Plain Talk Vs Obfuscation

By: Larry Galler
Submitted: 2007-01-17 12:17:16
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The small, fast-growing, quite profitable three-person company had reached a plateau. Sales for the past couple years were essentially flat in a rapidly growing industry. The owner was concerned that this might be the beginning of a downward trend and wanted to bolster the sales and marketing effort yet none of the three people had expertise in this area. Worse, the owner hated the sales process.

Through various contacts, the owner met a person who is a VP of Sales and Marketing for a major corporation who wanted, for personal reasons, to relocate to the community where the business is located. In a couple of lengthy conversations they discussed compatibility, opportunities, and business values. The owner then asked the VP for an assessment of the company’s current reality and how, with his help, prospects for significant growth could be realized.

The VP presented an accurate assessment of the business and his thoughts on what he could do to increase sales and profitability. But he used language that is foreign to the business owner. I think the language is known as “CorporateSpeak.” Some examples: “Increase throughput of existing systems to maximize the current investment,” “consolidate & streamline the value chain to maximize total return,” and “…the concept of developing a customer driven product planning portfolio.” Those phrases might be easily defined in a corporate boardroom, but to the owner of a small business, they are suspect. The owner doesn’t know what they mean and, more importantly, doesn’t know if the VP knows what they mean so negotiations have bogged down.

When negotiating or making a presentation, it is best if everyone is speaking the same language, using the same terms, so each is confident they understand the conversation. The goal is to be clearly understood, not to sound impressive. If the VP had considered the owners background, experience, education, and degree of sophistication when choosing his words he would have better defined the terms he used and the decisions based on the presentations would have been made long ago. In simple words don’t obfuscate, speak plain.

Larry Galler coaches and consults with high-performance executives, professionals, and small businesses since 1993. He is the writer of the long-running (every Sunday since November 2001) business column, "Front Lines with Larry Galler" Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.larrygaller.com Questions??? Send an email to larry@larrygaller.com

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