By Rachel Fausnaught
There are over 470,000 entries in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, with scores added every year. Yet in business, we tend to overuse the comfortable phrases we’ve become accustomed to, thinking we sound smart.
News flash: We don’t actually sound smart.
I’m guilty of it. You’re guilty of it. Your clients are guilty of it. Using these clichés must stop now. Communication (read: good communication) is critical for your business to succeed. It helps you establish credibility among clients and even employees.
I reached out to business professionals across the United States for their number one buzzword pet peeve, and better ways to communicate it. You’ll want to save this list.
I’ll get back to you
“For me, the most frustratingly overused term in our organization is ‘I’ll get back to you.’ As an international team working across multiple time zones, this puts a giant question mark over the schedule of the task at hand. A much better way of handling these situations is to tackle them head on. Set yourself a date and time to review the query, give yourself a little leeway to actually react, and reply and commit to it in your response. This keeps everyone accountable for their own tasks and allows people to remain in sync with their duties!”
—Jon Hayes, marketer at Pixel Privacy
I hope you’re doing well
“My number one overused business cliche that needs to go away is ‘I hope you’re doing well.’ Why? It’s not sincere. If you’re prospecting, either go straight to the point, or I usually compliment a person’s work—either their product or an article they have written, depending on how I found them.
“If you are writing to somebody you already know, there are millions of other ways to word this, including,
- How’s it going at X company?
- Hope your last quarter turned out well.
- Just wanted to follow up quickly since we last spoke.
- Loved your last article on X topic.
“And countless others, depending on the relationship you’ve already established with them.”
—Hung Nguyen, Marketing & Customer Satisfaction Manager, Smallpdf
Just a friendly reminder
The one phrase that really bugs me is when people say, ‘Just a friendly reminder.’ It can really come off as condescending since it is just a non-confrontational way to ask for something that’s late. Everyone secretly hates ‘friendly reminder’ emails. A better way to communicate this would be to send a direct reminder, not an overly friendly one with a soft undertone.
—Brian Meiggs, Founder, My Millennial Guide
Create synergy
“The phrase that we need to ‘create synergy’ is so overused! You can’t say it and expect it to happen. It’s like saying we should all get along and work hard for each other. The reality is most teams are looking out for their own interests.”
—Corey Vandenberg, Mortgage Consultant, Platinum Home Mortgage
Be disruptive
“Disruptive: It’s so ubiquitous in marketing speak that no one cares about what’s genuinely disruptive! It’s marketing’s ‘boy who cried wolf.’ By definition, disruptive invokes a radical change—normally beyond an industry and affecting everyday life for people outside the industry. The third iteration of your marketing software barely ‘disrupts’ your own market, let alone the average person on the street. If you say everything is special, no one will care when you might finally have something worth talking about.