Your Customers Shouldn’t Have to Learn Your Business to Buy From You

You know how your business works. You know what your services are called, which person handles what, what all the acronyms mean, and what someone needs to do to get started.

Your customers don’t. And sometimes, without realizing it, we make them learn all of that before they can work with us.

We make customers do homework.

It happens all the time. A website lists five services, but doesn’t explain which one is right for you. A nonprofit talks about programs using names that make perfect sense internally but mean very little to someone encountering the organization for the first time. A contact page gives you four different people to choose from. A button says “Learn More” when what someone really wants to know is, “How much does this cost?” or “What happens next?”

None of these things seem particularly confusing when you already know how the organization works. That’s the problem.

Your customer sees something completely different.

When we work inside a business every day, we accumulate context. Your customer arrives with almost none. They don’t know that two of your services usually go together. They don’t know that “Community Partners Initiative” is your volunteer program. They don’t know that Susan handles new clients and Jeff handles existing ones.

And they probably don’t want to know. They just want to accomplish whatever brought them to you in the first place. So instead of asking: “Have we explained everything?” Try asking: “Have we made the next step obvious?” Those are very different goals.

Good marketing removes decisions.

We tend to think giving people more information helps them make a decision. Sometimes it does.

But every additional option, paragraph, button, service name, form field, and instruction is also something your customer has to process.

That doesn't mean your marketing should be vague. It means it should be intentional. If someone lands on your homepage, what is the most important thing they need to understand? If they look at your services, can they tell where to start? If they're ready to contact you, do they know what happens next? If they're interested but not ready, have you given them an easy way to keep learning?

Your customer shouldn't need an organizational chart to figure out how to give you money.

Try looking at your business from the outside.

This is harder than it sounds. Open your website and pretend you know absolutely nothing about the organization behind it.

Better yet, ask someone who actually knows very little about your business to look at it.

Then ask them three questions:

• What do you think we do?

• Who do you think this is for?

• What would you do next if you wanted to work with us?

Don't explain anything while they're looking. The places where they hesitate are probably worth paying attention to.

Because clarity isn't about saying everything. It's about making sure your customer doesn't have to figure everything out. And the easier you make that journey, the easier you make it for the right people to choose you.