet. They said they used to work in a £1m+ business but were now starting out on their own, so they appreciated my time. I thought it an odd comment, as I had not made the connection, and I was happy to meet. We talked through their plans and how they were growing the business, and found some new opportunities along the way.
Then the penny dropped. The benchmark in my fit line had given them a target to work towards, and once they hit it, they would come back and hire me. A line that says “not yet” can be the most useful thing a future prospect reads. It gives them a number to aim for and a reason to trust you when they get there.
In practice
Write three “not for” lines, as specific as you can. “Not for firms looking for the cheapest option” beats “not for everyone”. Check your last five lost deals against them and count how many the lines would have filtered out before anyone lost an afternoon. Then remove one service line that brings the wrong buyer: not the one that earns least, but the one that costs you the most time. If you do nothing else, remove that one, because it is the quickest way to stop attracting the wrong prospects.
Frequently asked questions
How do I stop enquiries from the wrong buyers?
State who your proposition is for and who it is not for, in specific terms, on the page buyers read first. Add a guide to price or scale, and remove the service line that costs you the most time. The aim is to let buyers qualify themselves before they contact you, so fewer wrong conversations reach your diary.
What is a “who it is not for” line?
It is a short statement on your website naming the buyers you are not the right fit for, such as firms looking for the cheapest option. It works as a signal, not a rejection. It saves wasted conversations, sharpens what you are suitable for, and gives aspiring buyers a benchmark to work towards.
Will fewer enquiries hurt my business?
Fewer enquiries can feel worse, but volume is not the measure that matters. Fewer enquiries from buyers in your sweet spot usually convert at a higher rate, and you spend less time in discovery meetings you were never going to win. Measure business value secured, not conversations started.
Why does my proposition matter for AI search?
AI tools match what a buyer needs against the fit criteria written on your page. If you state who you serve, there is something specific for them to match. If you do not, there is nothing to match, and you risk being matched to everyone or no one, which helps neither you nor the buyer.
Should I show prices on my website?
A visible price, or at least a guide to cost or scale, does two jobs. It filters out buyers it is not for and gives confidence to those it is for. Without one, the right buyer may worry they cannot afford you, while the wrong buyer may assume you are cheap, so both stay in your funnel for the wrong reasons.
