Confused people rarely buy. Instead, they hesitate, “think about it”… then close the tab.
If your offer, process, or copy isn’t easy for your audience to digest, you could lose them regardless of how much they need what you’re selling.
As a sales and website copywriter, I see this all the time—business owners with great offers buried under so many options, so many steps, and so much explaining that it feels like rocket science to their target client.
It shouldn’t feel like work for your audience to understand your offer. Saying “yes” should feel easy.
For that to happen, there has to be clarity—the 3rd lever of Reveal’s Brain-Based Buying Framework©.
Creating Simplicity = Reducing Friction
Somewhere along the way, the need to be clever has influenced the way many business owners approach marketing.
Yes, you should have fun with your marketing and copy. But you can keep it simple while also incorporating your personality and storytelling.
You don’t have to cut words for the sake of brevity, but clarity removes mental friction in the buying process—aka, the thinking someone has to do to understand what you’re offering.
If a person reads your sales page and by the end is still confused about what you’re selling, you’ve overcomplicated it.
The smaller the cognitive load for someone to understand your offer AND whether it’s for them, the more likely they are to buy.
If your ideal clients are engaging with your content, stalking your website, but still aren’t converting, start with the This Is How You Sell Textbook.
Where “Too Many Things” Becomes a Problem (& How to Fix It)
This can show up in a lot of ways—having an offer ecosystem that’s too complicated, having too many options and add-ons, or having too many steps in your process.
Here’s where I typically see it:
→ Too many options. Whether that’s having multiple tiers of one offer, creating tons of offers that serve completely different audiences, or having a dozen add-on options to try to capture every potential lead.
This flexibility can feel like a positive thing, but in reality it just creates confusion in your ideal client’s head. When someone can’t easily tell which option is for them, they get overwhelmed and don’t pick any of them.
A good rule of thumb is to keep your website and services page focused on a maximum of three different offers. You can have off-menu services or things you only provide for recurring clients, but making them all visible at once can overwhelm someone new to your brand.
→ Too many steps to say yes. If someone has to read a services page, download a rate sheet, fill out an inquiry form, book a call to “learn more,” etc… that’s a lot of cognitive load before you’ve even started working together.
Every extra click, form, or email is the potential to lose momentum… and lose the lead. So, look closely at your customer experience and how you can make it easier.
Can that two-step process be reduced down to one? Are you delivering the same information multiple times? Can you list your pricing on your website so prospects don’t have to book a call to determine if you’re in their budget?
→ Too much justification. There’s knowing your ideal clients and speaking to them in detail, and then there’s just overexplaining. If your copy is working overtime to explain, defend, and pre-empt every possible nuance and objection, it’s probably not building the trust you think it is.
The more you over-explain your offer, the more it raises red flags and signals to your audience it’s complicated or confusing.
Instead of spending three paragraphs beating down the same objection, address it in 1-2 clean sentences. Don’t pick at the same pain points repeatedly. Speak in a way your consumer understands.
Your Offer Should Feel Like an Easy Yes
Your audience isn’t going to actively work to convince themselves to hire you.
That’s your job! (Or your website copywriter’s job. 😉)
If they have to try too hard to understand your offer, how you can help them, and what the process looks like, they’re just going to move on.
Take a look at your sales page or website and ask yourself honestly: Are you asking your audience to do too much thinking, processing, or clicking before they “get” it? If your answer is yes… clarity is the likely gap in your sales strategy.
And if you feel like you’re too close to your offer to simplify it down to just the right words, that’s exactly what my website copywriting services are here for.
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