_Mary mother of God am I sick of that insane analogy! Balancing your checkbook is to balancing the (state) budget as driving to the supermarket is to landing on the moon.
Sloan Sabbith, The Newsroom TV show_Simplification occurs when we describe something using its basic element. Oversimplification occurs when using just those basic elements misrepresents the true nature of the subject being simplified.
The problem is, that simplification fosters the client’s understanding more about your field, letting them see more of the value you provide – raising their expectation on what the service will cost.
Oversimplification on the other hand does the opposite, trivializing the nature of what you do, making the client think they understand more than they do. This makes them more confident in making ill-informed comparisons (like the one in the quote from The Newsroom) between your work and amateurs, which drives their expectation of the final cost down.
Explaining enough, but not too much is not an easy line to thread of course, but here’s what I do:
- Stay aware of who I’m talking to
- Use words they recognize, where possible
- Tell stories about things and events that they could have lived through in their lives
- Invite questions – they will show if the client is lost
We get paid for accurately describing our value just as much as we do for producing that value.