Why Clarity Is What Your Marketing Has Been Missing

What if your biggest marketing challenge isn't your strategy, your website, or even your content?

What if it's a lack of clarity?

In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, Kendra Corman sits down with Charlie Sells, founder of Clarity Over Everything, to explore how unclear messaging creates confusion for customers, frustration for teams, and inconsistency across your brand.

Charlie shares his unique journey from ministry to marketing and explains why so many business owners get stuck trying to perfect their messaging before taking action. Together, they unpack the difference between clarity and certainty, why leaders often assume they're being clear when they aren't, and how businesses can stop relying on random acts of marketing and start making intentional decisions.

You'll also hear practical advice on creating consistency across your website, emails, social media, and customer experience. Plus, Charlie explains why successful brands don't need more tactics. They need better alignment.

Whether you're a solopreneur, small business owner, marketing leader, or someone trying to make sense of AI-generated content and marketing noise, this conversation will help you simplify your message and strengthen your brand.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why clarity matters more than certainty in marketing and leadership

• The common ways businesses unintentionally create confusion

• How unclear messaging impacts customer trust and brand growth

• Why consistency is one of the most powerful marketing tools available

• How to identify and eliminate "random acts of marketing"

• The role leadership plays in creating alignment across teams

• A simple framework for making better branding and marketing decisions

About Charlie Sells

Charlie Sells is the founder of Clarity Over Everything, where he helps businesses reduce confusion, improve positioning, and create messaging that connects with the right audience. 

Connect with Charlie

Website: https://www.clarityovereverything.com/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/charlie-sells

Be sure to check the links in the show notes to connect with Charlie and learn more about his work.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hi, I'm Kendra Corman. If you're a coach, consultant, or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science. And that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect

Welcome To Imperfect Marketing

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Marketing. I am your host, Kendra Corman, and today I am joined by Charlie Sells of Clarity Over Everything. And I'm really excited because we're going to be talking about clarity and how that helps you get rid of messy marketing. And I think I'm even going to go so far as that clarity will help you get rid of some of that AI slop that people in your organization, or maybe even you, have been creating, all right, by not having that clear direction. So welcome, Charlie. Thanks so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Hey, thank you so much for having me, Kendra. I'm really excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

All right. So how did you get here where you're at right now? Right. Not on the podcast, but where you got in your career, in your life. Um how have you gotten out here talking all about clarity?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Well, let's go back to the late 1900s, Kendra, as the youths say, uh, you know, no, I'm kidding. We're not going to go back that far. Um, you know, if I'm being honest, uh, I I have always been uh fascinated by how we communicate ideas. I've always been

Charlie’s Path To Clarity

SPEAKER_01 1:57

uh comfortable on stage and um, you know, from an early age was in theater and all that kind of stuff. And I was lucky enough to go to a high school that offered uh business classes and uh got really interesting in, really interested in marketing at that point and eventually went to college for marketing, took some phenomenal classes that, you know, showed how to do holistic campaigns and messaging and all of that. Didn't realize until a little bit later that I was uh more of a writer than I ever thought I was gonna be, because it turns out I didn't hate English classes, I hated literature classes, uh, the literature side of things. And uh so when I graduated from college, I became a youth pastor for about a decade. And turns out when you are the only person on staff that has a business degree, you get to do all the stuff that nobody else wants to do, like websites and social media and newsletters. So I've been doing branding and marketing, you know, starting in very small audiences and very, you know, niche locations and expanding from there. And so when I left uh full-time ministry in 2019, uh I went and worked for a guy named Dave Ramsey who owns uh Ramsey Solutions and a bunch of different business units. So I got to be on a couple of the marketing teams there and really kind of cut my teeth in the um the brand strategy side of things. Um left there to join a little startup agency, lasted about nine months, and now I am completely on my own helping businesses reduce confusion and complexity, get better positioning and messaging for their stuff so that everybody can be clear and aligned on what is next for their business.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

