If They Don’t “Get It” in 3 Seconds, You’re Paying to Be Ignored.
If your customers don’t instantly understand what you sell, you don’t just lose the sale. You lose the ad spend. You lose the referral. You lose the next visit. And most importantly – you lose trust.
Founders think if they say more, people will “get it.” So they write clever lines. Use every feature. Add one more paragraph “just in case.” And then wonder why no one buys.
But your product isn’t the problem. Your message is.
The brain is wired to block out noise. We scan. We skip. We bail.
When people land on your site and feel confused, they leave. Not because they hate your product – but because they don’t want to work to understand it.
If your messaging makes them pause, think, or reread – you’re done. The sale doesn’t die in checkout. It dies in the first 5 seconds.
Donald Miller said it best: “If you confuse, you lose.”
Alex Hormozi drives it home: “People don’t buy the best product – they buy what they understand the fastest.”
And Nik Sharma proves it daily: the brands with the fewest words usually make the most money.
Let’s look at the three psychological reasons your messaging isn’t working – and what to fix before another dollar goes to waste.
1. Your Brain Is Lazy – And So Are Your Customers’
Our brains are survival machines. They’re built to conserve energy – not analyze.
You think people read your homepage. They don’t. They skim, scroll, and filter. Looking for something easy to say yes to. Nielsen Norman Group found users only read about 20% of a webpage’s text. The rest? Ignored like banner ads in 2009.
Every extra word increases cognitive load. Every sentence that doesn’t help sell creates friction. And friction is where most carts get abandoned – long before checkout.
I once watched a user test where a customer scrolled the product page, stopped at the third paragraph, muttered “what?” – and closed the tab.
You don’t need better words. You need fewer, faster ones.
When the brain sees simplicity, it feels safe. And safe people buy faster.
2. The Curse of Knowledge Is Killing Your Conversions
You know your product too well. And that’s the problem.
Founders fall into what psychologists call the “curse of knowledge.” You explain your product like someone who built it – not someone who’s just discovering it. So your words make sense to you, but not to the person who actually matters: the first-time visitor.
Donald Miller calls this “The Fog.” And fog kills clarity.
I worked with a founder who used terms like “modular product modules” in every description. When asked what that meant, the customer replied: “I think… it means you can mix and match? I’m not sure.”
Translation: bounce.
Clear, simple language feels “too basic” to you – but it feels refreshing to your customer. Your job isn’t to sound smart. Your job is to be understood, immediately.
Test this: hand your homepage to a 12-year-old. Can they tell you what you sell in 5 seconds or less? If not, it’s too complicated. And in the customer’s mind, “confusing” = “not for me.”
3. Clarity Creates Trust – Confusion Creates Friction
When we don’t understand something, we don’t trust it.
Clarity creates calm. It tells the brain, you’re in the right place. Confusion, on the other hand, triggers doubt. And doubt leads to exits.
One of Nik Sharma’s best-known moves is cutting 60% of a landing page’s copy – and watching conversions jump. Because clarity doesn’t just help people understand – it helps them believe.
Imagine walking into a store. You ask a question, and the salesperson responds with jargon, metaphors, and startup buzzwords. Would you trust them? Or leave?
Online, words are your salesperson. If your site isn’t clear, it’s not convincing – it’s sketchy.
The moment someone pauses to figure out what your product does… you’ve already lost them.
Bonus: When You Say Everything, People Hear Nothing (Bonus Point)
More words don’t make you sound smarter. They make your product harder to buy.
Most founders list every feature, every offer, every detail. They think: “If I don’t say it all, they might miss something.”
But the truth is, saying everything overwhelms the brain. Instead of a clear yes, customers feel indecision. Instead of excitement, they feel effort.
Alex Hormozi says: “Make the offer so good they’d feel stupid saying no.” But first – they have to understand the offer.
You don’t need 1,000 words to win. You need one sentence that slaps.
The goal isn’t to say more. It’s to say the one thing that makes people say, “finally.”
If They Don’t “Get It,” They’ll Never Buy – No Matter How Good the Product Is
This isn’t about being clever. It’s about being clear.
We live in a world of limited attention and unlimited options. People aren’t going to “figure out” your brand. They’ll move on – and never come back.
The brands that win are the ones who remove the guesswork. They don’t make you think. They make you feel like you belong. And they do it fast.
Clarity is your edge. It’s the one lever that multiplies the effect of everything else.
If this resonated, here’s what to do next:
→ If you’re tired of content that fills space instead of driving sales, let’s talk. Schedule a quick demo.
→ If you’re ready to turn product pages, email flows, landing copy, and more into silent salespeople for your brand, subscribe to either our Unlimited Standard Plan or Unlimited Professional Plan to get started.
Your story deserves better than generic copy.
We make it unforgettable.