Distill Your Brand Down to What Matters
What whiskey-making taught me about brand messaging
If we’re honest, about 80% of what companies say isn’t valuable to anyone outside the building.
Websites. Pitch decks. Sales collateral.
So much of it is filled with layers of language that feel important internally—but fall flat externally.
Why?
Because most brand messages are built like a mash barrel—a messy mix of inputs from every team, feature, and function. There’s something potent buried in there, but it’s surrounded by waste.
In whiskey-making, the process of separating the alcohol from the rotting grain is called distilling.
That’s the metaphor behind our first step with clients:
We call it the Brand Distillery.
It’s not about polishing what you have.
It’s about burning away the excess to get to the stuff that actually moves people.
A fast-growing healthcare client once hand a 50-slide pitch deck.
Every department had contributed something.
Every acronym made it in.
Every feature had a slide. Every testimonial had a paragraph.
It was a brand trying to say everything.
Which meant they were saying nothing.
Literally during our Brand Distillery session, they were informed they had become finalists to win a significant account. Based upon these distilling principals, they reduced their deck from 50-slides to only 8.
They won the account.
It was just the slide count—but the story.
We asked:
What problem is your customer really trying to solve?
What do they need to believe in the first 60 seconds?
What would you want to hear if you were in their shoes?
The result?
An 8-slide deck that won a sizable account.
It didn’t try to prove everything.
It just made the point—clearly, sharply, and in one breath.
Distilling isn’t simplification. It’s subtraction with purpose.
It’s extracting the essence of your value—and letting it breathe.
Here’s what gets cut:
❌ Internal Jargon
❌ Feature Dumping
❌ Audience Sprawl
❌ Over-Explaining
❌ Technical Overload
Here’s what rises to the surface:
✅ A Clear Promise
✅ Emotional Relevance
✅ A Human Voice
✅ A Sharp Point of View
Clarity isn’t shallow. It’s disciplined.
It doesn’t compete for attention—it commands it.
Want to gut check your message?
Ask:
Would a stranger care?
Can I say it in one breath?
Does it sound like us?
Is there one clear idea per slide/post/page?
If your message feels bloated, muddy, or forgettable, it probably needs distilling.
The truth is in there.
Strip it down.
Let it speak.
You don’t need more words. You need the right ones.
Explore our Brand Distillery process—what we keep, what we cut, and why it works.