Give customers the facts that change the answer
Start with who the offer serves, what it does, important limits, current terms, supporting evidence, and the next step. A customer should not have to infer the meaning of your offer from scattered clues. I would start with the facts that could change the decision: scope, fit, conditions and what happens next. An organized fact sheet can reveal a surprisingly practical editing task.
“Give the person what they are missing, not everything you know.”
— Curtiss Witt, The Decision Economy, Chapter 16.
What belongs in a useful offer fact sheet?
State the business name consistently and distinguish it from a product, tool, or parent organization. A reader should not have to infer whether several names refer to the same entity. Check the name where a customer first encounters the offer and where the next action takes place.
Say what is provided and what is outside the scope. Replace a broad promise with an explanation a customer can use to judge relevance. The description should answer the practical question “What would I receive?” before asking the person to trust a claim about its value.
Explain which situations the offer is designed to serve. Avoid confusing an audience description with a guarantee that every person in that group is suitable. The useful detail is what about the situation matters, including conditions that call for a different route or additional review.
If location changes availability or suitability, make the applicable area clear. Do not imply coverage beyond what the business can actually provide. Keep the same geographic meaning across the offer page and relevant profiles, and identify who is responsible for updating it when service coverage changes.
A fact sheet becomes more useful when its information serves a clear choice. State whether the person is deciding about fit, comparing alternatives, or preparing for a next step. This gives the details a purpose and helps prevent a general company description from replacing decision-critical information.
The comparison below describes two approaches to the work. It is a practical design contrast, not a measured claim that one approach always produces a better commercial outcome.
| Information and activity approach | Decision-support approach |
|---|---|
| Lead with slogans alone. | State the offer, audience and important exclusions. |
| Let changing terms live in several places. | Assign an owner and a maintained home. |
| Use markup to add unseen claims. | Keep structured facts aligned with public text. |
Which conditions should be visible before commitment?
State what published pricing includes and what requires a separate quote or confirmation. Avoid presenting an estimate as a final commitment. If price cannot responsibly be specified without more information, explain which conditions change it rather than leaving the person to guess why a number is absent.
Business hours and capacity to provide a particular service are different facts. Explain how someone confirms the relevant availability. A page saying the business is open should not quietly imply that a specific appointment, product, or service slot is currently available to that customer.
List the requirements that affect whether someone can use the offer or take the next step. Place them where they can influence the decision before a commitment. Requirements disclosed only after contact can leave a customer evaluating an offer that was never applicable to the situation.
An exclusion helps a person avoid an unsuitable path. Describe it plainly and, where appropriate, explain what kind of help might be needed instead. Do not hide important boundaries inside generic legal language while the main offer continues to sound broader than the business can support.
Tell the person whether an action produces information, sends a request, or creates a commitment. Include what still requires confirmation. The distinction is especially important when the same page can be read by a person or used by an assistant that should not infer authority from vague wording.
How do I attach evidence and accountability?
For every consequential statement, identify the evidence that supports it. A credential, policy, test, and customer account answer different questions. Do not treat one type of evidence as a substitute for all the others or assume a page of testimonials proves every current claim.
If a credential is relevant, identify what it applies to and how it can be checked. Avoid language that makes a limited qualification sound like universal approval of the business. The purpose is to support the particular reliance a customer is being asked to place on the claim.
A date should identify a real publication, review, or effective change. Merely updating the displayed date does not show that every fact was checked. Record what was reviewed and by whom, especially for information whose accuracy can materially change a customer’s choice.
Give each important category of information an accountable owner inside the business. That person should know when a change has occurred and which public descriptions depend on it. Without ownership, a fact sheet can become a polished collection of statements nobody is responsible for maintaining.
If a claim lacks support, mark the gap in the working inventory and decide whether to obtain evidence, narrow the claim, or remove it. Do not fill the gap with stronger marketing language. A more modest supported statement is more useful than a confident assertion the customer cannot inspect.
The working rule I return to is this: “Give the person what they are missing, not everything you know.” It is a way to judge the next piece of work, while keeping its evidence and limitations visible.
How should facts be structured for people and machines?
Use the same label for the same meaning across the page, tool, and documentation. Different wording can be appropriate in explanatory prose, but the core entities and conditions should remain recognizable. Consistency helps users compare information and helps maintainers identify where a change must be applied.
Important facts should be understandable in the page’s visible content. Do not rely on hidden metadata to make the offer clearer than the human explanation. A customer needs the same substantive truth that a machine-readable description is intended to convey.
Structured data can explicitly describe page content and relationships. It should match the visible information rather than invent extra claims. Treat it as a representation of your source material, with the same responsibility for accuracy, not as a separate promotional channel where stronger assertions are acceptable. Google Search Central: Introduction to structured data markup; accessed September 2026
A fact sheet describes an offer; an API or tool performs a defined operation. A business may need one or both, but they solve different problems. Identify which task a compatible client should perform before deciding that the existence of structured information alone makes the capability usable.
