The Language of Business – do you know it?
- Posted by Ephraim Cohen on November 6th, 2008 filed in Corporate Communications, Messaging, Positioning
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I just published an article for the PRSA’s PR Strategist magazine (no link yet) on rules to follow for C-level PR counsel and programming. A central part of my recommended approach is making sure your are talking the language of business. This comes in two parts. First, are you using effective business language and not PR language. Second, are you using the company’s business language.
Last week’s BusinessWeek had a column by Frank Lunch on what terms executives should use when communicating. I think the same column should be read by PR executives to understand what language works with executives. A few choice quotes from the article lay out some good general rules for effective language
Focusing on "impact" also makes a listener pay attention. This one word causes people to assume they will see a measurable difference.
Another word with increasing resonance is "reliability." Reliability is now even more important among customers than price.
The last two words to make a part of your business vocabulary are "mission" and "commitment." …Commitment means a speaker is willing to put his or her credibility on the line to achieve a successful outcome.
Mission, meanwhile, should not be confused with "mission statements,"…a mission explains in more compassionate terminology what you do, why you do it, and above all, why you care.
Beyond this, PR counsel needs to be communicated in technical business terms as opposed to PR terms. For example, instead of reputation impact it might be about impacting audience opinion.
Second, and of particular importance to agencies, is the need to understand a particular company’s culture and language. A creative company may communicate using qualitative language while a financial firm may be more interested in hearing quantitative language.
I’ll post the full article from the PR Strategist shortly.