That's such a fantastic journey that you share. Um, I love it. I love how you went through all of the different pieces. And I think, you know, back in ministry, right, when you were doing all the things, you learn so much because there's no other option.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Uh I felt like a bootstrapped entrepreneur, honestly, because budgets are limited. And so, you know, Canva comes online and all of a sudden I can do design uh without having to go through Adobe Illustrator. And I know all the designers are gonna listen to that and be like, that's a dirty word. You can't say that. But I found a lot of success with it, you know, on a very, very tight budget. So uh was grateful for it. But you do, you really do, Kendra. You uh I had a lot of freedom. I had a lot of um, a lot of trial and error. Like every student that I got to work with, they didn't know they were guinea pigs for uh a lot of the crazy ideas that I would come up with and be like, let's just see if it works. And if it does, great, we'll do more of it. And if not, that's okay. We can make adjustments and do something else.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So let's talk a little bit about what people are getting wrong with clarity. Right? Before we started recording, we were talking about one of my one of my favorite Brene Brown quotes, which is clear is kind, unclear is unkind. We know this, right? We think we're clear a lot of times, I think. Um, we're just not.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

We're not. And uh I think it starts at the top, honestly, uh, for a number of reasons. Uh, first and foremost, I think leaders just uh

Why Clarity Breaks Inside Teams

SPEAKER_01 4:52

assume that the buck has to stop with them and that they have to have all the answers. And that's just a really dangerous place for a brand and a business to be in uh because then there's not shared ownership. There's uh vision gets really blurry as it goes down through the ranks. People aren't really empowered to do what they are uh supposed to do and and what they can do. And uh the more that leaders kind of understand what clarity is and what clarity isn't specifically, I think the better off and and the more momentum a business is going to feel in their branding and marketing efforts. So uh just a handful of examples. And I've got 20 of these that I could go through. I'm just gonna go through the first seven or eight for you. First is uh that clarity doesn't equal certainty. And I think this is where so many leaders get stuck. It has to be a hundred percent. We have to have total consensus. We need all of the data to support blank whatever it is. But you don't have to have all the answers, honestly. Clarity is more about direction uh than it is about destination. And when leaders start to make that paradigm shift, it frees them up to dream again and be curious and ask a lot better questions about what is working, what is

What Clarity Is Not

SPEAKER_01 5:57

not working, and what are the gaps in the opportunities for us. Uh, second thing, as you try to communicate down to your team or to an agency, if you uh are a solopreneur or a small business that has to outsource some of your marketing, it's not memorization either. Um, you know, a lot of leaders, it's so, like you said, it's so clear to them and it's in their head and they understand it. But when it tries to make it to the next person, the next thing, the next team, uh, it just becomes very fragile. And um, that's why I encourage leaders all the time to stress test your ideas as much as you possibly can. Let it be held with a flexible open hand just to see like, does it actually belong in these systems that we have? Does it make sense for our brand or not? Third thing I would say is it's not micromanagement. Again, because leaders get stuck in those places where if my hand isn't in it, it won't get done. Well, now we have an overbearing, uh, a blooming presence that uh outcomes all depend on me being involved in it. It's just not true. Um, living in the creator uh economy means we have to give up autonomy to our teams and to the people who are actually doing stuff. Um, and be okay with directing rather than being ingrained in everything that's going on.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

I always ask myself, can I make it 80% better? If I can't make it 80% better, and I'm only gonna make a tweak that's gonna make it 20% better. I keep my mouth shut and we move on.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

