I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what we actually mean when we talk about “ethical” messaging.
Not ethical in the compliance sense, or the performative sense. But ethical as in: how we speak to people when we’re trying to sell something, and what we assume about them when we do.
I keep noticing how often sales messaging relies on certainty. You must do this. This is the only way. If you really cared about your business, your health, your growth, you’d already be doing this. Why aren’t you?
And the more I see these messages, the more uncomfortable they make me, and that's certainly not because confidence is inherently bad, but because so much of this language seems to erase something important: context.
Every person reading our words is making decisions inside a context we cannot fully see. They’re operating within financial realities, time constraints, health considerations, nervous system capacity, responsibilities to other people, past experiences, and often a history of things that didn’t work despite their best intentions.
When we say our solution is the solution, we’re making an assumption that their situation is essentially the same as ours. That the conditions that made something work for us are present for them. That timing, resources, energy, and support are roughly equivalent.
They rarely are.
This is where ethical messaging starts to matter to me. Not in a moral high-ground way, but in a very practical, human one.
There’s a popular argument in marketing that says good messaging must exclude. That in order to attract the right people, you need to repel the wrong ones. That if someone feels uncomfortable or “called out,” that’s simply part of effective positioning.
And I understand where this thinking comes from. Being specific matters. Trying to appeal to everyone usually means connecting with no one. Clear offers are easier to understand and easier to choose.
But I also find myself questioning whether exclusion has become a lazy shorthand for clarity.
[For me, this is falling into 'the-way-it's-always-been-done' thinking.]
Is the only way to be clear really to imply that anyone who doesn’t choose your solution is misinformed, uncommitted, or doing something wrong? Is it ethical to build desire by suggesting that the problem lies in the audience, rather than in fit, timing, or circumstance?
What if we could hold clarity and humility at the same time?
What if ethical messaging isn’t about being for everyone, but about being honest about where an offer works, and where it doesn’t?
To me, there’s a meaningful difference between saying, “This is who this is for,” and saying, “If this hasn’t worked for you yet, you’re the problem.”
Ethical messaging can be explicit without being coercive. It can be confident without being absolute. It can invite alignment without collapsing complexity.
That might look like naming the prerequisites for success rather than implying universal readiness. It might look like acknowledging that timing matters, that certain life or business seasons require stabilisation before optimisation. It might look like being transparent about limitations, instead of letting the audience assume that if it didn’t work for them, they must have failed.
This matters because so much of what’s being sold online is sold on personal success stories. “This worked for me” has become a proxy for proof. And while lived experience is valuable, it is not the same thing as universal applicability.
Something working for you does not automatically mean it will work for someone else — especially when their context is different. Different support systems. Different constraints. Different starting points. Different risks.
Ethical messaging, as I see it, requires us to resist turning personal experience into one-size-fits all prescription.
It asks us to respect the fact that people are already making the best decisions they can with the information, capacity, and resources available to them. That they are not blank slates waiting to be corrected, but complex humans navigating trade-offs we may never fully understand.
None of this means watering down your message, hiding your conviction, or pretending your work isn’t valuable. Clarity still matters. Boundaries still matter. Discernment still matters.
But what I'm saying is: certainty doesn’t have to come at the expense of compassion.
For me, ethical messaging is about holding responsibility on both sides of the equation. It’s about being clear on what an offer can do, without overstating what it can solve. It’s about recognising that lack of uptake doesn’t always mean lack of ambition, and that readiness isn’t a moral virtue.
We don’t need more messaging that tells people what they “should” be doing. We need messaging that trusts people to recognise fit when it’s presented honestly.
Ethical messaging asks more of us, not less. More thought. More nuance. More willingness to sit with complexity instead of smoothing it over with absolutes.
And perhaps most importantly, it asks us to remember that behind every click, scroll, and purchasing decision is a context we don’t get to see, and therefore shouldn’t pretend to know.
