Founders mistakenly believe more information leads to better understanding. The opposite is true. Adding features, technical details, or concepts increases the customer's cognitive load, making it less likely they will grasp the core value and buy. The art of sales is compressing information to only what matters for their specific problem.

To ensure clarity and impact, mandate that any explanation of the platform team's work to non-technical stakeholders must be understandable in under three minutes. This forces the team to distill their message to its core value, cutting through technical jargon.

Limit your key points, pain points, or takeaways to three. This cognitive principle makes information easier for prospects to receive, understand, and retain, preventing them from being overwhelmed by too much information.

Prospects have minimal attention spans. To capture their interest, marketing copy in emails or social posts must be 75 words or less and contained in a single paragraph. Reserve longer, more detailed content (100-150 words) for your existing customer base, as they are already invested and more willing to read.

For reps who resist creating concise presentations, use a psychological trick: allow them to keep all their slides but move the non-essential ones to an appendix. This eases their anxiety about leaving information out. They will quickly learn the appendix is never opened, helping them embrace brevity.

Many salespeople are intimidated by AI's complexity. A simple, effective starting point is using tools like ChatGPT to reduce the word count of complex follow-up emails without losing intent. This builds confidence and demonstrates immediate value.

When presenting to a CFO, brevity is critical. They think in summaries and bullet points, and a lengthy presentation is a sign of disrespect for their time. Your entire business case should be distilled into a single, powerful page to maintain their attention.

Cold emails to executives get only 3 seconds to capture attention. If opened, you have about 9 seconds of reading time—roughly 37 words. This requires a message focused on insight, not a product pitch, to be effective in such a short window.

Sellers often adopt an overly formal, academic persona when speaking to executives, which creates distance. In reality, executive conversations are simple, direct, and unpretentious. Drop the jargon and complicated words. Your goal is clear communication, not demonstrating your vocabulary.