You Crammed Everything In. Except Clarity.
Oct 13, 2026Without clarity, your buyer can't connect with you. With it, they can't forget you.
"When in doubt, say something in French."
— Elinor St. John, Babylon
The Best Line in a Movie I Didn't Love
I love that line. Elinor St. John, the Hollywood gossip columnist Jean Smart plays, says it to a silent-film star who's terrified of the microphone. When in doubt, hide behind something fancy.
Now, the movie, I did not like so much. It runs more than three hours and is crammed full of stars, characters, storylines, and set designs that are over the top. Case in point: the opening party scene, which cost millions, runs as long as a TV episode.
It is crammed from the very beginning to the very end. And that's exactly its problem.
When You Cram Everything In, Nothing Connects
There was so much going on that I found it impossible to make a meaningful connection with it. Here's how I know. When I tried to remember scenes from Babylon, I kept recalling scenes from Amsterdam, another Margot Robbie movie that failed the same year. Now that's a problem.
Babylon was a huge box-office failure. So was Amsterdam.
Two movies that tried to say too many things and couldn't connect with an audience.
And when nothing connects, nothing sticks. Not even for a guy who loves movies.
I Know This Because I Do It Too
Truth be told, this is a lesson I've had to teach myself time and again. I write in the baroque style. If one adjective is good, then fourteen would be so much better.
A Resume and a Pitch Deck. Different Clients, Same Problem.
Recently, two clients came to me the same week. One for their career. One for their business.
I looked at a resume that couldn't have had one more line crammed onto its pages. And I looked at a pitch deck so dense it might have been a novel instead of a PowerPoint.
Say Everything and You've Said Nothing
Because they weren't clear on what they wanted to say, or what their unique value was, they tried to say everything.
And by saying everything, they ended up saying nothing.
Cramming Is a Sign You're Not Sure What to Say
Here's what all these years in this work have taught me. When you're trying to cram too many things into one piece of work, it's a clear sign you're not sure what to say. And it's a real problem. Here's why.
When you cram too much in, you lose clarity. Which means you lose your audience, because they can't find that one thing to connect with you.
That thing that makes you unforgettable.
That's the lesson of Babylon. The director could have decided what to cut. He didn't. And he made a crammed movie that failed at the box office.
What We Did With Both Clients
We found the one thing, pointed everything at it, and cut the rest. The pitch deck ended up reading like a great movie script, one the prospect could see themselves in.
That business owner is signing new clients. And the leader with the crammed resume now uses a one-page executive profile. It's gotten her two board seats.
One Thing to Try This Week
Try this: Pull up your LinkedIn profile. Write each idea it states on its own Post-it. Put them up on a wall, anywhere you can step back.
What do you see? If it's a lot of different ideas, you have work to do.
Now decide on the one thing you want people to remember about you. Ask yourself: if a buyer remembered nothing else, which one thing would make them call? Put that Post-it at the center.
Organize the rest under it. You're going to have to take a bunch off. That's okay. What remains is the framework for a winning LinkedIn profile.
The same exercise works on your deck, your website, and your resume.
The One Thing That Makes You Unforgettable
Clarity is what drives the connection with others. And it's what makes you, in the end, unforgettable.
Great work gets you noticed. Clarity gets you chosen.
Say everything and you give people nothing to repeat.
The leaders and businesses getting overlooked aren't doing bad work. They're doing great work the market can't repeat. Here's the test: if a stranger asked what you do, could you answer in one sentence that makes them say, "Oh, that makes sense — I can see why you're different"? If not, that's not a marketing problem. It's a clarity problem.
After working with hundreds of businesses and more than a thousand leaders, I built a scorecard that finds where a story breaks down. I call it the Clarity Score™.
5 questions, 10 minutes. Answer fast, and score what's true in the wild — what other people can repeat when you're not in the room. One number that shows you exactly where your story is breaking down, and what to fix first.
The number isn't a verdict. It's the starting point for becoming the Obvious Choice™ in your market.
Branding Changes Everything®
Because Clarity Changes Everything.
