“If you confuse, you'll lose.”

Why it was said

Donald Miller calls this the StoryBrand mantra and returns to it throughout Building a StoryBrand, most often at the places where companies tend to say too much: the website header, the plan, the call to action. It sits behind the book's premise that customers ignore messages they have to work to understand.

What it actually means

Miller's argument is about the cost of thinking. A reader who has to work out what you offer, why it matters to them and what to do next will usually not bother; they move on, and the quality of the product never gets a hearing. Clarity is therefore not a matter of style but of whether the message survives at all. The line is a filter for every piece of copy: when in doubt, cut the clever phrase, the internal jargon and the third offer, and say plainly what you do and how someone can buy it.

How to use it

1. 1Show your homepage to someone outside your field for five seconds, then ask what you sell and how to buy it; rewrite anything they could not answer.
2. 2Delete one competing call to action from your next email or landing page so a reader has a single next step.
3. 3Replace each internal term in your pitch with the words a customer would use for the same problem.