Your business knows too much about itself

Every now and then, you meet someone who answers a simple question with a complicated explanation. You ask what they do. A few minutes later, you know which software they use, how they got into the industry, and where they hope it’s all going.

You still don't know what they actually do.

It is a common experience. Businesses do it too. The longer we live with an idea, the harder it becomes to remember what it feels like to encounter it for the first time.

What began as a simple explanation slowly collects detail. We add the process, the philosophy, and the backstory. We mention things that make perfect sense to us because we have been living with them for months or years. Someone discovering the business today has none of that context.

They aren't trying to understand everything. They are trying to answer one question:

What does this business actually do?

Many businesses answer a different question entirely.

Somewhere along the way, the explanation stopped being written for strangers and started being written for the people inside the business.

That is why websites often lead with methodology instead of the problem being solved. Social media captions explain the process before the result. Service pages describe how the work happens before explaining why anyone should care.

None of this comes from a lack of expertise. It comes from being too close to the work. Knowing something well changes how we talk about it; we forget how much context we are carrying.

Most people won’t tell you they are confused. They won’t send an email asking for a simpler explanation. By the time they are trying to understand your business, they are already deciding whether it is worth their time.

One question we always ask at Fastora is: Could someone explain this business to a friend after seeing it for the first time?

If the answer is no, we don't start with campaigns or content calendars. We start by fixing the explanation.

This article is part of Fastora's journal on branding, communication and the way people make decisions.