Don’t Baffle your Prospects with “Corporate-speak.”

“Let’s touch base to arrange a little face time so we can appear fully engaged. Let’s be proactive, synergistic and leverage this thing. Better yet, let’s circle back and do a deep dive so we can empower a paradigm shift with a value added, team building, best of breed, Six Sigma, perfect storm that could go viral.  ……. Net-net:  It’s a win-win. Got it? 

This monologue is not real. It is a humorous radio ad created by TDH Advertising for The Private Bank. To hear the ad, click here.

The ad is a spoof. But it sounds all too real. I often encounter similar language.

It’s a disease called “corporate-speak,” a common affliction among B2B marketers. Corporate-speak can be deadly: deadly boring and deadly to your business. If you can’t explain your business clearly, what will your prospects think?

Don’t Say These Things

Here are some words and phrases to avoid in your writing and conversations. I’ve gathered them from a variety of sources including David Meerman Scott’s The Gobbleygook Manifesto and MSMC

• Leverage – Experts argue about whether this is even a verb. Keep it simple and use the word “use,” instead
•  Incent – This is not even listed in the Oxford Dictionary website.
• Solution – It’s either a product or a service. Describe how it “solves” the problem
• Resource – Are you a resource? No, you’re a person.
• Next Generation – This is a euphemism for “new and improved.” Explain why the product or service is better.
• Leading Provider – What authority gave your company this designation?
• Robust – Does this mean powerful? More powerful than what?

 

Keep it Simple

Ernest Nicastro in Is Your Writing Driving Away Clients? cites a real example of corporate-speak, with the company name disguised.

“Leader Coaching leverages a proprietary coaching framework, proven over years of practical application and success, to collaborate with clients in pursuit of shared goals….. In other words, Leader Coaching’s services meet the expectations of business leaders who recognize the value of purposeful investments in human capital—often beginning with themselves—as a means of preparing and aligning people and systems in pursuit of growth.”

Ernest reduced all this gibberish to one sentence: Leader Coaching uses a proven coaching system to help clients manage their people and their business for greater profit.”

He offers the following tips:

• Keep sentences short
• Avoid the passive voice – I did it, not it was done by me
• Check for readability – Microsoft Word can give you readability statistics.

Marketing Lessons from Paul Krugman and Rush Limbaugh

New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman and Rush Limbaugh occupy opposite sides of the political spectrum. Yet, they have one thing in common. They are very effective communicators.

Krugman has a Phd in Economics and won the Nobel Prize in 2008. He could write like an academic or a policy wonk. But he doesn’t. He writes simply and clearly:

 “But isn’t keeping taxes for the affluent low also a form of stimulus? Not so you’d notice. When we save a schoolteacher’s job, that unambiguously aids employment; when we give millionaires more money instead, there’s a good chance that most of that money will just sit idle.”

Here is a quote from Limbaugh:

“Unspeakable tragedies happen to some families; they don’t happen to others. Some people live a long time; some people don’t. There’s no explaining any of this. Nobody’s in charge of this. There’s no government that can change this . . . the vast majority of things that occur in the process of living life are unequal and unfair.”

Forget the political and social commentary. Focus on the clear language, short words, and short sentences. They’re powerful.

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If you’re tempted to write “we leverage resources to achieve strategic objectives,” stop. Remember, you’re really trying to say “we use people effectively to accomplish key tasks.”