Review the offer page alongside the profiles or systems customers actually encounter. Google’s local-business guidance emphasizes complete and accurate business information within its own service. Use that as one scoped maintenance task, not as evidence that updating a profile controls every AI recommendation. Google Business Profile: Tips to improve your local ranking; accessed September 2026
How can I finish one manageable information inventory?
For the inventory, mark each required fact as available, missing, or uncertain. These are working labels for this exercise, not replacements for DERA’s four descriptive statuses. Keeping the exercise separate prevents a simple fact review from being mistaken for the assessment’s governed result.
Start with a missing fact that could materially change suitability or the next action. A cosmetic inconsistency may matter less than an unclear requirement. Write why the gap matters to the decision so the person doing the work can distinguish a necessary correction from an optional refinement.
After revising the information, confirm that the intended page actually shows the new wording and that related links work. Keep the check proportional to the claim. A public page review can establish what is displayed, but it does not prove that every external system has updated its copy.
The inventory can help an owner answer the assessment more thoughtfully. DERA still relies on reported conditions and returns three priorities, rather than independently verifying the fact sheet. Retain BY YOUR ACCOUNT and use the tool to organize work that the inventory has made more concrete. Decision Economy Institute: live capability manifest; accessed September 2026
Record which changes require the fact sheet to be reviewed: an altered offer, requirement, service area, or next-step process. Assign the review to an owner. A small maintained inventory is more useful than a large one that appears comprehensive but no longer describes the business accurately.
What can I do with this today?
Start with one offer and write down the next decision this article helps you examine. Give the work a defined scope before adding a new page, tool or integration.
1. Create a dated offer fact sheet with an accountable owner.
2. Identify the consequential fact or condition that remains uncertain. Name who can check it and what would establish completion.
3. If you need help ordering the business work, complete the free Decision Economy Readiness Assessment. Read its reasons and three starting actions, then choose the first task you can inspect.
Our own example is deliberately bounded. The Institute’s Method explains the owner-reported result; its capability manifest declares what the tool can do; and its assessment schema makes the question bank and data contract inspectable. These September 2026 publisher documents describe the assessment. They do not independently establish better customer or business outcomes.
Give customers the facts that change the answer
Before the next customer faces the same unresolved choice, identify the improvement that would make the answer more useful. Use the readiness assessment to turn your reported conditions into three starting actions, and keep the next evidence check in view.
Disclaimer
Based on your answers, this assessment suggests improvement priorities; it does not independently verify your business or predict AI recommendations, sales, or business quality.
FAQ
How can an offer be described concretely?
Say what is provided and what is outside the scope. Replace a broad promise with an explanation a customer can use to judge relevance. The description should answer the practical question “What would I receive?” before asking the person to trust a claim about its value.
Which requirements should appear early?
List the requirements that affect whether someone can use the offer or take the next step. Place them where they can influence the decision before a commitment. Requirements disclosed only after contact can leave a customer evaluating an offer that was never applicable to the situation.
What is the scope of a credential?
If a credential is relevant, identify what it applies to and how it can be checked. Avoid language that makes a limited qualification sound like universal approval of the business. The purpose is to support the particular reliance a customer is being asked to place on the claim.
How does data differ from a callable operation?
A fact sheet describes an offer; an API or tool performs a defined operation. A business may need one or both, but they solve different problems. Identify which task a compatible client should perform before deciding that the existence of structured information alone makes the capability usable.
Where does DERA fit after the inventory?
The inventory can help an owner answer the assessment more thoughtfully. DERA still relies on reported conditions and returns three priorities, rather than independently verifying the fact sheet. Retain BY YOUR ACCOUNT and use the tool to organize work that the inventory has made more concrete.
Do I need to share contact details before seeing the assessment result?
No. The complete result is available before an optional email request. If a contact commitment has held you back, try the free readiness assessment and read the plan first. Emailing it and consenting to future updates are separate choices. The result remains BY YOUR ACCOUNT.
References
Curtiss Witt. The Decision Economy, updated author-supplied manuscript, Chapter 16 for the quoted decision rule; the supplied manuscript also grounds the framework. Supplied September 2026; unpublished manuscript, so no public URL is asserted.
Google Search Central: Introduction to structured data markup. First-party technical guidance. Markup describes page meaning and should reflect visible content. Technical validity does not demonstrate the usefulness of a decision tool.
Google Business Profile: Tips to improve your local ranking. First-party local-business guidance. Provides a published owner problem and information-maintenance baseline; local ranking is not evidence of recommendation by other AI products.
Decision Economy Institute: live capability manifest. Publisher’s capability declaration, accessed September 10, 2026. Describes the available routes and their limits; not an independent test of every operation.
Decision Economy Institute: How this assessment works. Publisher’s own Method; ruleset de-readiness-1.0.0, accessed September 10, 2026. Not an independent outcomes study.
Decision Economy Institute: Assessment schema and question bank. Publisher’s technical contract; accessed September 10, 2026. Data shape and published question bank, not proof of real-world decision quality.
Continue exploring
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Tags: business information for AI; Decision Economy; Decision Economy Institute; Curtiss Witt; customer decisions; decision support; business readiness; DERA; Better Choices; Practical information.