That's right. And there's a level of trust that comes with that too. You've got to trust your team, you've got to trust those handoffs. Um, and uh the more you do it, the easier it becomes, obviously. But especially when I work with solopreneurs and small business owners, they do so much already. It's hard to break out of that mentality, but it is actually more freeing and it is a kindness to yourself too, uh, to give up some of that ownership. More information does not equal more clarity all the time. Now, there are times where we have to give information, we have to give context, we have to set goals, we have to tie something to numbers. But oftentimes we feel like this is the one shot that we have, uh, which is number five, that it's a it's clarity isn't a one-time event. It's not just like set it and forget it. It's not a massive presentation of vision, and then everybody goes off and does their thing. There's gonna be tweaking, there's gonna be adjustments that have to be made. There's gonna be a lot of stuff that has to uh come together in order for everybody to understand how what they do ties back to a goal, a number, or a mission. Clarity for the leader doesn't always equal clarity for the team. When we sit at this very high-level 40,000-foot view um uh position, and then we try to tell a copywriter or a designer, this is what I expect you to do. Well, you've been living in a very different atmosphere than the people who are actually doing the stuff. And if they can't repeat it back to you, then it just becomes robotic and you become an assembly line worker rather than a creative or on a marketing team. Clarity also does not require uh total agreement and consensus. Uh, and I think this is another place where we want to feel validated as leaders. We want to feel like our ideas have to be rock solid in order for us to take them to the next place. But uh alignment is just commitment, it's not unanimous applause. When when your team is aligned, even if they don't necessarily agree with it, they'll just know how what they do ties back to whatever it is. And then finally, I would say clarity does not equal uniformity. Uh people can execute differently while aiming at the same target. And this is uh so critically important. If you have a big team around you, um, you are not looking for everybody to do the exact same thing or maybe even think in the exact same ways. And the more that we can release that, the more uh really the better stuff that we're going to create and the more our brand is going to grow in the right ways.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

I love that because it's not hard and fast, right? Like so, and I do a lot of training and teaching on AI. Um, and a lot of what you're saying applies to when you're prompting AI, right? I talk about how AI is a uh low-paid intern, right? It's $20 a month on average. Um, but it's a $20 a month intern that has unlimited hours, but you gotta give it that clarity. Sometimes you

Using Clarity With AI

SPEAKER_00 10:08

give it too much context, right? Or not enough and all of the things. So I think all of these apply for people and artificial intelligence. And I think that it's really important um to think through all of that. Um, I love, I love how you put that together. I loved how you talk about it don't always need context, it doesn't always need to be a hundred percent. You can get there, right? So you talk about messy marketing and you talk about how Clarity helps um clean up messy marketing. Well, messy marketing it ultimately erodes the brand. What's the first place people are gonna see that this is happening?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

That's a great question. And I wish there were like the one place that I could show you. Uh I can tell you where I start when I audit a brand, is I'll look at their website and uh, I mean, Donald Miller says it best in Story Brand, like can it pass the grunt test? I call it the eight-year-old test. One of my kids is eight. And if I can explain it to him and he understands

Where Messy Marketing Shows First

SPEAKER_01 11:06

it, it's probably okay. Um, but that's I think the first place that it really starts to leak out. We have this backwards mentality about websites. Uh, I think that the the weight of our business has to land on the homepage and everything has to be perfect and buttoned up.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

And I'm like, no, it just And you need all the options, right? All the things, all the choices, all gotta be there right on the homepage. Because we do this and this and this and this.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

