Walk into almost any law firm, accounting practice, engineering consultancy, or advisory business, and you’ll find some of the smartest people. Problem is they have trouble communicating clearly with clients – and it’s costing them business
The figures say it all. A 2025 survey of over 1000 Australian consumers found that jargon and unclear language are a real barrier when dealing with professional services firms. There are complaints about poor personalisation and inaccurate invoicing. More than six in 10 Australians find unclear language and jargon a barrier in interactions with professional services.
The financial advice sector shows the same pattern in harder numbers. Between mergers and acquisitions, layoffs, and inflation, the financial services industry has already seen tough times this year. And that may not change. But institutions are struggling to know what to say, how to say it, and how to share it when it comes to updates on difficult topics.
This isn’t a talent problem. It’s a translation problem. And it’s costing these firms more than most of them realize.
The people best qualified to explain the firm’s work are the least able to see how it sounds to an outsider. Deep knowledge makes plain language feel like it’s leaving something out. A key problem is no one owns the story. Marketing owns the website. Business development owns the pitch. Partners own client relationships. No single person is accountable for whether the firm’s message is coherent across all three. Partnerships tend to write by committee, and committee writing gravitates toward safe, generic language that offends no one and persuades no one.
A clarity consultant sits between the firm’s technical knowledge and the client’s actual concerns, converting dense expertise into language that speaks to outcomes the client cares about — without dumbing down the substance.
Here are seven ways the consultant can do it.
- Jargon fluency mistaken for clarity. Partners and principals are fluent in the language of their discipline. That fluency becomes a liability the moment they try to explain value to a prospective client who doesn’t share it. What reads as precise to an expert reads as noise to a buyer. A professional services firms needs to come across as approachable and relatable. A clarity consultant can manage that
- Undifferentiated positioning. Most professional services websites and pitches could have the firm’s name swapped for a competitor’s without anyone noticing. Positioning as the foundation of a house. It’s what holds everything together. Messaging from a clarity consultant points to the rooms, how they are styled, and how inviting they are.
- Proposals that describe process instead of outcomes. Prospects don’t buy audit methodology or a litigation strategy framework. They buy certainty, risk reduction, and time back. Most proposals lead with the former and bury the latter. A consultant focuses on outcomes that require a lot more than good writing. They require approvals. Stakeholders, timing, budgets, politics and pure luck create clarity.
- Inconsistent voice across the firm. A prospect who reads three partners’ bios, a case study, and a pitch deck often encounters three different firms. That inconsistency quietly erodes trust before a first meeting even happens. Consistency has become even more important in the age of AI. As generative tools summarise and represent the firm online, any inconsistency can distort how it’s described and understood. A unified, well-managed brand from a clarity consultant ensures that what clients see reflects the quality of the work and the clarity of purpose.
- Thought leadership that doesn’t lead anywhere. Firms publish articles and alerts that demonstrate technical knowledge but give the reader no reason to pick up the phone. Visibility isn’t the same as persuasion. Rather than relying on a single report or article, experiential thought leadership brings insight to life through moments that engage attention and hold it. This can include interactive webinars, in-person sessions, immersive events, podcasts or installations designed to pull audiences out of their usual distractions. All provided by a clarity consultant. The thinking remains serious, but the delivery is designed to engage, not just inform.
- No clear articulation of the problem they solve. Ask a partner what their firm does and you’ll often get a list of services. Ask what problem they solve, for whom, and why it matters, and the answer gets vague fast. Solving complex problems is a topic that has been gaining more and more relevance, covering any sector of activity and is an ability to identify and solve problems that are multi-dimensional, ill-defined, and that require considering multiple information and perspectives. Therefore, problem-solving from a clarity consultant is the method of understanding and working on a challenge so that problems can be resolved as quickly and effectively as possible and is considered one of the most important and necessary skills in the future.
- Internal misalignment on the message. Different partners describe the firm’s strengths differently in pitches, which forces prospects to do the work of reconciling the story themselves — work most prospects won’t bother doing. While the strategic rationale for initiating individual partnerships may be crystal clear to the partner setting it up, getting buy-in and mindshare from other partners is often a challenge.A clarity consultant can fix that.
If your firm’s expertise isn’t coming through in your website, pitches, or proposals, that’s a translation problem — and it’s fixable. Get in touch with Leon Gettler on 0411 745 193 or email leon@leongettler.com to talk about how to turn your firm’s knowledge into a story that actually wins clients.
