When big words aren’t clever
You’ve done it. I know you have. I have too. At certain times, you’ve given up on reading something because it was either badly written, too difficult to understand or just very heavy going.
Having said that, have you ever read some information – something with a bit of juicy gossip in it perhaps – that was badly written, but at the same time so compelling and interesting that you read the whole lot, regardless of the terrible sentence construction, misspellings and punctuation crimes? I know I have.
I think it was the much-quoted David Ogilvy who said that content is more important than form. He was right.
It’s something we all need to bear in mind when we’re communicating with the world about our businesses. It doesn’t matter how well we express our message; if it’s the wrong message in the first place, then it isn’t going to work.
It does help an awful lot if you have worked out who your message is aimed at, and what is going to resonate with them. (If you’re still at the stage where you’re not certain about that, then for starters, check out some of Claire’s articles on this blog – there’s one about working out who your ideal clients are and another on USPs and what makes your business unique. If you fancy some multi-sensory inspiration, go and see one of her speaking gigs – I reckon you’ll probably enjoy the rest of the event as well.)
Now of course, I’m not suggesting that all you need to do is work out who you’re talking to and then not bother too much about the way you express yourself. Finding the right words is hugely important.
And that’s where a lot of business owners start to go wrong.
You can see why it happens. I’ve got a theory about it. You see, writing is something we largely learned in school. And when we were in school, it was the first time our writing was assessed by other people: our teachers. I can think of two problems with that.
First, our teacher was effectively a captive audience. They were duty bound to read our work, regardless of how good or bad it was. We didn’t have to try hard to think of an attention grabbing headline or hold their interest in those all-important first few sentences. It didn’t matter: they had to go through the lot.
The second thing is, we got rewarded for knowing big words. I can remember on several occasions in middle school having to do an assessment. You were asked to go up to the teacher’s desk and read out to them the words on a printed list. As you went down the list, the words got longer and harder to pronounce. Obviously, the more big words you knew, the cleverer you were. (I used to do well in this, although I don’t think it ever really made up for being rubbish at football.)
With all this in mind, it’s easy to see how you can get tempted to bring out some big words when you start writing on behalf of your business. After all, you want to look intelligent and professional, don’t you?
Well, yes. But you also want your words to create images in the minds of your readers. You want them to start imagining what it’s like to work with you, and how much better things will be when they gain the benefits of your product or service. The more waffle you use, the more you reduce the chances of this happening.
For example, if I told you I had recently encountered an unwelcome situation concerning the issue of the growth of undesirable multicellular organisms in the land adjacent to my home reserved for botanical cultivation, and was therefore going to undertake a journey to the most geographically proximate retail outlet dealing in household utensils in order to identify, assess and procure a manually operated topsoil excavation solution, you might be slightly mentally exhausted. Lots of people certainly would be.
On the other hand, if I told you I had a problem with weeds in the garden and was just going to the local DIY store to buy a trowel, you’d understand me just as well – and far more quickly. What’s more, the image of me having that problem and doing that thing would be there in your mind right away, with no real effort required.
And if I did tell you that, in such a straightforward, plain speaking way, would you infer that I was somehow lacking in intelligence, or that I didn’t know what I was doing? Of course not.
Which is why I believe in calling a trowel a trowel – and a spade a spade for that matter.
Nevertheless, it’s amazing how many business websites, emails, LinkedIn profiles and the like get filled up with words and phrases that make it look as if the writer has been on Thesaurus.com in order to find the longest possible word for everything they want to say. (Well, that’s how I got ideas for the trowel thing anyway.)
And I haven’t even mentioned the worn-out clichés – those buzzwords that get trotted out so often, they’ve pretty much lost their meaning. I won’t even start on those. That’s a whole other blog article.
Instead, I’ll leave you with an example of how it’s the little words that can really make a big difference to how well you succeed in getting people interested.
Earlier I mentioned how From Employee to Business Owner’s founder, Claire McTernan, can be found speaking at various business events (yes, Claire’s given me this chance to write a blog article, so I’ve got to give her some promotion in return!). Many of these events are meetings of the national organisation 4Networking. (If you’ve not been to a 4N event yet, check out their website and book in to visit one of your local groups.)
One fact about 4N is that they have over 50,000 members – mainly small business owners.
So let’s imagine we’re going to communicate that fact, and we need to come up with a headline or email subject line (they’re essentially the same thing – something designed to grab attention).
We could go for a standard news headline:
4Networking now has 50,000+ members
I’m sure a certain percentage of people might click or scroll down to read that, however many that might be.
But how could we perhaps make it more interesting? What about:
How 4Networking grew to have 50,000+ members
There’s more of a story there. That could be more intriguing.
But so far these headlines are all about 4Networking. It’s an interesting organisation, but let’s face it, if we’re trying to attract small business owners, then ultimately they’re more interested in themselves. How can we make it about them?
I’m thinking:
Why 50,000 small business owners have joined 4Networking
It would be interesting to split test those to see which is most effective. I can’t say for sure, but I think the latter would have a good chance of getting the most attention, because small business owners will want to find out what it is they could be missing out on.
As you can see, it’s those little words like “how” and “why” that, used in the right places, have more potential to intrigue and provoke than all the waffle and clichés with which you could fill a page.
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Phil Smith is the founder of SmithScribe. As an independent copywriter, he works with businesses in the UK and continental Europe to help them get their messages across in clear, concise English. He also gives talks on copywriting and business communication. He’s also very happy to connect on LinkedIn: join him at http://www.linkedin.com/in/smithscribe. You can also follow Phil on Twitter @SmithScribe.