Back when I was working in the Sales Consulting world, I started saying, “There exists a contradiction in,” instead of, “There is” – because I heard someone else say it.

A classic foible of those fresh out of business school.

Perhaps that’s why we got a laugh out of this article about jargon in business – and in our everyday lives.

Swim lanes, anyone?

Sure, especially when you look at the cute cartoons that accompany these phrases, jargon can make you feel like you’re using a great analogy and heck, when your whole team is using jargon all the time, it’s tempting to do it, too.

There are times when you need to use industry jargon and acronyms to be credible. But you’ll be more effective if you cut the jargon and abstractions use concrete language, instead. We won’t take you through our entire jargon-elimination process in a lone blog post, but I won’t leave you hanging.

Start here:

Don’t dumb it down, just give a concrete example. Even (or especially) when you are using an acronym, you need to pair it with a concrete example. Or two.

What is an example of leveraging your assets?

What does it look like to have your customer trust you?

We are often tasked with communicating something that is new to our audience. Make it easy for them to understand, and it will be easier to get the outcome you want. Bonus points if you can describe that example using a conversational tone like you would at a backyard BBQ.

Now, what’s your go-to catch phrase? Your best jargon – or the craziest business jargon you’ve ever heard? Tell us in the comments, below!