And it's like, yeah, it's it's a supporting cast member. And yeah, at times it really does matter, and there are important pieces of it. Uh, but at the end of the day, if it's not clear, it's going to cause so much more confusion and erosion. Um, that's usually the first place that I will look when somebody says, Hey, could you take a look at my brand? Because then what I do is I go and look at their emails. Does that match what I saw on the website? Their social media, does that match what I saw on the website and the emails? Uh, if they have any other internal documents or other brand pieces, is what I'm seeing in your entire ecosystem consistent? And consistency is the thing that builds trust. It's also the thing that will cause people to leave very, very quickly. Uh, when something is off-brand, you can feel it. When when a when a brand uh and we've seen it happen over the last uh, you know, 12 to 18 months where businesses thought we have to go in this different direction, and their customers just revolted in in mass. We're like, this is dumb. Why would you mess with that? It it doesn't matter. Um, or there's a Super Bowl-style campaign that's meant to boost traffic very quickly. Over time, you realize, oh, that wasn't the experience that I was expecting to get. Um, I think that's where it really starts. And for small businesses, it's even, I want to say it's even worse because small business owners were wind up stacking tactics rather than having a clear strategy uh for what they are trying to accomplish. And it's not really their fault either. They're really busy doing all of the things and trying to balance contractors and agency expectations or whatever it is. And you wind up committing what I call random acts of marketing, uh, where it's just stuff to do. Uh, we we decided on trial and error, but we forgot to stop all the stuff that was erroneous. I prefer the test and learn uh aspect of it, just in what I do, because it's a lot lower risk. You don't have to stop doing the things that are working, uh, and you can build upon the things that are um that you know need to be created and eventually stop the kind of stuff that's going to erode your brand from the inside out. Um, I think those are all the external pieces, by the way, Kendra. There's some internal pieces that really matter. Um, because when you can see morale start to dip, when you can, when you can tell like people are just kind of phoning it in, or um, you're not really getting asked questions any longer uh about the stuff you're doing, those are pretty good signs that uh something is missing, something's not translating from the top down. And the faster you can identify some of those things, uh, the easier it will be to plug the holes and eventually protect your revenue in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Yes, I think the website is definitely a key place, right? Because as you can tell, I've had recent recent conversations with clients where they're like, but this and this and this. And I'm like, no, no, like it's not all the things all the time. You it can't be, right? So who's the main audience? And then how do we how do we get there? And I've had I'm gonna say four qu four four conversations like that in the last couple of weeks. And again, it goes down to that clarity. What is the one thing you want people to do? Maybe two, I'll go up to two max, right? When they land on your website, it has to be a clear path because if you make them think they're going away. End of story, right? I I love Donald Miller, and um and uh I was listening to the podcast with um Dr. Oh JJ Peterson. Yes, Peter Peterson, thank you. Um and he he talks about like the lion and he talks about our primitive minds try to save up brain calories in case we have to run from a lion later on. Odds are not super strong that you're gonna have to run from a lion later today. Um, but your brain preserves those calories so that it has those options later on. And that's why we shut down on things, right? And we um move on so quickly. Just so much there, especially for for clients and employees and this clarity thing is is going everywhere, right? So we talked about it, you talked about it with the brand eroding from a clarity from a customer standpoint, visiting the website and doing the brand audit and all the things. And I do, I love random access marketing. I might have to, I might have to borrow that from you. It's so true. And, you know, but we also talked about the giving clarity and instructions as a leader, whether that's to employees, um, to AI, to whatever it happens, or agencies, right? All the things. There's just, yeah, a lot, a lot to be had there. So let's talk a little bit more about being clear and aligned when it comes to branding and marketing. How does a business start getting that, right? Because we're doing random acts of marketing, right? No strategy, just a bunch of tactics. We're not measuring. So, you know, we're probably just keeping going, right? Instead of, you know, testing and measuring and and letting things go. We're just continuing. We're adding more onto the plate. So, what are some of your recommendations for that?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

