I’m sometimes mystified when we meet a prospect or new client.

We’re supposed to handle the public introduction of the company: i.e., tell its differentiating story, nail down the supporting messages through every written or spoken effort we and the client make.

That’s not the mystifying part. We can find something to tout, always. (Look! This car has FOUR, count ’em, FOUR tires AND a steering wheel!)

Seriously, I’m speechless when, during the course of digging into the company’s value proposition, we hear, “but we don’t want to tip off the competition.”

Um…we’d never get into the family jewels. But at the story and supporting message set level, we do need to give a level of detail that shows there’s something different, new, noteworthy, NEWSworthy to the company’s editorial, blogging, analyst customer community.

It’d be like asking your lawyer to represent you in court, but not telling that lawyer everything that’s relevant to the case.

So the question I’d like to ask is: do you want to launch your company into the public domain, tell potential customers why you’ve got a different approach and technology that’s worth buying (and make money doing so)?

Or do you want to hide from the competition and everyone else, including potential customers?