Writing – How to bust the jargon

What’s the most important part in selling and marketing these days?

It’s just what it’s always been, persuading people to buy from you.  But the wham, bang, thank you Ma’am style of selling is now outdated.  The emphasis is shifting to building long term relationships with the client.  Win-win is supposed to be the principle in selling now.

Which means that we have to find out what the customer thinks is a win situation, before we go to sell to them.  Some companies are still finding this difficult despite their best efforts.

Why?  Because they are product centred and company centred.  You can see this approach with many technical firms and products.  Yes you need technical specs and product information that’s factual but then for many buyers of equipment such as computers you need down to earth guidance to help them through.

That’s where companies don’t make that extra step in their market research.  They don’t get down to the level of the customers and ask them what do you need to know to get the best out of our equipment.

I was taught in my writing workshops that a child of ten should be able to understand what I write.  Technical terms are all very well in their place for legal and compliance issues but when we use a long unnecessary word, are we hiding behind it?   Are we saying, “I know all about this and I’m the expert and I don’t want you to know”?

If you have a website where both technical and non-technical people need to go then maybe you need to segment the website to make sure you don’t talk down to the experts but don’t hide the information the non-technical visitors need behind layers of jargon.