If your clients don’t understand what you do, they can’t buy from you. But if you oversimplify to make it understandable, you lose credibility with the people who do. But there’s another way.

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There’s a tightrope that consulting firms, technical product companies, and sophisticated service providers walk every single day. On one side: being so technical that potential clients feel excluded, confused, or intimidated. On the other side: dumbing down your work so much that you attract the wrong clients entirely and erode your own credibility.

Most organizations fall off one side or the other.

The ones who stay technical end up with websites full of jargon, sales conversations that require three meetings just to explain what they do, and deals lost because buyers couldn’t grasp why the work was worth the price.

The ones who oversimplify end up with what I call “tipsy” content — tip after tip after tip, digestible and generic, ChatGPT-friendly and entirely devoid of the nuance that makes their work valuable. They attract tire kickers. They extend their sales cycles. And they lose deals to competitors who actually sound like they know what they’re doing.

Here’s what I want you to understand: there is a third option.

And it’s the only reason Story Studio Network exists today. It’s the skill I spent 20 years developing as a broadcast journalist covering complex issues — policy, economics, technical innovation, legal frameworks — and learning how to make them accessible without eroding their truth.

This isn’t just a communications exercise. It’s about ROI. It’s about not losing deals you should win because the buyer doesn’t understand your approach, why it’s different, and why it might be worth more.

Let me show you what I mean.

The Technical Trap: When Sophistication Alienates

Here’s what the “too technical” side looks like:

You’re a consultant. The work you do is incredibly sophisticated, multi-layered. When clients ask you questions, your honest answer is often: “Well, it depends.”

And that’s a legitimate answer. It means what you do requires deep expertise, nuanced decision-making, and experience that can’t be reduced to a formula.

Your website reflects this. Your content is technically accurate, detailed, comprehensive. You explain your process in terms of dependencies: If this, then this. If that, then that. It’s essentially a professional choose-your-own-adventure.

The problem? Someone who doesn’t already understand that level of nuance reads your website and feels like it’s incomprehensible. They assume it’s too sophisticated for them. They think you’re too smart to work with. They leave.

You lose deals — not because you can’t do the work, but because you can’t explain it in a way that builds confidence instead of confusion.

I see this constantly on LinkedIn. Brilliant people explaining their work in a way that only other people in their field can understand. Which is fine if you’re trying to impress your peers. It’s disastrous if you’re trying to close business.

The Simplification Trap: When Accessibility Erodes Authority

On the other side, you have the oversimplification problem.

You strip all the incredible knowledge and experience and decision-making ability out of your content. You pivot to digestibility. You use simple analogies. You post tips. You let AI tools tell you what to say.

Your content becomes what I call “tipsy” — tip after tip after tip. And just like being tipsy, you usually fall over. On your face.

You lose credibility with the sophisticated buyer who does understand nuance, who wants to see how you think, who’s looking for someone who can handle complexity — because all they’re seeing from you is surface-level advice that could apply to anyone.

This happened to me in the early days of Story Studio Network.

I was talking about podcasting the way everyone in “the pod sphere” talks about it: how to get more downloads, how to clip and repurpose your show, how to start your podcast from scratch.

It was attracting the wrong clients. People who expected to pay $1,000 per episode. When I told them we were seven to ten times that, it was completely lost on them because they’d been attracted to my simple explanation of what we did.

I was dumbing down my message, and it was costing me deals.

The Cost of Getting This Wrong

Let me be very direct about what happens when you can’t walk this line:

You lose deals you should win.
The buyer doesn’t understand why your approach is different or why it’s worth the premium. They go with someone who sounds simpler, cheaper, or more “accessible” — even if that person can’t actually deliver what you can.

You extend your sales cycle to an uncomfortable length.
You spend the first three meetings just explaining what you do before you can even get into a qualified sales conversation. For small businesses, that’s a nail in the coffin.

You attract tire kickers.
People who need to do the work to understand whether they even need you. They’re not ready. They’re not qualified. And they’re taking up time you don’t have.

You erode your thought leadership over time.
If you’re only ever talking in tips and simple analogies, you’re not leading a conversation. You’re just producing content. And there’s a big difference between being a producer and being a thought leader.

That last one is why I stopped talking about podcast production altogether.

There are plenty of shops that put people in front of microphones, do fancy editing, and call it a day. I don’t see them as thought leaders. They’re producers. And I realized I didn’t want to be associated with that conversation anymore because it wasn’t attracting the clients I actually wanted to work with.

