0:00:00 - Betsy Jordyn
Is knowing too much actually standing between you and the clients you want? If so, you might be in the curse of knowledge trap. Find out what this is and why it's messing with your messaging, and how to get out of it on today's episode of the Consulting Matters podcast. And welcome to the Consulting Matters podcast. This is the show for consultants and coaches who are ready to own the power of what they do and position themselves for greater impact and income.
I'm your host, betsy Jordyn. I'm both a business mentor and a brand messaging and positioning strategist. You can find out how I help my clients turn the complexity of what they do into clear, compelling, client-converting messages, offers and strategies on my website at wwwbetsyjordyncom. Don't forget, jordyn is with a Y, so today what we're doing is I'm continuing on with my series on the power of clear messaging for consultants and coaches. So last week I laid the groundwork by going over how to know you need to work on your brand messaging and why it's worth it. So if you missed it, definitely go back and tune in. And today we're building on it by getting into one of the sneakiest culprits. That leads to the glazed eyes and polite that's interesting responses when you explain what you do, and that is the curse of knowledge trap. So the curse of knowledge trap is the trap that we fall into when all the work that we put into building the knowledge that we have and mastering the expertise that fuels our consulting and coaching causes us to literally forget what it's like to not know what we know. That is the curse of knowledge, and the reason why it feels like a lot of times people don't get it when you write and talk about what you do is people don't get it and it's because you're using language and ideas that they don't resonate with, oftentimes with jargon and industry terms that make you feel smart and then feel dumb. And you know what the high achieving, accomplished clients that you want do when they feel dumb they disconnect. That's the blank stares and a let's wrap it up energy that you're feeling because they're feeling stupid.
So here's the deal. Like you and I both know that what you do as a consultant or coach is indeed powerful, and if you're going to leave the comfort, security and perks of a leadership career to start or grow your own thriving consulting business, you need this business to be successful, right and to achieve what you want you have to be able to talk about what you do and its value in a way that feels compelling and credible to the clients that you want to work with. And this begins with recognizing and then escaping the curse of knowledge trap. So on the show, we're going to be getting into why it's so easy and natural for consultants and coaches like us to fall into the curse of knowledge trap. We're going to also talk about how the curse of knowledge trap plays out in your messaging, and then I'm going to tell you how to get out of it. And don't forget, if you haven't downloaded my free messaging guide at wwwbetsyjordyncom. Forward slash confused hyphen. Two hyphen confident. Definitely do so now. This will jumpstart your messaging clarity. So now onto the show.
So let's first get into why is it so easy for consultants and coaches to fall into the curse of knowledge trap? And it's simply this we're learners, we're head people and we're idealists. So, as learners, we spend years and will continue to spend even more years mastering our craft. And we don't just know what we know, we live it, we breathe it. We invest a lot of time thinking about and perfecting our leadership models and our theories around what leads to transformation and careers, lives and organizations. These concepts are not just second nature to us, they are embedded in us and it's almost impossible to not know what we know and impossible to have the empathy or awareness that other people don't know what we know. You know, when I was a brand new OD consultant after I got my master's, I was shocked that my MBA clients had no clue what I did and really didn't want to. So it's really hard for us because we spent a lot of time learning this.
The other reason why it's so easy for us to fall into this trap is we've been trained and rewarded for speaking corporate or industry speak or academic language, so we were rewarded for sounding smart. So in the past, saying phrases like I optimize cross-functional synergies once earn respect. Or we spend a lot of time with peers who we can easily and readily talk shop with. So it makes it hard for us to imagine other people that we're talking to don't have a language for this or get it. You know like this is one of the things that made me nutty about Lean, you know, is that I had no clue that Lean was like this massive people development strategy. It took me so long to get Lean because there was so much lingo and jargon that I didn't understand and I couldn't relate to. And so this is why I'm so passionate about Lean in particular getting their messaging in a different place, because if I, with all of my years of experience in organization development, doesn't get it like I imagine, leaders won't either.
