Prospective families will sometimes ask us, “How are you different from (insert name of competitor here)?" I don’t think it’s unreasonable for someone to ask the question. But they’re not just asking us about Collegewise; they’re asking us to speak on behalf of our competitors, too. And that’s not something we can—or should—try to answer with any real accuracy.
It's not a good idea to speak for your competitors. We can tell a family everything you’d ever want to know about Collegewise. And I could give you my completely biased version about why I think we’re the greatest college counselors in the universe. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for me to speak on the specifics of our competitors’ offerings, or to tell you what I think their strengths and weaknesses are. I wouldn’t want a competitor speaking for us in that situation, either. And the truth is that describing why you’re “better” than your competition makes you look insecure more often than it makes you look confident.
So when a family asks us how we differ from our competitors, we reverse the question.
“Sure, have you spoken with any competitors in particular? Great. What did she tell you about her program?”
From there, the customer should do the comparison, not us. They can ask the comparison questions, like,
“(Competitor) said they offer career testing as part of their service. Does Collegewise do that, too?” (No, we don’t).
We always encourage families to look around and consider all of their counseling options. Meet with a few private counselors and choose the one that you and your kids feel most comfortable with. If they’d like them, we’re happy to give families the names and numbers of our most popular competitors. But we won’t speak for them.