Customers always know what they want.

Until they start describing it.

Ask a founder what he needs before launch: 

Something category-defining!  More MRR. A better product–market fit. A breakthrough hire.

Yet he’s still “heads down,” on his third rewrite—and his seventh positioning sprint.

Ask an indie creator why she just dropped £500 on a course about magnetic storytelling: No doubt she’ll say, “it’s to grow my brand.”

Yet she rewrote the caption again last night. Fifty-three drafts later, the cursor still blinks at the edge of something she can’t say.

Ask a SaaS exec why he signed up for executive coaching: “To lead with more authority.”

Yet every session bends back toward the same thing: rehearsing how to avoid conflict.

All their goals and answers sound sharp.

They look clean on paper.

You could map them into a marketing persona slide and no one would blink.

But they don’t get near what’s actually being resolved.

Because they all say some version of the same thing:

“We want Growth. Traction. Clarity!”

But the actual work?

It points somewhere else—toward something they’re trying to prove, protect, or redeem.

Not just to the market.

To themselves.

Something they can’t quite name, but are secretly building around it anyway.

The question is: How can you see what customers are trying not to tell you?

You’ve been here—

They say they want one thing.
But stall at every decision.

They say something matters.
But every answer spawns another objection.

This is not confusion.

It’s choreography!

Because what drives them isn’t in the brief.

It’s in the repetition.

Take Napoleon.

He wasn’t just trying to conquer Europe.

He was trying to erase humiliation.

To rewrite the story of a boy born in Corsica—mocked by aristocrats, seen as an outsider, constantly measuring himself against the legacy of empires.

You could study his campaigns, his treaties, his battlefield tactics.

But none of that explains why he pushed east in winter.

Why he overextended in Russia.

Why the momentum, once legendary, collapsed under its own mythology.

Because Napoleon’s decisions weren’t just tactical.

They were theatrical!

Every move calibrated not just to win—but to transform how he saw himself.

He wasn’t chasing land.

He was chasing legitimacy.

Now imagine if his generals had understood that?

Imagine if someone had realised that the real tension wasn’t just between France and its enemies—but between the man and the mirror.

Talleyrand, his chief diplomat, saw it.

He not only played to it.

He weaponised it.

That’s what understanding “The Customer Myth™” helps you surface.

Not the stated customer goal.

The emotional equation underneath.

Because once you understand what the customer, client—or even the CEO is trying to prove, you can see every move before they make it.

And once you learn the trick to see it there, you start seeing it everywhere.

Just ask Derrick Reimer who built SavvyCal.

After co-founding and selling Drip, he had what every founder wants:

A win. A reputation. Freedom!

On paper, it looked like success. But inside the story, something had been erased.

The product kept growing.
His name didn’t.

The business thrived.
But the story moved on without him.

So when he built again, he didn’t chase scale.

He chased authorship.

SavvyCal wasn’t just a better calendar. It was a second chance to stay visible in the thing he built.

Because the first time, success made him disappear.

And this time, it had to be different.

Not a product. Not a launch.

A line in a story where he finally stayed visible.

These ‘myths’ you have to tackle aren’t just strategic marketing or advertising moves.

They’re emotional negotiations.

Attempts to reroute a story that still stings.

And the sharper you mine the gap between ‘what they say’ and ‘what they repeat’, the closer you are to the real customer story.

It doesn’t show up in the transcript.

You won’t hear it.

But you’ll begin to see it in what they rework and reframe your value propositions accordingly.

We like to call it “The Customer Myth™”:

The unprovable story they’re building everything around.

Not to win.

To make something unresolved feel finished.

Not a goal. Not a tactic.

Something they’re trying to make true—through execution.

Psychologists call it the subconscious need to repair identity through external proof.

Actors call it the invisible motive that makes every line make sense.

Strategists feel it as friction. Founders feel it as tension.

Product teams try to fix the misalignment. "We don't need this", "I don't see how this can help me", "I need to get approval from others".

But it’s none of those.

It’s gravity—shaping decisions that never show up in the brief.

You may have mapped the pain points.

Tagged the motivations.

Refined your positioning.

But your offer still doesn’t convert like it should.

Your copy still doesn’t sound like the person you're really building for. And your traction still feels fragile—like it only works under perfect conditions.

Because no matter how precise the marketing plan, it keeps orbiting around something they haven’t admitted.

If the strategy is the surface, “The Customer Myth™” is the gravity.

It bends roadmaps.

It reroutes launches.

It wraps polish around fear.

But here’s the twist nobody told you:

That thing your customer’s chasing?

You’re chasing something too.

It’s baked into your own roadmap.

Etched into how you hire, hesitate, over-polish, delay.

It’s the question you’ve been trying to answer— without ever admitting you were asking it.

Because until you call out that story for what it is, you’re not building strategy.

You’re staging the cover-up.

But the moment you face it?

1. You stop tweaking your message to fit the market—and start making moves that Transform it.
2. You stop filling culture decks with values—and start architecting systems that prove them. (That’s what Culture Architecture really is.)
3. You stop chasing recognition—and start building a Legacy that doesn’t just outlast you—it resolves what was never settled.

Because you’re not just here to grow.

You’re here to reclaim something.