And not to pick on lean, because I would say the same thing for all of my OD consultant friends who want to talk about the importance of having people-centered organizations and human centric cultures. We all talk about it, we all talk in our academic language and we don't know. The other reason why it's so easy for us to get into this curse of knowledge trap is we are idealists and we live in this after picture, you know. So our days are spent helping people grow or trying to bring forth a better world for our leaders and organizations, or even the private clients that we work with. So we live at the end of their transformation and we forget our clients at the beginning of the transformation. So we speak to the after part, you know where it makes your audience feel like, hey, you don't get me, you don't get my struggle, you can't relate to it. So it's just really natural for us to fall into this knowledge trap. It's just really natural for us to fall into this knowledge trap. So the thing I would love for you to reflect on is why this might be a challenge for you personally. You know like I could tell you why the curse of knowledge trap is so sneaky is it disguises itself as professionalism or care for the client, but it really does is just make the messages land flat. You know so I could tell you. I could see how the curse of knowledge trap can be so sneaky. But why do you think that it's easy for us to fall into this trap and do you struggle at all with the curse of knowledge trap and why do you think it might be?
So now let's get into the messaging mistakes that emanate from the curse of knowledge trap and the messaging that comes out of this is we just talk in acronyms, jargon and very specific industry terminology or overly complicated language. So an example might be is like I help leaders improve organizational capabilities to enhance KPIs that drive sustainable growth. Like who knows what that means, unless you're somebody, maybe as an organization development person, but that's a overly complicated phrase with lots of buzzwords. Or you might be on the flip side, where you're very vague. You know, like I improve performance and somebody has to respond like well, I don't know what does that mean? You know, or you focus on the virtue of what you want your clients to want or your stance around what you believe that they need in order to get what they want. So you might say something like I'll help your operations leaders overcome their blind spots and create a more engaging culture. So virtue messaging is a huge problem that a lot of consultants and coaches have, because we know what's at the root of what they need. So we might want to push on the organization like oh, I'm going to help you have more mindfulness in your organization so that you could have more stress-free workplaces, and we're pushing that value on their clients. So that's a big problem is we are not meeting our clients at their point of departure. We're meeting them at ours and what we want for them that they have no ability to conceive of or may not even share that perspective.
So before you think I'm dissing on everybody else, I'm going to tell you how I did all of these things at one point or another, in this specific moment, when I figured out the impact of my virtue messaging and how it was leading to nothing. The results were not good, and here's when it changed for me. So you might have heard this story on different podcasts, but this is such a great one. So I went to dinner with my friend and my friend's boyfriend who is this Google executive and so he asked me what I did. And I'm like I just had worked on my website and I was like proudly saying, I ignite leadership, team and organizational potential, you know. And he leaned in and asked me again like no, so what do you do? You know you can potential. And he leaned in and asked me again like no, so what do you do? You can't see me doing this. I'm doing that little tenty thing where he's moving his fingers against one another. Like, what do you do? And I said the same thing. I'm like, oh, I ignite leadership, a team and organizational potential. And then he asked this again. I'm like, oh my gosh. I was about to suggest to my friend like hey, let's go to the bathroom so I could tell you what a jerk your boyfriend is.
When he stopped and explained what he was doing and why he was pushing me and what I was doing wrong and he explained this is that I was using push words, not pull your pull words, like I was pushing some sort of idea and I wasn't connecting to the clients that I really wanted to help. I wasn't painting a picture around who I help, the problems I solved, the value that I created. You know, at this time in my career I was in my consulting business. So I was an organization development consultant and ideally wanted to work with hospitality executives struggling with growth because of conflicting views on how to go about it. So that's what I wanted to do. But instead what I was expressing is some sort of virtue or aspiration that I expressed what I wanted my clients to want. I wanted them to achieve their full potential. So it was so far beyond any desired outcomes of aligning teams around a commonly agreed growth agenda. It was completely off, and he pointed this out. It's like it's not clear. And he pushed me. He's like your messaging is not clear and it's not going to be good enough until I know exactly who to refer you to.
