
Corporate-speak (aka buzzwords or biz-blab) weakens your writing. Because it consists of cliches, biz-blab marks you as an unoriginal thinker. Because it is often ambiguous, biz-blab makes you seem fuzzy-minded and lazy.
With that in mind, here are 65 common business, sales and marketing buzzwords, followed by a plain English rewrite. While the rewritten versions sometimes require a few extra words, the result is clearer and cleaner.
Note: if you need to convince customers to buy, I publish a free weekly newsletter where I critique your sales messages for free. The free newsletter also gives you a heads up of new blog posts (like this) that I've written in the previous week.
- We need to get these efforts into alignment.
- We need to be headed in the same direction.
- At the end of the day, we're committed to your success.
- We are committed to your success now and in the future.
- When all is said and done, the result will be...
- When we've finished talking about this and have taken action, the result will be...
- In this day and age...
- The way things are today...
- This will break through the clutter/noise.
- People will notice this.
- What do you bring to the table?
- What do you have to offer?
- This market is experiencing disruptive innovation.
- People are now buying a less expensive product that does the same thing.
- We empower our employees.
- Employees to make their own decisions here.
- Let's schedule some face time.
- Let's meet in person.
- Globalization is driving revenue.
- More people living outside this country are buying our products.
- Going forward, our strategy is...
- Our strategy from this point on is...
- We need to take a holistic approach.
- We need to address all aspects of this.
- How does this impact our business?
- How does this affect our business?
- We need to leverage their marketing campaign.
- We need to direct our own activities to make use of their marketing campaign.
- Moving forward, we will...
- In the future, we will...
- This is the new normal.
- What was exceptional before is now unexceptional.
- The business experienced organic growth.
- The business found new customers for its existing products rather than acquiring other firms.
- We need to think outside the box.
- We need an original idea.
- We are experiencing a paradigm shift.
- The standards we've used to evaluate this have changed.
- We need a proactive strategy.
- We need to take action ourselves rather than respond to the actions of others.
- This product really pushes the envelope.
- This product does a great deal more than previous, existing products.
- I'm reaching out to see if you're interested in....
- Are you interested in...?
- We are experiencing a sea change.
- We need to change behavior in order to take advantage of a different situation.
- We need to streamline operations.
- We need to remove unnecessary steps and hindrances to getting things done.
- Our companies have synergy.
- Our companies can accomplish more working together than working apart.
- Let me unpack that statement.
- Let me simplify that statement.
- We have a wellness program.
- We have a program to help employees remain healthy.
- This is a win-win situation.
- This situation is good for both of us.
- I don't have bandwidth to consider that.
- I am too preoccupied with other things right now to think about that.
- Our product is the best of breed.
- Our product is superior to other products.
- We are following best practices.
- We are doing things that have worked well elsewhere.
- We are competing against brick-and-mortar outlets.
- We are competing against retail stores.
- Let's circle back in five hours to discuss what we've learned.
- Let's meet in five hours to discuss what we've learned.
- Our sales team is client-centric and customer-centric.
- Our sales team concentrates on what clients and customers want.
- Let's close the loop on this.
- Let's share what we've learned and make a decision we both agree upon.
- We are in co-opetition with them.
- Sometimes we work with them but sometimes against them.
- This is a Come-to-Jesus moment.
- We need you to decide to wholeheartedly support this.
- We are doing content marketing.
- We are providing free information to potential customers in the hope it will influence them to buy from us.
- What is your core competency?
- Of all everything you do, what do you best?
- Let's take a deep dive into that data.
- Let's examine that data in more detail.
- We are downsizing.
- We are reducing the number of people we employ.
- To survive here, you must drink the Kool-Aid.
- To survive here, you must not just obey the managers but believe in their superior wisdom.
- This is an early-stage effort.
- We've only just started and have a long way to go.
- We must eat our own dog food.
- We must use and test our products ourselves.
- This product enables users to do "x".
- This product does "x."
- This is an enterprise-wide effort.
- Everybody in this company will be part of this.
- We have product fulfilment issues.
- Customers aren't getting the products they ordered.
- How granular is your report?
- What level of detail does your report contain?
- Making a decision here is like herding cats.
- It's difficult to get people here to agree on something.
- We need to go for the low hanging fruit.
- We need to sell to customers who are ready to buy.
- We need more mindshare.
- We need people to think about us more often.
- Does your project have management visibility?
- Does management know about your project or spend time thinking about it?
- We are outsourcing that function.
- We are hiring another company to do that for us.
- Customer service is part of our DNA.
- Because we'd done so much of it, customer service comes naturally.
- Let's peel back the onion.
- Let's consider what's really important.
- This department is a profit center.
- This department must make more money than it spends.
- What is the Return on Investment?
- How long will it take to pay for this and how much money will it make and when?
- What is our reverse fulfilment strategy?
- What happens when customers return products they've purchased.
- We are rightshoring that effort.
- We are doing that at the location that's the most convenient and profitable.
- Product "a" has seamless integration with product "b".
- Product "a" works so well with product "b" that they appear to be the same product.
- This product launch has a short runway.
- We need to get this product out more quickly than usual.
- We need to break down organizational silos.
- We need the people to work towards a common goal rather than their organizational goals.
- We'll have a tee-off meeting in two weeks.
- We will meet in two weeks to start the project.
- Let's touch base in two weeks.
- Let's talk about this briefly in two weeks.
- Our service people should be upselling more customers.
- Our service people should ask customers if they need additional products.
Dec 21, 2015