In 1983, Coca-Cola was panicking.
Pepsi's market share was climbing, especially among younger drinkers, and for the first time in decades, Coca-Cola's dominance seemed in question. So they did something bold. They reformulated the flagship product, after nearly 100 years, and launched New Coke.
It was meant to be a turning point. Blind taste tests had suggested people actually liked the new formula better. Billions were spent on research, rebranding, and marketing.
But within three months, Coca-Cola was forced to backtrack. Consumers revolted. Executives received hate mail. Protest groups popped up in cities across the U.S. One even called itself "The Old Cola Drinkers of America." And perhaps most notably, sales of Pepsi also started to dip, because in all the confusion, customers went back to something they hadn't realized they missed: Coca-Cola Classic.
It's easy to laugh now, but the real takeaway isn't about soda. It's about clarity.
At its core, New Coke wasn't just a product misstep. It was a failure of strategic clarity. Coca-Cola didn't understand what its brand really meant to people. They thought they were selling flavor. What they were actually selling was nostalgia, identity, Americana in a can. And when they lost sight of that, they lost their footing, even if just briefly.
And they're not alone. Companies big and small get swept up in the motion of growth, of reacting to competitors, of chasing the next big idea. But real growth isn't a sprint. It's the result of knowing exactly who you are and doubling down on it.
Most businesses don't hit plateaus because they run out of ideas. They stall because they lose their focus.
I've spoken with dozens of business owners over the years who've hit the same wall. Growth slows, customer churn ticks up, team energy sags. The instinct is always the same: "We need something new." A new service, a new market, a new hire. But more often than not, what they need isn't something new, it's to remember something old. The thing that made them successful in the first place.
The owner of a small professional services firm once told me how they'd expanded quickly during a two-year boom. They added service lines, restructured the team, started hiring "big name" talent from national firms. But after the dust settled, something felt off. Clients were confused about what they actually did. Staff were unclear on priorities. Referrals dropped. They hadn't grown into a better version of themselves, they'd grown into something unrecognizable.
And here's where it gets tricky: when a business loses clarity, the symptoms don't show up in one place. It's not just sales, or morale, or customer satisfaction. It's everything, all at once, just slightly off-kilter. That's why it's so easy to miss until it's already hurting you.
Clarity, in a business context, means knowing three things deeply and communicating them relentlessly: who you are, who you serve, and what value you uniquely offer. Sounds simple. It never is.
Over time, those things can become muddled. You hire someone with a different background and suddenly a new service line appears. You chase a big contract slightly outside your wheelhouse and now that's part of the pitch. You look at what competitors are doing and think, "Should we be doing that too?"
It happens slowly, by degree. You stretch, then overreach, then drift.
So how do you pull it back?
First, ask the questions you probably haven't asked in a while, at least not directly. What problem do we solve better than anyone else? Why do our customers come to us in the first place? Not "what do we sell," but "why do they buy it from us?"
Then, talk to your team. Not just the leadership group, but the people in the weeds. Ask them what they think your company stands for. If you get ten different answers, that's a signal.
The same applies to clients. One small but powerful exercise is to interview a handful of your best customers and ask them what they value most about working with you. What they say might not match what you think you're selling. That disconnect is either a problem—or an opportunity.
Next, simplify your offerings. This is where the real work often begins. Most companies, over time, accumulate services and products the same way people accumulate things for the junk drawer. Everything seems useful at the time. But eventually, it creates clutter. That clutter eats attention, dilutes messaging, and distracts from what you actually do best.
There's a manufacturing business I once talked to that went through a "clarity audit." They sat down and listed every product, every client type, and every internal initiative. Then they color-coded them by profit margin, strategic alignment, and client satisfaction. The result wasn't surprising: 20% of their work was driving 80% of their success. But seeing it in black and white gave them permission to start pruning.
They narrowed their client base. Refocused marketing. Streamlined the sales process. Within 18 months, growth was up again; not because they added anything new, but because they removed what didn't fit.
There's a kind of paradox in clarity: the more specific you are, the broader your appeal becomes. People trust businesses that know exactly who they are.
That's true internally as well. Clarity creates confidence. When everyone on your team knows the mission, understands the value, and sees how their work connects to the bigger picture, things move faster. Decisions become easier. Accountability becomes clearer. It's not a silver bullet, but it is a force multiplier.
Of course, clarity isn't just about looking backward. It's also about discipline going forward. You must guard against drift. That means saying no, often. No to good ideas that don't align. No to tempting contracts that pull you off course. No to copycatting the competition. If your strategy is built on trying to be everything to everyone, you'll eventually end up being nothing to anyone.
There's a reason the most successful businesses often seem boring. It's because they're consistent. They know their lane, and they stay in it, over and over again. And that's not laziness—it's focus. That's how long-term advantage is built.
Circling back to Coca-Cola: after the New Coke debacle, they reintroduced the original formula as Coca-Cola Classic. It was, in many ways, the best branding mistake they could have made. The backlash reminded people what Coke actually stood for, and sales surged. Within six months, Coca-Cola Classic had completely reclaimed its position. Pepsi, for all its gains, was left flat.
It's a strange thing, but clarity often doesn't feel like growth. It feels like slowing down. It feels like repeating yourself. It feels like ignoring shiny objects. But those are the very things that give a business staying power. Those are the habits that make growth sustainable.
So if you're stuck, if growth has stalled, if the team feels scattered or the message feels muddy, ask yourself: What would happen if you stopped trying to be more and started trying to be clearer?
And if Coca-Cola, a century-old global icon, can lose clarity and come back stronger, then so can you.
Will MacFee is the president of Systems Support an MSP providing IT solutions for businesses in greater Boston.