I think this was the moment I was thinking I really want to retire from consulting and get into this brand messaging, because I was riveted on this. So I got to work on fixing my response. So I stopped saying I ignite leadership, team and organizational potential, and I started to say this and acting this out. I wish you could see all my arms moving because I acted this out, so instead I would say so. You know, when hospitality organizations are growing from this size to this size and the wheel starts falling off and everyone starts finger pointing. And I didn't have to say anything else after that because all of a sudden the heads of the people I were talking to started nodding vigorously, like, oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm like, oh my gosh, I was so impressed they were responding and so I stopped talking and I asked if they could relate, and when they said yes, that their company was dealing with the exact same thing, then I would continue. I'm like, oh well, I would work with executives in organizations just like yours, and then I would go on to the rest. You know what I do is I get the senior team on the same page around a growth strategy and priorities that everyone agrees to, which accelerates success and reduces friction and reputation. Cross-string flavor of the month. I would say it different to whoever I was talking to, but I didn't even need to say anything else, because I resonated with that client around the problem and the person that I wanted to help. So this is why brand messaging is so powerful.
What I discovered through working through my messaging is that the part that I would waste hours and analysis paralysis around, which was about finding ways to express what I did in sexier and more engaging terms, and what I found out is that's the least important part of the messaging. The most important part of the messaging is the bookends the client's starting point and the situation and challenge that they're dealing with and how that got converted to value. And out of those two things, the most important thing is how well you paint the picture of your ideal client and how their world looks and feels to them in their words. That's the key. Those are the magic words. And when I got the magic words from my messaging, which is all about how I can articulate who I help and the context for my help and how I can convert their challenge into value, like now, this is powerful and that actually is the heart of your value proposition and your brand promise. It's not what you do, it's how working with you creates something of value for your clients that you're meant to work with that they literally could not achieve on their own. So hopefully, my cautionary tale makes you feel, if you are in a similar boat, that it's not just you who's dealing with the messaging.
I dealt with the messaging, I turned it around, and now this is what I do all day long, every day, and so, as a reflection, what I would like you to do is just think about what do you say when you're asked what you do. You know, and is it responses that are vague and non committal? You know, or are people leaning in? Take a look at your copy and is the curse of knowledge trap manifesting in your messages? So just ask yourself, like how much jargon or industry speak do you use that your clients have no context for, no understanding of? You know, when you explain what you do, does it always require a follow-up question you know, or does it lead to an engaging conversation? Or are you speaking to the end of the transformation you want for your clients, or expressing your stance of what you want your clients to want that they're not even thinking of, or that may or may not be their values? So we talked about the curse of knowledge trap, how it plays out, why it's so easy for us to fall into it, how it plays out in our messaging.
Now let's get into the solution. And the solution is very simple but really hard to implement. You know it's easy to understand, hard to implement, and that is you need to shift the spotlight of your business, your brand, your brand positioning, your messaging, off of you and onto your clients. It's first who, then what. You need to get clear on who your consulting or coaching is for. Who is your ideal client and what is the problem that you are there to solve? What do they want? What's in their way, problem that you are there to solve? What do they want, what's in their way and what pain is it causing?
This is not the first thing I work on with my clients. It's actually the second one. I'll tell you a little bit more next time. I'll tell you next time about the steps I take my clients through and what the first step is, but for this one, this is one of the very first things that we do. We need to get clear first on who, then what, and I'll tell you, without a doubt, this is by far the most challenging part of the brand messaging process, but once you see it. You won't be able to unsee it. And then it's the game changer, for which everything else follows and flows, your messaging, and your copy starts writing itself. Your confidence shift as your sense of service grows. So it's a very powerful solution, easy to understand, that you really need to do that, really hard to implement, because there's a whole bunch of things that are gonna be causing you to say I don't wanna live in myself, I don't wanna focus on it. My consulting or coaching can help everybody, but once you do that, everything will change.
