The claims I refuse to make

Some prospects ask me a version of this question in the first conversation: what will you not say on my behalf?

It is the smartest vetting question I get, and the person asking has usually seen this industry from the inside. They sell knowledge for a living. They know what gets said under an expert's name to move a launch, and they know who pays for it later. My answer is the same for every client, and it is policy rather than preference.

Your name is your inventory. Every claim published under it either compounds the trust you sell or spends it. A marketer speaks under your name daily, which makes the refusals a bigger decision than the copy. And since marketing cannot force outcomes or conjure demand, a claim that pretends otherwise gets paid for later, by you.

No guaranteed outcomes

I will not put guaranteed outcomes under your name, whether rankings, revenue, or follower counts. A guarantee on an outcome nobody controls survives on fine print or a markup you fund, so the refusal protects your wallet and your name together.

What I will commit to instead is conduct: what ships, when, and what you own. Outcomes get forecasts and straight reporting, never promises.

No invented urgency

Countdown timers on an offer that never closes. Deadlines that reset at midnight. "Two spots left" over an open calendar. Your buyers are professionals who have watched every one of these run on them, and the FTC names baseless countdown timers and false scarcity among the deceptive patterns it watches for.

The deeper cost is quieter. A fake deadline teaches your audience to ignore your real ones. An information business runs on real ones: enrollment windows, cohort starts, price changes. Scarcity gets stated only when it is true. A practice with limited capacity can say so plainly, and the plain truth reads stronger than theater.

No manufactured proof

Nothing invented testifies for you. No fabricated testimonials, no purchased reviews, no AI-written praise from customers who do not exist, and no client story without written consent. Since October 2024, an FTC rule bans fake reviews and testimonials outright, AI-generated ones included, with civil penalties that can pass $50,000 per violation. The rule only priced what was already true. Fabricated proof burns an expert's name, and fabrication has never been cheaper to produce or easier to detect.

Real proof takes longer and works. Consented results, verified before publishing, told with the hard parts left in. At this tier candor reads as experience, and buyers at this tier check.

No inflated results

Income claims sell information products, which is exactly why they need substantiation before they run. The FTC has spent years suing coaching and course sellers over earnings claims that dressed best cases as typical ones. Under your name, a number runs only when you can back it. A best case gets called a best case. A typical result gets the word typical. When the substantiation is missing, the claim waits, however well it would convert.

No borrowed authority

You will not become "the world's leading" anything in my copy unless a credible ranking says so. No invented credentials, no inflated titles, no claimed expertise you do not hold, no logos from publications that never covered you. The performers you compete with do all of this, and buyers who check can tell. Specifics persuade harder than superlatives, and you have the specifics. That is the whole reason we would work together.

What the refusal list buys you

A refusal list looks like restraint from the outside, and from the inside it is protection. Every claim I decline keeps your name worth what it was the day we started, so the work compounds instead of repairing. The list also answers the fear this question usually carries. A marketer who cannot tell you apart from the performers will market you as one. The refusals are how you check, before any contract, whether a marketer can tell the difference.

The full answer is short. No guaranteed outcomes, no invented urgency, no manufactured proof, no inflated results, no borrowed authority. The rest of the answer is what I will say. Everything true about your work, told well enough to compete with the loudest claim in your category. If that sounds like a hard job, it is, and it is the job.