Hot Take: Sometimes Not Being The Expert is The Advantage

Hear me out.

My clients know their business better than anyone.

And that’s exactly why they bring me in.

When I work with a client to develop a story, they’re hiring me for my storytelling ability—my writing, my clarity, my ability to make things land.

I couldn’t possibly know their business as well as they do. That’s what they bring to the table.

It’s a Venn diagram: when their expertise meets my storytelling, that sweet spot is where the magic happens.

When you know something deeply, it’s easy to get hung up on the details. And that’s where you risk losing your audience. They don’t need to know everything. They need enough—enough to feel confident that what you offer solves their problem. They don’t always need to know how the sausage gets made.

A fresh perspective is an acid test for what’s meaningful and what’s distracting. It’s also a spotlight on jargon—inside language that doesn’t help your audience understand the value you deliver.

That fresh perspective means I ask the questions others might be too close to see. It means I tug the right threads until the story emerges. It means I build the analogy that makes everything click.

And—my favourite—simplifying with intention. Turning complexity becomes clarity, without losing meaning or magic.

Because on any given Tuesday, that’s the work:

Finding the overlap.

Finding the clarity.

Finding the story worth telling.