I think, and it's so hard to get this message

Build A Simple Decision Filter

SPEAKER_01 16:29

into everybody's inbox or uh, you know, across their feed, right? You would hope that at some point throughout a 12-month period, we can just make it that simple, that you have somebody who's objectively looking at everything that you do. And whether that is uh just an agency reporting back here's what the numbers show us, or hiring a consultant or brand strategist, or just somebody uh to take a look and go, hey, I think you're really on track in 80% of what you do. Let's check out this other 20%. And if we can button that up, then I think you're gonna really like what happens next. I think so many business owners, they get caught up in, again, trying to have all of the answers and uh maybe we did a branding exercise one time, and that has become the gospel truth for everything that we do, which is not a bad thing. Uh, I love it when businesses say, yes, we have brand standards, and yes, we have a voice, and yes, we have uh, you know, guardrails for how to do X, Y, and Z. Those are great things to have, right? Um, how that translates, though, is uh is really the key. And I think, again, uh, a lot of business owners aren't willing to just be curious for a second. Uh, that's where that certainty piece comes in. If we as leaders and as business owners can ask better questions of our own stuff uh that don't include what are our competitors are doing, uh, then we really start to put ourselves back in a position of uh creativity and clarity and alignment. Uh so the way I'm I'm I'll just be honest with how that's worked with one of my one of the businesses that I worked with last year. They were doing really well as a retail store. Uh, they were doing really well in the retail space, did not have anything from a digital presence, social presence, weren't doing any kind of marketing, nothing really was going on. So I took a look and said, okay, well, before I, before we do any kind of brainstorming, what would you like to see happen? And this GM said, I would love to duplicate the online or the uh in-store experience online. And I was like, that might be the most beautiful way I've ever heard somebody come up with a goal for uh like how we want to approach our marketing stuff. And so now we have a filter through which we can look at everything that we do. If there's an email that goes out, does it sound like you walk into the store? If there's a social media post, does it look like you're walking into the store? Every decision that we made became so much easier because we now had a filter. We now had a way to grade every decision, every tactic that was uh that was coming in. A lot of business owners, again, they just don't they don't have that forethought. And if you don't have somebody who's continually looking at stuff, well, now it can become really muddy and really messy. And um, I mean, I think that's it, it's it's almost there's an unawareness piece, right? Uh, like just to be problem unaware. And I don't think every business has problems, by the way, but I do know that there's a lot of value that comes with just somebody taking a look at what you do uh on a regular basis and saying, hey, uh, why did you make this choice? Why, why did this happen? You know, what was the result of X, Y, Z? And if you can't answer those questions, that's a pretty good indication that you need to pull over and revisit some stuff.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

I think that there's, you know, again, uh just a ton in everything that you're sharing. So I I love it. So many different things that people can take away. But having somebody who's constantly reviewing it is one of the things that you said, right? You launch your website and then you forget about it. Right. It's just, oh, that's gone. Um, it's there, it's done. Check the box, right? But it's not because things change, links

Keep Reviewing What You Publish

SPEAKER_00 20:11

change, links go away, right? Um, I'm very guilty of this. I don't think I've looked at my website in a couple of months. Um, and by a couple of months I mean like 12. So that's really the way a lot of people go about it. And having somebody who's there to ask questions, who's there to review these pages every once in a while is just really helpful overall. Um, and ask those questions. I have a couple of um reminders on my task system. I use Asana from task management, and I have recurring tasks for some of my clients. And it's to hey, let's talk about a different section of the website. Let's review this section of the website. And it was interesting because I was working with one client. We launched their website, I don't know, two, three years ago. And we got back to reviewing this section of the website. And it's like, yeah, data is still not updated. It says coming soon. Hasn't been updated since the web. So, and it's like, okay, I get it. Um, you know, clearly it's not the end of the world because we've been doing fine. Um, but it could be better. And staying out of that messy piece is definitely having somebody accountable. And it can't always be the owner, right? It can't be you, all the founder, um, the, you know, the the buck stops here type thing, right? On all of it. Um, you can make it part of other people's responsibilities and remind them and ask them how that's going on a regular basis if you're not hearing anything because everything's good, but you do need that. And I think outside voices really do help um provide that clarity that you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

I almost wish that every business employed somebody like you're talking about, Kendra, almost a uh uh and I'm gonna make up a job for somebody today and they're gonna love it. Uh almost like a brand guardian, uh somebody whose sole job is to be the gatekeeper for everything branding and marketing related. Uh, you know, an extra set of eyes before something goes out, uh, just to go, hey, that does look like us. I think that's gonna, that's gonna do well. Or somebody to go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's gonna blow some trust with somebody because

