Transformational Vocabulary to Change Your Business

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about Transformational Vocabulary to Change Your Life and now I’m going to write one on Transformational Vocabulary to Change Your Business

You see, the language we use determines our results as it affects the way we approach our actions.

Is it really possible to change your entire life with just a few simple changes to your everyday vocabulary?

During my studies of business, I have constantly challenged myself to adapt the use of vocabulary to a language pattern that changes my approach to business activities. This of course helps me to achieve my bigger desires.

#1 – Customer ==> Client

What might seem like a word that means the same thing actually is a word that means something totally different.

The difference is that customer is transactional and client is relational.

For example, Walmart, Asda or Tesco have customers as their relationship with the people who purchase from them are at a transactional level. The customer simply parts with their cash in exchange for the commodities that these companies sell. Of course, you might argue that nowadays, these companies have ventured into selling insurance and other suchlike products which could make the exchange of value more relational in nature.

In contrast to this, services like accountants, lawyers and doctors are ones that are more relational in nature. Accountants, lawyers and doctors have a fiduciary responsibility for their clients as they’re entrusted to act in the best interests of their client.

Incidentally here are a few dictionary definitions lifted directly from the Oxford dictionary that may assist your understanding:

#2 – Cost Plus Markup ==> Lifetime Value

This is essentially the difference between how someone in the accounting department would think of a business transaction against how someone in the marketing department would.

The person with a financial viewpoint will think of a transaction in terms of: Revenue – Fixed Costs – Variable Costs = Gross Profit

The person with a marketer mindset will think of a transaction in terms of cost per acquisition (CPA) and lifetime value (LTV) of the client which will then enable them to understand their return on investment (ROI) for the campaign.

The marketer mindset is often willing to take the short-term “hit” on their profit margins if they know that there is likely to be good potential for an increased lifetime value. This is why companies like Hewlett Packard and Epson are willing to sell their printers at such a ridiculously low price. They know that customers will need to buy cartridges for their printers for the lifetime of their printers and cartridges really do have significant profit margins on them.

The financial viewpoint takes a short term outlook and the marketer viewpoint takes a longer term outlook. The moment a company moves from a private company to a public company is often the point where a business takes a financial viewpoint instead of a marketing viewpoint. This is because the public company is accountable to shareholders and need to produce results each quarter so City Analysts are confident about the company’s stock and therefore appears to be a good investment for investment funds to plough their capital into.

#3 – Product ==> Promise

It’s worth remembering that when you’re selling any product/service, you’re not really selling the product/service itself. Your customer/client isn’t buying the product/service – they’re buying the outcome or the ‘promise’ that the product/service provides.

When someone buys a car, they’re not really buying it because it is a car but because they need to get around from A to B (obvious functional/logical reasons) and perhaps they want to arrive in style and comfort with the sound of a powerful engine (emotional reasons).

#4 – Sell ==> Offer

Not many people have the mindset where they want to be sold to, however everyone likes to receive an offer of sorts, even if they then subsequently turn down the offer. Many people switch off when they realise that they’re engaged in a potential sales scenario. Ever received a sales call at home and did whatever you could to get rid of them as quickly as possible?

Rather than positioning your promotional materials as sales pages, change your prospect’s outlook on them by positioning them as offers.

People don’t like to be sold to but they love to buy!

#5 – Features ==> Benefits

OK, this one really is sales training 101, but it’s so important.

People buy benefits not features.

People don’t buy a laptop because it has a 2.2 Ghz quad-core Intel i7 Processor, 750GB HDD, 4GB RAM and a 15.4″ LED backlit screen.

I hear some of you right now saying, “I do.”

People buy these features because of the benefits that they deliver.

For example:

Sometimes the user may understand the benefits so implicitly that it seems as though they’re buying the features but they really are buying the benefits that the product/service offers once the features have been translated into their benefits.

As I once heard from Dan Kennedy:

People don’t buy the drill, they buy the hole.