Describing what you do in one sentence somebody can repeat

Aug 27
3 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Introduction

Ask most owners what their business does and you get a paragraph, some hedging, and a list of services. Ask a satisfied customer the same question and you get something shorter and considerably more useful.

This is not a presentational problem. Referrals travel by being repeated, and a description nobody can repeat does not travel at all.

1. Describing what you do in one sentence is what makes referrals possible

Understand the mechanism before working on the words.

A customer wanting to recommend you has to explain, in a passing conversation, what you do and who you suit. If that takes a paragraph they will say "they do marketing, I think" and the referral evaporates.

2. Say the category first

Customers cannot evaluate anything until they know what kind of thing it is.

An accountant, a plumber, a photographer, a recruitment agency. Beginning with an abstraction — a partner in your growth journey — forces the listener to spend their attention working out what you are instead of whether they need you.

3. Name who it is for

The element that makes the sentence useful for referral.

"An accountant" is generic. "An accountant for owner-managed construction firms" lets somebody recognise instantly whether their contact is a match. The narrower the audience, the more precisely the sentence can travel.

4. Include the specific thing you do or the problem you solve

One concrete detail, not a list.

The thing you are actually known for. A list of six services dilutes the sentence into nothing, whereas one specific capability gives the listener something to hold onto and to repeat.

5. Use the words your customers use

The most common reason these sentences fail.

Industry terms, service names and internal jargon mean nothing outside your business. Listen to how customers describe what they bought from you, and use their language, because that is the language a referral will be made in.

6. Cut every word that is not doing work

Length destroys repeatability.

Leading, innovative, bespoke, holistic, solutions, passionate, dedicated. None of these tells the listener anything and all of them extend the sentence past the point where anybody could reproduce it. Aim for something short enough to be said in one breath.

7. Test it out loud on people who do not know your business

The only reliable test, and the one nobody performs.

Say it to a few people and ask them to repeat it back and explain who you would be useful to. Where they hesitate, paraphrase incorrectly, or ask what you mean, that is the part to rewrite. Their confusion is the data.

8. Make sure it is true and specific enough to be checkable

A sentence that overclaims is worse than a dull one.

If it says you specialise in something, that must be visible in your work, your website and your examples. A description customers experience as inaccurate damages trust more effectively than a plain one ever could.

9. Use the same sentence everywhere

Consistency is what makes it stick.

Website, email signature, invoices, social profiles, how you introduce yourself, how your staff describe the business. Different descriptions in each place mean nothing accumulates, and the whole benefit of a repeatable sentence is repetition.

Revisit it whenever the business changes direction. A sentence that described you accurately three years ago will quietly stop being true, and nobody inside the business notices because they are saying it from memory.

Conclusion

Work on this because referrals depend on somebody being able to repeat what you do in a passing conversation.

Lead with a category the listener recognises, name who it is for so people can identify a match, include one concrete capability rather than a list of services, use your customers' words instead of industry language, cut every adjective that carries no information, test it aloud on people outside your business and rewrite wherever they hesitate, make sure it is specific enough to be checked and true enough to survive checking, and then use exactly the same sentence everywhere.