The story was never just the customer’s.

So stop pretending you’re building from a brief.

You’re building out from a wound.

The question is:

Are you brave enough to name it?

Zsuzsanna Pataki

I had sweated over my sales page for weeks on end, not knowing how to make it work.

I kept at it until it grew into a novel: (you know the one), the kind that makes people click away, confused, fast. — Quite the opposite of what I intended it to actually do .. (Sell)

Stephen had a quick read and boiled down my wordy monster into a sales page that actually worked as a conversion page.

Mystery solved :)

Clients can now quickly see the benefits of what I offer, the value that I bring, and know exactly how to get started.

And what a formula! — I can’t believe it took me so long to ask him. — I feel like a boulder has just been rolled off me, and so relieved to get back to the work I love.

I whole heartily recommend Stephen Shaw to anyone who struggles in this crazy online world, especially when it comes to presenting their offers in a way that reads well, looks right, but more importantly, SELLS!

If you're reading this on his website, don’t just click that button, call and ask him.

Your struggle is over. Zsuzsanna Pataki
Portrait Artist

Dr Lynda Ince-Greenaway

Just the title of Stephen’s business name gave me confidence to trust him in designing my new website. I can honestly say that over the time we worked together, he was always available and made positive and helpful suggestions.

He gave sound advice, copywriting tips and hints on how to turn more browsers into buyers which I found extremely helpful.

And I just love his creativity, spirit of adventure and how he put his heart and soul into what he created. The warm colours and font are inviting reflecting both my personality and my coaching business.

Having asked my friends to visit my new website I have had great feedback.

And it’s all down to Stephen, his knowledge, skills and how he applied science to make my website fit for purpose.

He is so good at his craft! Dr Lynda Ince-Greenaway.
Leadership Coach and Author of “The Hard Truth”

Mark Howarth

Stephen has provided a marketing service of the highest standard.

I’ve worked with designers, web developers and sales funnel experts for many years and it’s rare that someone possesses all three of the skills needed in equal measure.

Stephen is an expert in each area.

He has completed four projects so far — all of which have been on time, to budget and representing brilliant value for money — showing a high level of care and dedication.

Stephen continues to work with me now on a number of clients.

It’s rare I write a reference this glowing but I wholly recommend him without any reservation! Mark Howarth.
Founder & Director, MCH London

Arthur Rimbaud (the prodigiously talented, visionary poet who went on to become a lonely gun runner) once said:

One must be absolutely modern’ (il faut être absolument modern).

As a poet, his point was that knowing all the artistic rules that made past greats stand out as past greats wasn’t enough:

If you wanted to be great yourself, you had to reinvent what constituted future greatness.

Instead of doing another thing, a similar thing, even the same thing with an ironic twist of lemon, you had to do the next new thing.

This was Rimbaud’s bold and brazen challenge to the stuck-in-the-mud, this-is-how-it’s-supposed-to-be artistic community he bowled over with his sheer talent.

And it’s not a bad challenge for any brand (who uses web designers to sell their story to the world) to take very seriously indeed.

After all, if you or your brand is not seen by your clients as:

1. The new thing.
2. The next thing.
3. The modern thing.
4. The disruptive thing.
5. The thing that changes every thing.

Some shiny Rimbaudesque thing out there will be.

And that shiny Rimbaudesque thing will make you look very dated, very fast.

By now you must be wanting a little adaptive, website newness creating power for yourself?

Step 1: Know Your Audience

In a nutshell, we'll diagnose the wants, needs and desires of your market much BETTER than anyone else and craft the perfect angle to be the most magnetic to them.

Step 2: Revolutionise Your Brand

Once we've figured out exactly who you want. Then we’ll dig deep into what THEY “really” want. I’ll then provide you with a Signature Marketing Solution™ that makes them want it from YOU.

Step 3: Grow Your Sales

Finally, we’ll create all the digital assets you’ll ever need specifically tailor made to build your brand and grow your business.

Think of the first time you saw Citizen Kane. 2001: A Space Odyssey or Badlands.

Why did these movies change you and cinema?

Is it because the filmmakers — Welles, Kubrick and Malick respectively — were or still are supremely talented, highly creative artists?

No!

It was because each and every one of them knew the golden rules of cinema so well that they could allow their art to bend those rules just enough to move us and the profession into new territory.

In other words, only by knowing the rules could they rewrite them.

And by rewriting the rules, their work stands head and shoulders above the competition.

I believe that great digital marketers — like all artists — pull off the same rule rewriting trick.

With a deep understanding of all the essential component parts — the content which is your (dialogue), the brand (which are the actors), and the clients (also know as the audience) — great digital marketers deliver a knockout Rocky-esque digital marketing experience.

One that keeps bums on seats long enough for their clients to tell their story from start to finish.

For almost twenty years, I’ve mastered — web design, buyer personas and sales funnels.

In other words:

I know the where the new rules (and rule breakers) come from. And I like to count myself as one of those digital marketing auteurs.

Ostii Ananda

I LOVE your website and how you create! The fonts, the colours, the white (sand) space, your copy, your images.

The entire package! — And the philosophy.

Seriously, you should be head of design for the entire world wide web :)! Ostii Ananda.
Founder & CEO, Flowji