These 5 Words Are a Big Communications Red Flag

“What I Really Do Is”

People ask me all the time:

• Is my website good enough?

• How can I make my marketing materials better?

• Is this business plan/ lead magnet / blog post / book proposal / email ready to go?

My question back is this: Will people come away with an understanding of what it is you do? Of what differentiates YOU? Of your value add?

If you send me something to review, but you have to build in all of this added context via phone call  or email around: “What I really do is”; or “But people come to me for…” then whatever deliverable you're sharing isn't doing what it's there to do.

If everyone in your sector uses jargon to describe core capabilities but your reader / audience doesn't know what those words mean, you need to build in that translation for them. If prospects convert through a phone or Zoom call, but never reach out based on your website, social, or emails alone--those elements are not telling the story of what you do.

It's not enough to describe your services; share what makes you different. And you'll know whether or not you're doing this based on whether people seem to have a decent grasp of what you're all about, or if you need to run through a “What I really do is..” value-add speech every time.