The Case For A Brand Guardian

SPEAKER_01 22:08

um we're we're taking a big risk in putting this uh this out there.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Well, thank you so much for all of your time today, Charlie. If you want to connect with Charlie after this, please feel free to check him out. We'll have links to all his social media um and his website in the show notes here. Um, but before I let you go. I gotta ask you the question that I ask all of my guests. And that is that this show is called Imperfect Marketing because marketing is anything but a perfect science. What has been your biggest marketing lesson learned?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Especially in the day-to-day work that I do with business owners. I learned really early on that the less prescriptive you can be, the better stuff you create. Um, and I know that there are marketing agencies and consultants who just slap a playbook down and say, here's exactly what you should do. Here is the system you should implement. Sometimes that works, especially if it's niche specific and it's very refined and all of that. But I've

Biggest Lesson: Less Prescriptive Wins

SPEAKER_01 23:06

also found that there you can create a lot of heartache after the fact because when that agency or that engagement ends uh or goes away, well, now a business owner is sitting there going, I don't I don't know what to do with all of this. And so when I partner with a business owner, I'm looking for ways to bring them into the decision-making process to make sure that I'm explaining things clearly, uh, that I understand their systems and everything that is going on, and that they understand their systems and everything that is going on because I've got a shelf life just like anybody else. And so when I leave, I want to make sure that they know how to either hand it off to the next person or agency, or that I can stay on and be valuable because, you know, we're making stuff happen together. So marketing and and branding, when it can be less prescriptive, I think you allow yourself to be not just more flexible, but open to the newest possibilities. Because uh in your AI world, right, like there is no hard and fast rule of how-tos or uh, you know, this is always like it's it's so squishy. And our world is going to be like that no matter what industry you're in. Um, and regardless of what you are trying to accomplish from a marketing and a branding standpoint. So I think that's probably the biggest thing. I tried to do that very early on where I was like, here's exactly what we should do. And I think that was like my shortest contract, uh, because they were like, yeah, we're really not down with that. Um, versus when you can lock arms with somebody and say, here's what I'm seeing. What would you like to see happen? Now that we know this, this is this are the facts, these are the numbers, these are the things we just can't argue with because they are. Um, if you want to try to do that, then maybe we should, you know, uh work on something different. But I think that's that's the key. And and the more flexible that you can be, the more adaptable you can be, the more open uh that you can be about what your brand could look, sound, and feel like, I think the more successful it's going to be, and the more proud of it you're going to be as well. Um, I think the worst thing that business owners can do is just hand it off and assume that it's going to work. Uh and then you get handed back something that you don't understand. That's the key, I think, is when you can get curious, when you can be flexible, uh, and when you can be less prescriptive in all of your marketing, I think it really starts to thrive. Grounded, of course, in foundations and principles and all the things that we know have to be true and have to be present. But um I think that's kind of the overarching message that I try to share with business owners is we're gonna have to have it all figured out. And that's okay. Uh, we will figure it out and we will solve all the problems. And by the time we solve some problems, there'll be new problems to solve. And we're just gonna keep tackling it one piece at a time.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Always. And I like how you said, you know, it's just not a playbook for everybody, right? And I know I've I've had some business coaches in the past, I've had um some other consultants, and we've gone through things and they're like, you need to have a playbook. And it's like, no, I don't have one. And, you know, anytime I've tried to do one, it doesn't work, right? Because everybody's situation is different, everybody's goals are different, everybody's infrastructure is different, all the things are different, right? The targets are different and what they need and where they're at and where you need to meet them is different. You know, you talked about not being problem aware. There's other people that are problem aware, but they're not solution aware. They don't even know it exists, right? And so there's so many different ways along the entire journey that um that you have to meet people differently. And everything that should be custom created for you, right? Um, because ultimately that's that's the goal. So thank you so much, Charlie, for all of your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you all for tuning in. I strongly recommend getting in touch with Charlie. You'll find all of his contact information uh down below this video or in the show notes, wherever you're listening or watching. Until next time, have a great rest of your day.