Before I really get into this topic I first want to tell you a story. I will do my best to keep it short, but I promise it's a vital piece of this conversation.
When I was much younger and smaller, I once stayed at someone else's house. I honestly can't remember if it was a friend, a bully, a cousin, or some other far-flung family member that I just can't remember. (Not being mean, but ADHD does some crap with your memory). However, it doesn't really matter who it was, it was what happened after dinner.
This was one of those families that valued the individual's integrity and, therefore, they not only trusted you to eat in the shag-carpeted living room, but they also trusted you to clean up after yourself without watching over your shoulder as you did so. Having been more than accustomed to cleaning up after myself, I had no hesitation in doing so. This time, though, was not like my normal night of cleaning up my dishes.
After I had completely cleared and washed my plate my "friend" (the kid that was the same age as me that I can't clearly recall at this point) came in with their plate, and asked if I ate everything on my plate. I told them that I ate most, but not every scrap, and they then asked why I had already put up the scrap bucket back when no one else had cleaned their plates.
"The... what?" I asked.
They looked at me as though I had grown a second head. "The scrap bucket." They said, matter-of-factly and shook the ice cream bucket half full of mold and rot at me.
Apparently, they had this bucket under their sink, and that was where all food trash went. And if you were wondering, yes it was absolutely swarming with nats and fruit flies as there was no lid (lids apparently took away vital seconds when disposing of food waste, but not paper waste as there was a lid on the regular trash can, which I later learned was solely for paper waste.)
I don't know what your family did, but I can clearly remember members of my family dumping out full glasses of soda in the trash can, so the idea of having a separate container for food waste was not only foreign to me, but I legitimately thought that my "friend" had been joking so I laughed. They did not take this well, and after summoning their parents, who then proceeded to have me go through the trash and pick apart every piece of trash from food and put them in the correct receptacles, they were also mad at me from that day forward. I wouldn't be surprised if they still don't like me to this day.
I later realized that they had taken my laugh not for the misunderstanding that it had been, but as a family, they had decided that my laugh was one of disregard and that I must just be an asshole. Needless to say, they never had me over again. Maybe that's why the only thing I can remember about them is this story. I do, however, remember that the entire time we spent in the kitchen, they had been taking turns shaking their heads and wondering aloud how anyone could be so deficient in common sense as to throw food in the trash can.
I told this story at other times throughout my life, mostly as a passing comment on how "one time I stayed with a family who kept all their rotting food scraps in a bucket under the sink" to which many of the other people I stayed with chuckled and shared one of the horror stories of some crazy person they had stayed with. The takeaway that I always noticed, though, was that everyone had their own baseline of what "common" or "crazy" really was.
Aside from the way that people maintain their homes, or clothes, or dispose of food, let's move into the realm of business. I am currently 33 years old. Gen Z is about to faint from how old I am, and Boomers are laughing about how I'm still a baby. However, I've also worked at over 37 different jobs in my life. Yes, that is an average of about two jobs per year given that I didn't start working until I was 15, but don't worry, I have worked at a few jobs for more than two years. (If you're doing the math, that also means that in the other years I would sometimes have four or more jobs in a year). These jobs have also been in a wide array of industries and cultures.
I've worked in food service, food prep, banking, entertainment, inventory management, medical, veterinarian, writing, computer science, and even artistic careers. The one thing that is the same in every single field? People quickly forget how much the general public does not know about their industry.
The things that they do on a daily basis are common sense, and when you, as a customer or client, don't realize what they need to do their job, that's because you lack common sense. When a new hire doesn't know the proper way of doing something that you have done every day for years, they lack common sense.
I don't say this to shame anyone, it's something that everyone does, but it is often something that we don't even recognize because it has become so natural in our day to day. What I would like you to take from this, though, is that no two people have the same day to day, and while you may share many aspects of "common sense" with your family or coworkers, you likely don't have all of the same "common sense" views.
Personally, I think that what most people call common sense is simply something that has become so foundational to them, that they don't even have to think of it as a rule anymore. They have gotten to the point that what they do is just what is done and not even something that they have to consider.
If you've made it this far in my tale, thank you, and congratulations, you stuck it out! Now to tell you how I hid the lead; this wasn't a story about how "you should treat people better" but instead about how "you can't expect people to know how much value you can provide when you can't articulate what you do."
I say this because I've found many creators on TikTok and Youtube who go into the details and the process of what they do, and it really helps you to not only conceptualize, but understand why their products or services cost what they do, and why they are worth it. I also wanted to share this with you, because if you aren't using the things that you have come to see as "common sense" as a way to help your clients understand the value behind what you do, then you are missing a vital piece of the branding/marketing puzzle.
You can't expect other people to see your worth, when you, yourself, have forgotten how much is there.
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