Internal Messaging Is Killing Your External Marketing

Your team gets it. Your customers don't.

Here's the problem: Your internal message isn't working externally. You're using the same message for two completely different audiences.

Internal vs External: Two Different Jobs

Internal Messaging Motivates Your Team

Inside your business, you talk a language that creates:

• Belonging

• Purpose

• Pride.

It's what gets people out of bed excited to work on hard problems. And it should stay internal.

Things like:

• The mission: Why do you exist?

• The vision: Where you're headed?

• Company values: How do you operate?

• Innovation: What you're building, why, and for whom?

• Standards: How you do the work?

• Culture: What makes your service/product you?

External Messaging Connects With Clients

Outside your business, people care about:

• How your product makes them feel?

• What gets people to choose you? Why?

Topics like:

• What problem do you solve for your client?

• What is their pain point?

• What keeps them up at night?

• What promise you offer. 

• How does your solution changes their problem?

• What benefit you provide.

• What they gain (or stop losing)

• Results they get and what actually happens

• Why they should believe you

The Disconnect

Most businesses make one critical mistake: They take what motivates their team and assume it will motivate their customers.

So you end up with websites that say:

• "We're passionate about innovation"

• "Our mission is to empower..."

• "We believe in excellence"

Your team nods. Your customers scroll past.

Why?

Because your team is already inside the story. They know the context. They've lived the journey. They're emotionally invested.

Your customers? They just got here. They don't know you. They're not emotionally invested yet.

Same Business. Different Conversation.

Think of it this way:

Your team is asking:  "What are we building and why does it matter?" Your clients are asking:  "How does this make my problem go away?"

Both are valid. Both are important. But if you answer your clients' question with your team's language? You lose them.

The Fix

You don't need to change your brand. You need to change the lens you tell it through.

• Keep the mission talk for your team meetings and company values page

• Lead with the outcome when you're talking to customers

• Show the transformation, not just the philosophy

Your passion is important but only after they understand what you actually do for them.

What This Looks Like In Practice

Internal message (for your team): "We're building a platform that revolutionizes how teams collaborate because we believe the future of work is human-centered."

External message (for your customers): "Spend less time in meetings and more time doing the work that matters. Our tool cuts team sync time in half."

See the difference?

Same company. Same product. Different job.

The Bottom Line

Your internal message is working. Don't change it.

Just stop expecting it to do the external work too.

Your team needs to know why you do what you do.

Your customers need to know what it does for them.

Master both, and you've got something powerful.

Confuse the two, and you've got a team that's aligned and customers who have no idea what you're selling.

Need help finding clarity? Lmk

Happy to help.