65 Irritating Buzzwords and What to Say Instead

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.