I want to work with people who lead conversations. Who understand the complexity of narrative strategy, communication infrastructure, and brand storytelling at scale. Those people aren’t searching for “how to start a podcast.” They’re searching for someone who can translate their sophisticated work into something their market can actually understand and act on.

So I stopped talking like a production company and started talking like a communications consultant who happens to have a production company.

That shift — that repositioning — changed everything.

Why This Is So Hard to Get Right

Here’s why most people struggle with this:

You’re too close to your own work.
You’ve lost the ability to remember what it was like to not know what you know. You’re suffering from the curse of knowledge. You can’t see which parts are actually confusing because it all makes perfect sense to you.

You’re worried about being misunderstood.
You think if you don’t explain every detail, every dependency, every layer of sophistication, people won’t understand what you do. So you over-explain. And in over-explaining, you lose them.

You’re not sure who you’re talking to.
Are you talking to the end user? The technical buyer? The CEO who signs the checks? You’re trying to speak to all three at once, and it leads you down a year-long pathway of wasting your time. (Ask me how I know.)

The Third Option: Technical Enough, Accessible Enough

So what’s the solution?

It’s not simplification. It’s not staying in the jargon. It’s specificity.

Specificity is different than simplicity.

Simplicity strips out nuance. Specificity unpacks it.

Instead of saying: “We help companies optimize their go-to-market strategy through integrated communication frameworks,” you say:

“We worked with a PE-backed SaaS company that was losing deals in the final stage because their sales team couldn’t explain the product’s value without sounding too technical. We rebuilt their narrative structure so a non-technical buyer could understand why it mattered in the first discovery call. They closed three deals in the next 60 days.”

See the difference?

The first version is generic. It could mean anything. It sounds sophisticated, but it doesn’t show sophistication.

The second version is specific. It shows the problem, the solution, the result. It demonstrates expertise without requiring the reader to already understand your methodology.

Specificity helps you unpack complexity without dumbing it down.

How to Start Walking This Line

If you’re realizing you’ve fallen off one side of this tightrope, here’s where to start:

Audit your content for who it’s actually speaking to.
Are you attracting the clients you want, or are you attracting people who need to be educated before they can even become qualified buyers? If it’s the latter, your content is too simple.

Are people telling you they “don’t quite get” what you do, or that it sounds “really complicated”? Your content is too technical.

Swap simplicity for specificity.
Every time you sit down to write sales copy, website content, or social posts, ask yourself: Am I being simple, or am I being specific?

Simple: “We help businesses grow.”
Specific: “We helped a $10M consulting firm identify why their pipeline stalled at the proposal stage and restructured their sales narrative. They closed four deals in six weeks.”

Stop trying to speak to everyone at once.
Pick one buyer. The one you actually want. The one who understands complexity and is willing to pay for someone who can handle it. Speak to them. Let go of everyone else.

Show how you think, not just what you do.
Instead of listing your services or explaining your process in steps, show your decision-making. Share a case study. Walk through a real example. Let people see how you navigate complexity — because that’s what they’re buying.

The Real Shift: From Explainer to Translator

Here’s the reframe that changed everything for me:

I’m not in the business of explaining what I do. I’m in the business of translating complex work into language that sophisticated buyers can act on.

That’s a very different job.

Explaining means you’re educating people who don’t understand. Translating means you’re helping people who do understand see the value more clearly.

When I stopped trying to explain podcasting and started translating narrative strategy, everything shifted. The clients who reached out were ready. They understood the work. They just needed someone who could do it at the level they required.

That’s who you’re looking for, too.

The Bottom Line

If your content isn’t working — if your sophisticated work is not translating into sophisticated buyers — the problem isn’t your work.

It’s the way you’re talking about your work.

You need someone who understands complexity and understands story. That combination is rare.

But if you can walk that line — technical enough to maintain credibility, accessible enough to be understood — you’ll stop losing deals you should win. You’ll shorten your sales cycle. You’ll attract clients who are ready to buy, not clients who need to be convinced.

And you’ll finally stop feeling like you have to choose between sounding smart and being understood.

You don’t have to choose. There’s a third option.

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Want to talk through how this applies to your business? I work with consultants, service providers, and technical founders who are tired of losing deals because they can’t explain what they do without either confusing people or sounding generic. If that’s you, let’s talk. Book in for a diagnostic at the link below.

Connect with me on LinkedIn or check out The Narrative Advantage podcast for more on communication strategy that actually works.