The Owner's Blind Spot

The Curse of Knowledge

There’s a famous experiment from Stanford where one person taps a song on a table and another person tries to guess it. The tapper hears the full melody in their head. The listener hears random knocking.

You hear the music. Your customer hears noise.

The tappers predicted that listeners would guess the song 50% of the time. The actual success rate? 2.5%.

This is the curse of knowledge. You know your business so deeply that you can’t remember what it’s like to not know. And that makes your marketing incomprehensible to the very people you’re trying to reach.

What Your Customer Actually Hears

You say: “We provide end-to-end operational architecture for scalable owner-operator businesses.”

They hear: static.

You say: “We leverage AI-driven automation to optimize cross-functional workflows.”

They hear: more static.

You say: “I help business owners stop working 80-hour weeks by building systems that run without them.”

They hear: “I need that.”

" If you confuse, you'll lose. People don't buy the best products — they buy the ones they can understand the fastest. "

The difference isn’t intelligence. It’s perspective. You’re inside the jar. The label is on the outside.

The Five-Year-Old Test

Here’s a test I run with every client: explain what you do to a five-year-old. Not a clever five-year-old. A normal, distracted, cookie-obsessed five-year-old.

If they can’t get it, neither can your customer in a 3-second scroll.

Before: “We provide SaaS-enabled solutions for operational efficiency in mid-market professional services.”

After: “We make business stuff work better so the boss can go home on time.”

If a kid can’t follow it, simplify it.

Is it oversimplified? Maybe. But it’s a better starting point than jargon. You can always add nuance. You can’t undo confusion.

The Three Things Every Customer Needs to Know

Within 10 seconds of hitting your website, a visitor needs answers to three questions:

1. What do you do? (In one sentence, no jargon)
2. How will it make my life better? (The transformation, not the features)
3. What do I do next? (One clear action)

That’s it. Everything else is secondary. If you answer these three questions clearly, you’re ahead of 90% of your competitors.

Clarity is kindness. Confusion is arrogance.

The Customer Language Audit

Your marketing should sound like your customer, not like your industry. Here’s how to find the right words.

Step 1: Collect Real Language

Go to three places where your ideal customers talk about their problems:

• Amazon reviews of books in your space
• Reddit threads or Facebook groups
• Your own support emails or sales call transcripts

Copy and paste the exact phrases they use. Not your interpretation — their words.

Step 2: Build a Language Bank

CUSTOMER LANGUAGE BANK
======================

Their Problem (in their words):
→ "I feel like I'm drowning in admin work"
→ "I can't take a vacation because nothing runs without me"
→ "Every time I try to grow, something breaks"

Their Desired Outcome (in their words):
→ "I just want my business to run without me babysitting it"
→ "I want to focus on the work I actually enjoy"
→ "I need someone to build the machine, not just fix it"

Words They Use:         Words They DON'T Use:
→ stuck                 → operational inefficiency
→ overwhelmed           → scalability constraints
→ trapped               → process optimization
→ exhausted             → workflow automation

Step 3: Rewrite Everything

Take your website, your emails, your social bios — and rewrite them using only the words in your language bank. If a phrase isn’t in your customer’s vocabulary, cut it.

The right words aren’t the smart words. They’re the words your customer already uses.

Seeing Others Clearly

The curse of knowledge isn’t just a marketing problem. It’s a human problem. It’s the reason parents struggle to help with homework. The reason experts can’t explain things simply. The reason we assume people should “just know” what we mean.

Paul isn’t giving marketing advice. But the principle applies: stop looking at the world through your own lens and start seeing it through theirs.

The Ministry of Translation

Jesus was the greatest teacher who ever lived. And He didn’t speak in theological jargon. He talked about sheep, coins, seeds, bread, and water.

He met people where they were. He spoke in the language they already understood.

He met fishermen and talked about fishing. He met farmers and talked about sowing. He met tax collectors and talked about debt. He translated eternal truth into the everyday language of His audience.

That’s not dumbing it down. That’s love in action.

“I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

— 1 Corinthians 9:22

Clarity isn’t a compromise. It’s a form of service. When you strip away the jargon and say something plainly, you’re not lowering the bar — you’re opening the door.

Resources for Clearer Communication

Further Reading

• The Curse of Knowledge (Harvard Business Review) → — The original article on why experts struggle to communicate
• Simple & Direct by Jacques Barzun → — A rhetoric handbook for writing that actually reaches people
• Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo → — How the world’s best speakers make complex ideas accessible