Instead of thinking of your product as the superstar on a sports field, think of yourself like the referee. You have a job, and if you do it well no one will talk about it. They only talk about it when something went wrong.

Everyone always talks about their product as if it is going to change the world. How many times have we seen “we’re disrupting a billion dollar industry” type posts, when in reality the product is designed to make one specific person’s life a bit less tedious or painful? And that’s fine. In this high-noise environment, I think one of the ways a company brand can create authenticity (besides encouraging its employees to do the talking), is by providing that honest perspective on what the product does.

As much as I love Kathy Sierra’s ethos on making your users badass, and I agree that should be your goal, I think products should also aspire to have a more truthful messaging. “We save busy project managers on average an hour a week in followup communication tasks” is not sexy, but if I’m a busy project manager, my immediate response is “can I have 10?”. Isn’t that the response you want from your ICP?

When it comes to your product, it’s your baby, it’s special to you. To your customers it needs to be unremarkable in how it works. They don’t care, and that’s ok. You want it to be like a Toyota corolla or camry. Not what all car guys talk about, but to everyone else it’s the perfect tool to get from A to B. Be that. We don’t need more Lamborghinis (we do need a few though). “Be brief, be brilliant, be gone” is a great ethos when it comes to your customer communications, and I think the best way to be brilliant is to be honest in what you do and not oversell.