Communication: Business Language vs Human Language

If you can explain it to a four-year-old, anyone should be able to understand it.

Do you remember the last time someone walked you through the differences between computer specifications, or handed you a contract, and you enjoyed it? Neither do I. That is business language. It is real, it is sometimes necessary, and in many cases it builds trust. It is also the fastest way I know to lose a customer in an advertisement.

Two languages

Here is the distinction this whole lesson turns on. Business language is the vocabulary of your industry: formal, precise, complicated, and to most people very boring. Human language is the words people actually use. Look at a mortgage document or an insurance policy and then look at the grocery store flyer that came in the same mail. One of them you understood instantly. That is the difference.

Some clients want to be flooded with business language; it makes them feel they are in expert hands. Others have no idea what you are talking about, and if you make someone feel stupid, one of two things happens. Either you lose them, or they agree to something they do not fully understand, which cuts off the referrals later. Neither grows a business.

The book tells of computer technicians who open a store and speak on a level most people do not understand, and so sell very little to the public. I see the same pattern with every trade that moves from working for insiders to selling to homeowners. The translation was the problem, never the skill.

So the rule for anything written for the public is simple: keep it simple. Most people talk in everyday words. Write inside those. It saves time, it saves money, and it minimizes misunderstandings. The great entrepreneurs I have studied are the ones who can move between the two languages, explaining industry terms to people who are venturing into something they do not understand.

Written advertisements

Most of what passes for wisdom about ads is “common sense,” and common sense is nothing more than what a majority of people currently believe to be true. The majority is wrong often enough that you should test it. Base your marketing on what actually works, not on what everyone assumes.

The single most important thing in a written ad is the call to action. When you sell in person it is easy. In writing it can be direct or indirect, but something has to say exactly what you want the reader to do. Far too often I see “Blowout Sale” or “Inventory Sale” with nothing else. That ad has no call to action. Add three words, “come in early Saturday,” and now you have told the customer what to do and when. Build from there, and do not go overboard.

And remember: no single ad is universal. Your ads are part of your image, which means they do more than attract customers. They attract a certain type of customer. If you are getting plenty of business but not the business you want, the ad is working; it is just working for the wrong avatar.

Scripts

A script is more than the sheet a telemarketer reads. The way you and your employees talk to customers is really nothing more than an outlined script with small variations depending on who is delivering it. Which means it can be designed.

In my book I describe a company whose cold-call script was built on the common-sense idea that one great script works for everyone. We turned it into four: one short opening with only two questions, and the answers to those questions decided which of three follow-up scripts the caller used. Everyone was trained to hear the answers. Their turnaround climbed sharply by cold-calling standards, and by challenging what the industry considered common sense the company tripled in size over about eighteen months and raised its rates. People are different. One script cannot speak to all of them, and neither can one ad.

The ring light

When the words say one thing and the tone and body language say another, people tend to believe the tone and the body language. On video, a lot of what the customer picks up is what the person is doing and how they carry themselves. What you meant to say is often not what they receive.

That is why I use the ring light as a warning in our startup course. Anyone can buy a ring light and a phone and put out a message that looks polished. The message has to match the internal brand. If the video promises calm, premium and organized, and the customer then meets a rushed voicemail and a crew that shows up late, the polish did not help you. It set an expectation the business could not keep, and the gap is what the customer remembers. Put out the message your business can actually deliver, in human language, and let the look match the truth.

Read it aloud

Take your homepage, your most recent ad and your standard phone greeting and read each one aloud to someone outside your industry. Circle every word they would not use themselves and rewrite those sentences in human language. Add a plain call to action to anything that does not have one. Then watch your last video, if you have one, with the sound off and ask what it says without the words.

This takes two to four hours and is free. The hard part is letting go of the vocabulary that makes you feel like an expert, and your expertise shows in how clearly you explain.