Business jargon. Artificially created blobs of words to confuse others, to make them feel like you know better. The opposite of transparency and clarity.
Jargon masks real meaning. Ironically, people use it as a substitute for thinking clearly about their goals and the direction that they want to give others. Go and figure it out.
If I had to share with you the most important lesson I’ve learned over the last years of working in business development and sales, it would be – optimise for simplicity. Explain things like if you were talking to a kid. What you do for a job? Or what your company does? Explain these to to a 10 year old.
Chances are you’ll struggle really hard to explain tough concepts to a young kid. This is primarily because we use are used to big words when explaining big concepts instead of using small words. By using small, single or double syllable words your message will get instantly understood.
But knowing something and doing it are two completely different things.
If you work in technology and stay fairly in the bubble, like myself, as I live and work in London, it’s easy to get excited about it. You breathe it, you live it. So you forget that the rest of the society you coexist may have no idea about what you provide or how technologies you use work.
I’ll tell you a secret – nobody cares about your technology anyway. They may care about WHAT IT DOES. What impact does it make to which area of your prospect’s company. Does it save or make them more money?
If you want to be heard, speak their language.
The higher of company’s hierarchy you’re trying to reach, the less technical you should expect the person to be. Sure, they will understand the concepts of what does what but don’t expect them to be equally excited when hearing Machine Learning-powered, API-enabler, Blockchain and else. These people are the decision makers. They care about the strategy. An ideal email to them should prompt them to answer with a simple “yes” or “no”. To make an action.
The biggest mistake you can make is to write a lengthy email trying to back up why this person should give you their limited attention and time. Ask for one thing and make it a minimal effort and no risk to them (but that’s a subject for a separate article about enterprise sales).
Life is pretty simple, so why overcomplicating it?