Tech-Industry ‘Lingo’
‘The Only Thing More Dangerous Than Ignorance is Arrogance’
Albert Einstein
How industry ‘Lingo’ can ruin a budding relationship
We work in a very competitive market, roughly speaking when talking with a potential new customer we have maybe a 5-minute window to make, not just a good impression, but also an impression of trust.
Trust is so important for the ongoing relationship between a customer and supplier, with trust in place everyone wins, but it must be earned, and can easily disappear – even before it has had a chance to build. Without even realising, people can lose trust, and one of the easiest ways to kill trust is by alienating someone. Overusing industry lingo is one of the easiest ways to alienate your customers.
We are not the only industry to do it, but industry lingo carries a sense of arrogance, and if used incorrectly can say to a customer:
‘I don’t care if you don’t know this term, you should know it’.
And more often than not, when lingo is not understood people will not question it. When people are in a position of feeling alienated by not understanding industry terms, some will question it straight away and that’s great, but most will either not find the right time to raise the question, or not want to feel foolish by showcasing to the room that they didn’t understand that phase.
This happens all the time and might keep happening, as more cost-effective ways to create video are introduced we are talking to a much wider pool of people, with different skill-sets, from companies that maybe wouldn’t have been a customer 5 years ago. What lingo does to that first meeting can be damaging, it gets in the way of a decent conversation, it can break up the natural flow of a meeting and leave the person you were trying to impress more confused than they were when you first met. Honestly, there is no point having a meeting if not everyone in the room gets something useful from it.
Manufacturers often unwillingly over-use industry lingo, in emails, face-to-face meetings, on websites, publications, on social media, etc. This has to be expected though, and is not from a position of arrogance, they live and breathe a product and the technologies that surround it, so it makes sense that industry terms are unfamiliar to others.
THE TYRELL TAKE
That’s where we come in, it’s our job as the Sales and Pre-Sales teams within Tyrell to unlock all the confusing Industry Lingo/Jargon that clouds requirements, it’s important we do this in a way that makes sense to all parties and gets to the heart of your requirements.
Want to cut through the Jargon and have a human conversation about your requirements? Want to understand the solution that is being pitched in a clear and accurate manner? Come and talk to Tyrell.
