As you might imagine, I look at LOTS of agency sites every week. We’re always interested to see the good work done by creative folks, but we’re also (being honest) looking for people doing a dreadful job of representing themselves in case there’s an opportunity to swoop in and save them from themselves.

As a result of said browsing excursions, I encounter LOTS of bullshit, hyperbole, and criminally wasted space (why would someone pass on showing a killer case study to instead tell me what they were like at school, how they met CFO “Dean”, when they were established, why they chose their office building, etc. etc?)

One of the most common BS plops I encounter are statements that were no doubt written while standing proudly atop a mountain, chest out, staring heroically into the sun, but are - under brief examination - utter guff.

“Will will only take on a client if we believe we have the knowledge and expertise to help them.”

Yeah. Right. So when Client X turns up with a bag of gold you’re REALLY going to turn them away because you don’t think you have the expertise to help them?

We’re meant to read such statements and think “Gosh darn it; these guys have integrity” but all we do is snort tea out of our noses and roll out eyes (which isn’t as easy as I make it sound).

I Skyped the statement to my colleague (yeah, we’re total bitches) who replied: “It's such a bullshit line: it's easy to claim, impossible to disprove and unlikely to be true.“

Wise words mate.

So, in summary, stop saying silly things. We all see straight through you, and all those heroic statements are taking up space that could be used to impress us with your work and the outcomes attached to it.