And then, once you have the spotlight off of you and onto your ideal clients, the next thing you want to do is get out of your head and into theirs. So what you want to do is listen for the actual words your clients are using to describe who they are, what they want, what's in their way. And these words are all around you. You know they're in your discovery meetings. So instead of like just summarizing when somebody is on a discovery meeting and they're sharing their challenges, and just writing a couple words, like make sure you get a recorder, you know like, I use my Fathom note taker and it has very good verbatim notes where you could see the exact words that they're saying and how they're describing their pain and what they say they want, which keeps you from pushing on them what you want them to want, you know, pay attention to everyday conversations. You know when somebody comes up to you at the grocery store and they're like, hey, what are you doing? And you tell them a little bit and they start sharing what's going on with them. Take note of what they say and how they say it.
People are sharing what their thoughts and challenges are on online forums all the time, so it's just a matter of mining it and paying attention to it and, if you want, you could do one of the big steps that is such a game changer for my clients, which is actually sending out surveys to your former clients or people who reflect your former clients and really pay attention to what people are saying. Now, the people that you want to be paying attention to are not likely at your industry networking events with colleagues. Like you definitely want to go to industry networking events with colleagues. Like you definitely want to go to industry networking events with colleagues for the purposes of mutual support, but not to understand your ideal clients, because your industry peers are going to probably be in a very similar curse of knowledge trap that you are. So you're going to wind up kind of like talking industry, speak to one another and not necessarily get into your ideal clients. And then the third thing is, once you get out of your head and into your clients, now you could use their words in your messaging. You mirror it back to them.
The revise what I do script that I mentioned came when I started taking verbatim notes on an intro call and it's like oh well, these are the exact words people are saying. You know I have intake forms on my website for when people set up an intro call with me and I also do surveys at the end of my client engagements and I collect all of this data and I have it in a document. You know where I can actually look at what people say about the problem that they have. You know what they're in pain about. You know what they tried and didn't work. You know why they wanted to work with me. I have all of this information with their exact words and when I work on website copy, I go to that document and I literally cut and paste it. If you go to my brand messaging page on my website, you will see literally almost like a cut and paste of my client's words.
You know so when you use your client's words to describe their, their problem, you know problems and frame goals, like when you mirror back to them, you make them feel like, oh my gosh, this person totally gets me, they're in my head, and that establishes credibility like nothing else. You know. It establishes credibility better than any credential you could share. So your voice might be a question you have like, where's my voice come in? And it's like you know. So where your voice comes in is you mirror back their problems and goals in their words, and then you use your voice when you tell them how you're going to help them. And so when you begin with this mirroring back, you actually create the bridge between your voice and their voice. You know like, so they're telling you in their words and you're mirroring back to them, and then you use your voice to say, now, this is exactly how I can help you, and so that's where your voice comes in.
So, in terms of reflection questions I just want you to think about, like what is shifting the spotlight from you to your ideal client stir up in you? Is it relief or fear? You know, how do you feel about the idea that your best messaging comes from mirroring back your client's words to them? Does it make you feel like you're losing your voice or actually strengthening it, and what actions can you take to get out of your head and into your client's heads? Those are the three points that I wanted to go over in this episode today, but let's do a quick recap.
The curse of knowledge trap happens when we become so immersed and exceptional in our area of expertise that we literally forget that others don't share it. This curse of knowledge trap can lead to messaging that is filled with jargon or vague or aspirational phrases that clients don't get, at best blank stares in the middle, or make clients feel dumb and disengaged at worst. So the way out is to put the spotlight of your business, your brand, your brand positioning, your messaging on your ideal clients. Get out of your head, get into theirs, use their words to express the value of what you do. So in terms of next steps, all I would suggest number one is just listen deeper when someone asks you for help, formally or informally. Take note of what they're asking, what they're saying in the words that they use.
You really want to find out how they describe their pain, the solution, frustrations, their solution wants, the transformation they want in their words. If you need my help getting the right words that gets the right clients excited to work with you, I'd love to help you out. Be sure to head on over to my website and book a call at wwwbetsyjordyncom. You could just hit the big pink button at the top or just go to schedule, and I would love to work with you on this. So that is it for now. Got more to come on the Power of Brand Messaging for Consultants and Coaches. So be sure to hit subscribe wherever you're tuning in. If you've got value out of this episode, please share it with your colleagues, rate and review the show and until next time, thanks so much for listening.
