Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that’s me) shares one way to achieve a breakthrough at work — and build a career or company you love.
This edition is brought to you by Poppy, which is the simplest, clearest, most customizable AI tool I’ve found. Info below.
You tell people about yourself or your work, and they don’t get it.
Maybe they nod politely but don’t follow up. Or they seem interested but never convert into customers, clients, or collaborators.
Here’s what’s probably happening: The language you’re using makes complete sense to you — and almost none to anyone else.
Today, I’ll show you how to find the gaps in your own communication, and how to make yourself very appealing to others.
But let’s start by looking at someone who got it wrong…
What do you actually do?
A few years ago, I was with a group of entrepreneurs. One woman introduced herself as a “transformational coach.”
Another person in the group, sales coach Myron Golden, stopped her.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
She said she helps people transform their lives.
“Transform them how?” he asked.
She gave an equally vague answer.
He kept pressing. Every answer she gave raised more questions. Myron said she had a problem.
“People can only decide whether or not they want to do business with you based on the fact that they hear what you say, and then they think, ‘I need that’ or ‘I don’t need that,’” he explained. “You want to be one of those two things. It’s like, hate me, or celebrate me. But whatever you do, don’t just tolerate me because I’m confusing.”
Now let’s talk about how to do that.
Why we can’t see our own confusion
Here’s the thing: The “transformational coach” wasn’t being careless or lazy. She knew exactly what she did — and that was precisely the problem.
We are so close to our own ideas, our own work, our own expertise, that we forget what it’s like to not know them. Our language feels clear and obvious to us, but it is often opaque to everyone else.
In her case, the word “transformation” surely means something specific. But is anyone waking up in the morning thinking, I need to be transformed? Probably not. And even so, what would it mean? Transformed into another person? Into a frog? The whole thing is confusing.
A version of this problem shows up everywhere:
- The job seeker whose resume is full of titles and acronyms that mean nothing outside their previous company
- The founder whose pitch is packed with vision language that excites them but confuses investors
- The expert who explains what they do in terms of their process, not their outcome
In every case, the person communicating is not trying to be confusing. They just can’t see the gap between what they know and what their audience knows.
The greatest communication trick
So how do you find that gap?
Here’s the most useful thing I do: Wipe your mind of what you already know, and look at everything you create as if you’ve never seen it before.
This sounds simple, but it’s genuinely hard. It requires you to temporarily forget your expertise, your context, and your assumptions — and encounter your own words as a stranger would.
Ask yourself: If I knew absolutely nothing about this person, this product, or this idea, would I understand what’s being communicated? Would I know what it’s for? Would I know if I needed it?
If the answer is no — or even maybe — you have a gap to close.
Myron’s formula for getting it right
Once you’ve identified the gap, you need a way to fill it. Myron Golden has a great formula for this, which he shared with me. It has four qualities:
- It must be measurable. It must contain an exact, quantifiable thing. Not “I help people transform their lives” — but what specifically changes, and by how much?
- It must be stateable. It should fit into a short sentence. If you can’t say it quickly, you haven’t figured it out yet.
- It must be understandable. Clear language, no jargon, no confusion. If someone has to ask a follow-up question to understand the basics, you haven’t gotten there yet.
- It must be desirable. It must contain something people already want. You’re not creating desire from scratch — you’re connecting what you do to something your audience already cares about.
Run your current description through these four filters. Most people will find that they fail at least two of them. That’s useful information. Now you know exactly where to focus.
How this can work on a soda can
Here’s a vivid example of this principle in action.
Olipop is one of the buzziest beverage brands today. But if you’d seen their early packaging, you might not have understood what they were selling.
Their first description: “Sparkling Digestive Tonic.”
You think: Huh? Not for me.
Eventually they revised it to: “Sparkling Tonic.”
Less clinical, but still vague. Meh.
Their third and current description: “A New Kind of Soda.”
Oh. I like soda! This sounds delicious.
Look at what happened across those three iterations. Olipop stopped speaking their own language — the language of gut health and functional beverages — and started speaking their customer’s language. They stopped describing what the product was and started describing what it meant to the person holding it.
Those words unlocked hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.
This is a powerful skill
Here’s your challenge: Look at how you currently describe yourself or your work. Your LinkedIn headline. Your website. The way you answer “what do you do?” at a networking event.
Now wipe your mind. Pretend you’ve never heard of yourself.
The more you do this, the more valuable a skill it will be come.
Think of it this way: You are never sending information. You are always delivering information. That means you must be aware of who’s receiving your information, and what’s already inside their heads. View everything from their perspective.
Because if they don’t understand you, then nothing you said matters. And you matter.
That’s how to do one thing better.
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