You’re Working From Inside a Glass Jar
You understand your business or organization. You’ve lived it, built it, defended it in a thousand meetings. You know who you are. But when you’re in the nitty gritty day in and day out, it’s hard to put your finger on how people from the outside actually see you.
You think you’re being clear. Your team nods along. Everything feels aligned internally. But then a prospect says, “So… what exactly do you do?” Or your marketing team debates the same positioning questions every quarter because nothing ever feels settled.
That’s what it’s like sometimes trying to define your own messaging. You’re too close to see what’s landing. It’s like trying to read the label on the outside of a glass jar while being stuck inside of it.
You’ve Been Staring Too Long
You can’t see your brand clearly anymore. Not because you’re bad at your job, but because you’ve been living and working inside of it for so long that you’ve stopped seeing it for what it actually is.
You’re seeing individual leaves on a tree while everyone else is trying to figure out if this is the right forest. You’re using insider language that comes across as confusing to those not “in the know.” You’re downplaying your actual strengths because they feel unremarkable and obvious to you.
And the real kicker is, you don’t even know you’re doing it. That’s what proximity does. It blinds you to what’s right in front of you.
You’re Not Alone
LCS came to us at a turning point. A family-founded facilities management company in Poughkeepsie, they’d built a strong local reputation. After a regional expansion had gone well, new leadership was stepping in with a vision to become a nationwide facilities partner.
Their website said: “We’re your premier outsourcing partner.”
To them, it captured everything they wanted to communicate—scale, expertise, reliability—in one condensed phrase. While it made perfect sense internally, there was a disconnect with their intended audience. The facility managers weren’t waking up to search for an “outsourcing partner.” They were looking for a partner who could provide expert solutions, at scale and without fail.
LCS’s language was technically accurate but transactional. It focused on what they did instead of what clients needed. From inside the jar, they couldn’t see it.
The Shift
That’s where we stepped in. Our Ashworth Creative team helped LCS reframe their messaging—not by changing what they did, but by shifting the language they used to talk about it.
Their core pillars became:
- Reliability at scale
- Detail-driven execution
- Long-term partnership
The family values at the heart of their business became social proof, instead of the headline. The services didn’t change, the standards didn’t change, but the clarity did. That clarity gave new management the confidence to grow into the national firm they are today.
Another Example of Messaging Gone Awry
The Council of Industry is a highly-respected manufacturing advocacy organization that has been operating in the Hudson Valley since 1910. Throughout that history they’ve created deep roots, strong relationships, and real results in the community. When they first reached out to our team at Ashworth Creative, they wanted us to create video for their website and social media.
After auditing their content and brand we said, “Let’s pause.” What we found during our research and discovery phase was what their brand needed, video couldn’t address from the outset. They wanted content, but what they needed was clarity.
As it turns out, the Council of Industry didn’t have a content problem. In fact, they were doing so much—workforce development, advocacy work, training programs, events, publications, and more. The problem was, every channel was saying something slightly different.
The website emphasized one thing. Their emails emphasized something else. Their events told a different story, as did their magazine and podcasts. Each piece made sense individually, but collectively, there was no clear framework or message.
Listening for the Pattern
We started honing in on the Council of Industry core messaging and pillars by conducting interviews. We talked with leadership, long-term members, and newer members alike. We listened for patterns and themes that kept coming up over and over again.
From those conversations, we built their core pillars:
- Advocacy that drives real change
- Workforce development that builds the future
- Local community and connection
- Targeted resources for operational excellence
When we presented these, the response was immediate: “Yes. That’s who we are.” The core pillars resonated because they clearly articulated what the Council of Industry was saying about the work they were doing. It just took outside ears to hear the pattern clearly enough to name it.
Outside Looking In
When someone stands outside the glass jar that is your business or organization, they can see things differently. They can identify the gaps in your messaging, the strengths you’re underselling, the patterns you can’t name, the assumptions that don’t translate.
When you’re inside of the glass jar of your business, everything feels essential. It’s hard not to hold hard and fast to everything you’ve built, even if it’s no longer working for you. From the outside, someone can say, “That’s not the lead, that’s the supporting story.” That outside perspective gives you permission to let go. And suddenly, you can breathe.
There’s an emotional cost to doing this from inside the jar. You second-guess everything. You have the same debates in every meeting. You watch competitors who seem to have it figured out and wonder why your process feels so hard.
There’s a real relief that comes when someone outside finally names what you’ve been struggling to see. We’ve witnessed leadership teams finally exhale when we present their core pillars, not because we told them something new, but because we gave them language for what they’d been feeling.
When to Pause
You might need an outside perspective if:
- Different teams describe your company in different ways
- Your messaging shifts depending on who’s talking or who you’re talking to
- Marketing feels reactive instead of intentional
- Sales and marketing aren’t telling the same story
- Everything needs to be re-explained every time
If you’re nodding along thinking “yeah, that’s us” then it’s time to revisit your core messaging and pillars.
The Ashworth Approach
We all work from inside our own glass jars. We can see out, we know who we are, but we can’t see the label, the thing everyone else sees first. That’s not a failure, it’s just perspective.
That’s why it helps to have someone who can see the label and what it really says. That perspective is what turns good brands into clear ones.
At Ashworth Creative, we’ve stood outside the jar for a lot of brands. We listen. We look for patterns. We name what’s already there but hasn’t been articulated yet.
If you’re ready to get clear on who you are and how you show up, let’s talk.
