How to Email Your List When Your Work Is Hard to Explain
Work hard to explain? Email your list about the result, tell a real client story and keep the strange bits. You can sell without watering down your work.
Last updated: 27 September 2026
I’ve written a book of spells for office workers.
Try explaining that at a school fundraiser.
I work with women whose businesses would have seen them burnt at the stake 400 years ago. Healers. Coaches. Witches. Women with brilliant work and no neat little label to put on it.
They’re exceptional at what they do and terrible at telling people about it.
Here’s the thing.
If your work is hard to explain, stop trying to explain the whole method. Email your list about the problem you solve, show the result through a real story and keep the unusual part of your work in plain sight.
You don’t have to sanitise your business to sell it.
Below, I’ll show you how to talk about strange and wonderful work without sounding like everyone else, or like you’ve swallowed a crystal.
Why is it so hard to email your list when your work is unconventional?
Unconventional work is hard to email about because it doesn’t fit a familiar category, so you end up explaining the method instead of the reason someone needs you. Your reader wasn’t asking for a lecture. She wants to know whether you can help.
I’ve worked with Lisa, a goddess expert who teaches walking the path of dark goddesses.
Try fitting that on a name tag.
Then the fear kicks in.
What if people think it’s too woo woo? What if they don’t take you seriously? What if your family reads it?
So you do one of two things. You write something so vague that nobody knows what you do, or you make it so corporate that you don’t recognise yourself.
Neither sells.
The first leaves her confused. The second removes the very thing that made her trust you in the first place.
What should you say instead of explaining your method?
Talk about the problem she has and the change she wants, then let your method come in as part of the story. You can’t sell someone a process she doesn’t understand. You can show her what it changed for someone like her.
It’s 70% about them and 30% about how you can help them.
Make your reader Luke Skywalker and be Yoda. Nobody went to Yoda for his methodology. They went because something had to change.
Here’s the question I’d ask before you write anything: what was going on in her life the day before she went looking for someone like you?
Start there.
That’s the moment she recognises herself, and that’s when she keeps reading.
How do you make your work easier to understand without watering it down?
Name the real thing, then say what it does for her in plain English. You don’t need to remove the unusual part of your work. You need to give it some context.
My own book is the proof. It’s called Office Witches Spellbook: Over 90 Spells and Rituals for Confidence, Clarity, and Career Growth.
I didn’t replace “spells” with “workplace wellbeing tools”. Good grief.
The spells stayed. Next to them, I named what the reader actually wants: confidence, clarity and career growth.
| What not to do | The problem | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Lead with the method | She has to work out why it matters | Lead with the problem, then name the method |
| Use your industry’s language | Only insiders understand it | Say it the way you would across a kitchen table |
| Sanitise the strange part | You sound like everyone else | Keep it, and add what it does for her |
| Make vague promises | She can’t picture the result | Tell a true, specific client story |
If your work touches health or healing, be careful with your claims. Tell the truth about what changed for a client, and don’t promise a result you can’t stand behind.
What stories should you tell in your emails?
Tell stories that show a real change, because a story can explain your work more clearly than a definition. You’ve got more of them than you think.
Try these:
- Why you do this work. What happened that sent you down this path?
- A client’s turning point. What changed for her, in her words?
- A myth in your industry. What do people get wrong?
- A moment from your life. What taught you the thing you now teach?
Lisa, a goddess expert I worked with, thought she’d be judged for telling her own story of vulnerability.
Instead, it’s the story that brings in the most clients.
Women read it and know she understands what they’re going through. No explanation of the dark goddess path could do that on its own.
The story you’re most scared to tell may be the one doing the selling.
Here’s what happened for Lea, one of my clients. Nothing about her business changed on the surface. Same clients, same offer, same work.
“The story I was telling about that work finally clicked into place,” she said. “People started leaning in.”
She also noticed “less proving, less explaining, more resonance”.
That’s what the right story does. It takes on the explaining you’ve been trying to do yourself.
Should you hide the spiritual or witchy side of your business?
No. Don’t hide the spiritual or witchy side of your business if it’s part of how you help people, because it’s often why the right clients choose you. You may lose people who were never going to buy. That’s fine.
This isn’t as fringe as you’ve been led to believe either.
In a 2023 Pew Research Center survey of 11,201 US adults, 70% described themselves as spiritual in some way. Pew also found that 12% have crystals for spiritual purposes.
Those are American numbers, and they don’t mean everyone wants what you sell. But your people exist.
You can be unusual and still be commercially serious. Show your results, charge properly and be clear about what you do.
The women who’d have burnt you at the stake were never your market.
What should your next email say?
Your next email should name one problem, tell one true story and give one clear next step. You don’t need to explain your whole business. One email only has to make one thing clear.
- Choose one problem. Write it the way she’d say it.
- Tell one story. Show someone with that problem and what changed.
- Name your work. Use the real word for what you do, then say what it does.
- Invite her in. Tell her what to do next, and leave her free to say no.
Read it aloud before you send it. If you wouldn’t say it across a kitchen table, rewrite it.
Scared to Email Your List? Who You're Really Hiding From.
FAQs: emailing about hard-to-explain work
Q: How do I explain what I do if my work is hard to explain? A: Start with the problem you solve and the change people want. Then name your method and say what it does in plain English. A short, true client story usually explains your work better than a definition or a list of what’s included.
Q: How do I market a spiritual business without sounding woo woo? A: Keep the real language of your work, then add specifics. Say who it’s for, what they’re dealing with and what changed for a client. Avoid vague promises and don’t copy the polished language of mainstream coaches. Being clear makes you sound credible.
Q: Should I use the word witch in my marketing? A: If it’s a true and important part of your work, yes. It’ll put some people off, and it’ll help the right people find you. Add context so readers understand what you do and how you help.
Q: What do healers and coaches email their list about? A: Email about the problems your clients bring you, myths in your field, client stories, why you do this work and lessons from your own life. Keep each email to one idea and one next step. You don’t need to explain everything you do every time.
So what do you do now?
Stop trying to fit your whole business into one neat sentence.
Pick one problem. Tell one true story. Name the strange bit and say what it does.
You don’t have to become palatable to get paid.
And if your work is brilliant but you still can’t get it onto the page, that’s what I do. Emails That Sell gives you story-based emails written for you, without sanding off the bits that make you different.
How do you explain what you do at a dinner party? Tell me in the comments. Bonus points if the room went quiet.
About Eve John: Eve John is a copywriter, story-based marketing strategist and the founder of Dauntlexx. She’s the author of three books, including Office Witches Spellbook, and has worked with women in business since 2014.
