There’s a moment in almost every discovery workshop where someone sighs and says:
‘We’re actually very good at what we do. We just don’t know how to explain it.’
Usually followed by an awkward laugh.
Because they know that sounds a bit crazy.
After all, if you’ve spent the last 10 years building a business, surely you should be able to describe it.
But that’s a bit like asking someone to describe their own face without a mirror. You know every feature intimately, but seeing the whole picture is another matter.
It’s surprisingly difficult to stand outside your own business.
Familiarity is a terrible editor
When you live inside something every day, you stop noticing what other people notice.
You forget which bits are unusual.
You assume everyone understands the jargon.
You can’t remember what it’s like not to know.
So you start explaining your business the way you’d explain it to a new employee.
Or your accountant.
Or your mum.
None of whom, lovely though they may be, are your ideal client.
The temptation is to throw everything in
We’ve all done it.
A homepage becomes a sort of verbal junk drawer.
A little bit of history.
Every service you’ve ever offered.
Six adjectives.
A sentence about coffee.
Before long, you’re trying to squeeze the entire contents of the business into a few hundred words, like sitting on an overstuffed suitcase and hoping the zip holds.
The trouble is, your reader isn’t looking for everything.
They’re looking for their thing.
The problem that’s keeping them awake.
The question they typed into Google.
The reason they clicked on your website instead of someone else’s.
If they have to dig for it, many won’t.
You have plenty of ideas. You just don’t know which ones matter.
Working out what belongs in the foreground and what quietly stays in the background isn’t always intuitive. But saying one thing clearly usually means deciding not to say fifteen other things. (Which is harder than it sounds.)
This is why I rarely start with the copy
Clients are sometimes surprised by that.
They expect the first question to be, ‘So… what do you want your homepage to say?’
Instead, I’m more interested in things like:
- Why do clients come to you instead of someone cheaper?
- What do customers say in your Google reviews time and time again?
- Where do conversations suddenly click?
- When do people say, ‘Oh… now I get it!’?
Those answers tell me far more than a list of services ever could.
They’re the roots.
The copy is just the branches.
A small experiment
Next time someone asks what you do, resist the urge to list your services.
See if you can describe the change instead.
Not the process or the deliverables, but what life looks like afterwards.
My clients rarely buy copywriting. They buy confidence that their website will finally sound like the business they’ve spent years building. What they’re really after is that moment of relief when someone reads it back and says, ‘That’s exactly what I want.’
There’s a difference. And people can feel it.
So, how do you explain what you do?
Try this instead of your usual answer.
Finish these three sentences, out loud, without overthinking them:
People come to me when…
Before working with me, they usually…
After working with me, they…
That’s your explanation. It’s not a service list or a mission statement – it’s the shift, in plain words.
Here’s what that sounds like in practice.
The vague version: ‘We provide landscape design and garden maintenance services.’
The change-focused version: ‘People come to us when their garden feels like one more thing on the to-do list. Before we start, it’s overgrown, unloved, and slightly embarrassing when guests visit. Afterwards, it’s the reason they invite people over.‘
Same business. Completely different reaction from the person reading it.
You’ll notice the second version doesn’t mention services, tools or process. It doesn’t need to. It just tells the truth about what changes.
If finding the words to explain your business feels oddly difficult…
It’s probably because you’re trying to describe something you’ve become too close to.
That’s normal.
Most business owners don’t need someone to hand them better adjectives.
They need someone to hold up the mirror.
Once they can see the business clearly, the words have a habit of following.
Explaining what you do isn’t supposed to feel like solving a cryptic crossword
If it does, the answer isn’t another round of editing. It’s taking a step back before you can confidently step forward.