A draft of the new Common Ground website described the four principals as having '100+ years collective' experience, and led with a headline claiming they were 'the only ones' who could do all three of the firm's lanes at once.
I struck the combined-years claim entirely and ordered a real composition sheet built from actual deal records before any headline number about the firm's collective experience could go up. Also cut the 'only ones in all three lanes' line as unrealistic, and removed the footer's vendor-credit lines so no single vendor held sole public credit for shared work.
The 100-plus-years line was a cheap way to say a lot of work, that's how I put it to the team. It sounded impressive but wasn't a real, checkable fact the way my own individually documented numbers were. I held the site to the same standard the firm claims to run on: no number ships unless it traces back to something real, and any revenue figure tied to a client company needed that founder's own sign-off before it went public.
The claim got pulled before launch, the composition sheet work got assigned, and proof tiles for outside companies, including a client's revenue figure, got held back pending direct confirmation from the people they belonged to.
If a number only works as a vibe and can't survive someone asking where it came from, it doesn't belong on the site.
It would've been an easy, harmless-seeming exaggeration to let ride. The discipline was catching it before it shipped, not after someone else caught it.