Archives for category: Language

Helping This German and That German

June 15, 2015 //

I have a friend – it’s true I tell you – who’s from Germany. His German is flawless, as you might expect, and his English is better than fluent. The one area he struggles with is This and That.

Note that I’m not talking about my favourite shop of the year in 2013, which luxuriates in the same name.

You see, there’s one German word – dieser/diese/dieses depending on the gender of the noun – to signify this and that, so they’ve never had to make the distinction, which is a problem where they communicate in those languages that do make the distinction.

The way I explain it is that it’s a question of distance, geographically and temporally. We use ‘this’ if it’s near to us, we use ‘that’ when it’s far, relatively speaking.

A couple of examples will suffice:

Customer: I want that apple please [pointing], the one there.

Grocer: What, this one here [picking it up]?

Customer: Yes please.

or…

That was good [past tense, further away], but this is better [present tense, near].

Germans have no issue with here and there, because they have different words, hier and da. Drawing a parallel between how they should use this and that, with how they already use here and there, helps them out considerably. Next time you hear a German making this mistake, it could be your good deed for the day to put them right :-).

Tags German, language, That, This

Categories Communication, Language

Content Equals Writing

June 10, 2015 //

The word content is everywhere. It’s the buzz word for marketing, especially digital marketing, sales and the online world. You’re nowhere and no-one without content.

Content hasn’t really changed its meaning from the original. It’s still the stuff inside that’s important.

My 2 brothers and I are in 3 completely different industries. I’m in sales and marketing consulting, brother 1 is in natural history broadcasting and publishing, brother 2 is in English language teaching literature.We all create content for a living, which is perhaps what you might expect of 3 siblings with conjoined DNA.

We’re all involved in content, but we wouldn’t call it that. We would call ourselves writers (among other things, polite and otherwise).

Don’t get hung up on the word content. It’s not a new piece of jargon to be afraid of. It’s still about writing engaging stories that your audience can identify with and derive something from.

Tags Content, Writer, Writing

Categories Communication, Customers, Language, Marketing, Sales

The Biggest Lie

May 27, 2015 //

Have you noticed how much in business and pleasure is governed by disingenuous and disrespectful language?

Life is competitive, otherwise it would be pretty dull, but these days we get subjected to so much of this:

– Hype

– ‘Trash talking’

– Misinformation

– Hearsay

– Mind games

The biggest lie is that you only get honesty, sincerity and respect the day after a political election, competition, contest or the death or retirement of an adversary. A day or two after that, the gloves are back on and it’s business as usual.

How much differently and enjoyably would we view the world we work and live in if the way everyone dealt with other people, teams and companies was open and respectful? Politically speaking (with a small ‘p’), if everyone who had a gun shot themselves it would be problem solved, to paraphrase a certain George Harrison…

Tags Honesty, Respect, Truth

Categories Communication, Customers, Language

Better to be Active than Passive

April 20, 2015 //

You could argue that the subject of this post could be a motto for life, not just for business writing. After all, it’s better to effect things than be affected by them. It gives you more control over your destiny, more flexibility in your choices.

In business writing, it’s also better to be active than passive, especially if you are writing ‘persuasive’ documents like business cases or sales proposals. As an example, look at the previous paragraph. The active ‘voice’ is more powerful at effecting something, whereas the passive voice governs being affected by something.

Try and avoid phrases like ‘the ROI calculation can be found below.’ It sounds stuffy and conservative, but also weak and, well, passive. You’re writing this document, you’re in charge of it, so take control. Better to say ‘The ROI calculation below shows the value of our service to your business.’

The active voice is to do with action, and when it comes to your business writing, it’s action you want your reader to take, otherwise why take the time to write at all?

Tags Active, Passive, Voice, Writing

Categories Communication, Customers, Language, Marketing, Sales

Consistency, Consistency, Consistency

March 6, 2015 //

The first law of retail in the pre-Internet era – so it’s still valid for over two-thirds of global retail trade – is location, location, location.

The first law of communication, leadership and business relationships, is, to this writer’s mind, consistency. If you are consistent in your dealings with people, then it’s easier for them to be aligned with you in terms of expectations. They know what they’re getting from you and this helps them save time and money in the long run. Your consistency makes them more productive.

If you’re inconsistent, they don’t know where they stand, they can’t plan properly and they can’t make progress smoothly. No-one finds the maverick or the loose cannon that easy to work with when there’s so much at stake.

You should be predictable and constant for all the right reasons with the people that are important to you. They will appreciate you for it and come back for more.

Tags Consistency, Consistent, Inconsistency, Inconsistent

Categories Communication, Customers, Language, Marketing, Sales

It’s All in the Name

February 13, 2015 //

This post gives me the chance to talk about two previous post topics, namely names and Winston Churchill.

I have always found names deeply significant. I also also always loved the play on words, where you can convey two messages in one. They seem to be more memorable that way, and you’ve probably noticed that quite a few of my blog posts are titled with plays on words.

One of my favourite plays on words was an industrial society I helped resurrect when I was involved with the student union at my alma mater, which was both named after and founded by the gentleman in paragraph one. Ironically, the college was founded with the express objective of concentrating in the sciences, and I was studying the minority that was an arts subject, but that’s another story.

The idea behind this industrial society was that we got speakers in from different industries and professions to give students a glimpse of what life might be like outside the walls of academia, unless of course the students were set on maintaining the cocooned lifestyle as advanced students or even lecturers and professors.

Our society was called the Chartwell Society. You see, Chartwell was the name of the Churchill family home, so the link with the college was clear. Also, however, by attending our society events you might be able to chart well your career after college.

A name can carry you a long way. A carefully crafted name can operate on more than one level and work twice as hard for you, and be twice as memorable.

Tags Name, Naming

Categories Communication, Language

Religiously and Vicariously

February 6, 2015 //

There is one type of thing in business where it’s good to see the words ‘religiously’ and ‘vicariously’ in the same sentence.

Normally they might be words of questionable credibility. After all, ‘religiousness’ can sometimes be confused with over zealousness, fanaticism even. Then there’s the notion of living through someone else, like you sometimes hear being levelled at a parent who ‘lives vicariously through her daughter’s sporting achievements’, for example.

When it comes to marketing, however, especially areas of digital marketing like email marketing and web marketing, where conversions via landing pages or listing pages are what counts, there’s an excuse for both the religious and the vicarious. And that excuse is testing.

If you’re lucky enough to be in a volume business where you can see immediately the effects of a change in the customer journey, then you can test practically everything. The subject lines, lengths, action buttons and calls to action of your emails. The headings, processes and wording on your landing pages, product pages, listing pages and detail pages.

All your testing should be through the eyes of your customers, living the awareness-interest-decision-action journey through them, hence the vicarious part.

This is where ‘a/b’ testing comes into its own, where you can test 2 different versions of something like a heading, leave everything the same and see what the response or conversion is like. You can a/b test relentlessly on every element of your communication until you’re happy it’s as good as it can be, by which time you’re probably onto your next communication.

If you’re not in a volume business, then your results can be slower to come around and are not always statistically significant. Your testing has to be more anecdotal, more qualitative. But it can still be regular and rigorous.

Testing is like voting in corrupt countries. Test early and test often. Your business will thank you for it.

Tags Test, testing

Categories Communication, Customers, Language, Marketing, Sales

When your Theme Tries Too Hard

February 4, 2015 //

In a previous post I talked about the Leitmotiv, the guiding theme or concept that can help be the glue for the persuasive story you’re trying to tell.

The one thing you need to guard against with the Leitmotiv is excess. When your theme tries too hard, or is too clever for its own good, it detracts from your message rather than reinforcing it, and you don’t want that.

A good way to tell if you’re stretching things too much is if your reader has to work too hard to see the link between your theme and your message. If the link is lost, your objective is lost too. I saw this recently with some excellent copywriting done on a brochure. The Leitmotiv was a good one, it was a musical one, using the idea of a conductor who coordinates all the different elements of an orchestra into something beautiful.

The tone was good, but the language was too musical, too specialist, and so the link was lost. Toning down the language – if you pardon the pun – reestablished the link and made it more powerful.

As with many things, it was about getting the balance right, the fit right. Make sure your Leitmotif gets it right too.

Tags Writing

Categories Communication, Customers, Language, Marketing

The Wondrous Leitmotif

February 2, 2015 //

Rather like French, some very cool German phrases – for which we don’t always have a great translation, hence the term idiomatic – have percolated into and enriched the English language.

Amongst my favourites are Zeitgeist – spirit of the age, and the mighty Weltanschauung – ‘world view’.

When it comes to business writing, something that can really hold your story together is the Leitmotif, the theme that moves through it. A guiding theme can keep your reader focused on what you’re writing about and help them imagine what you’re trying to convey. For example, you could use the Leitmotif of a journey and use lots of journey-related language – steps, destination, travel, milestones – as the vehicle, pun intended, for your story.

Pretty much any Leitmotif will do – a picture, harmony, the sky, planets, the list is endless – as long as it helps you tell your story and guides your reader to where you want to take them.

Tags Writing

Categories Communication, Customers, Language, Marketing

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