Mouthful of Business Jargon --DeWese

In late May of this year, just a month before my 63rd birthday, I realized that I had denied myself the luxury of a mid-life crisis.

A lot of my friends and business associates had some sort of mid-life crisis. Their stories of a fast break from the routine boredom of their ho-hum lives sounded exciting and fun. My opportunities for some mid-life fun just passed me by.

I was always too busy doing a deal, writing a column, making a speech or trying to keep up with my 30 ballplayers—cleaning the men's and women's port-a-potties and making sure we had enough game balls when I owned the Marple Crawdads baseball team.

Other people had the luxury of actually planning a mid-life crisis and some spent years visualizing their catharsis.

Some women had a fling with another man (someone sensitive who "understood"). Some men had clandestine affairs with other women (usually much younger). Some men, accustomed to driving Buicks, bought convertible Corvettes.

Other men dumped their beer and bass boats for a Chris Craft, Dom Perignon champagne and a bevy of bikini babes. These guys also stopped buttoning the top four buttons on their silk designer shirts, began wearing heavy 18-carat bling-bling and growing their hair to ponytail length.

Maybe it's Not too Late

Damn. I missed all that. I decided to invent, and then have, a late-life crisis. After all, I'm the guy who invented sales procrastination.

I thought I would go for the "other woman" fling and try to surreptitiously leave in the middle of the night. This strategy was a failure. My ad in the singles section of the Philadelphia Inquirer only drew three responses, all from inmates in the women's prison. It wouldn't have been so bad, but they sent their photographs.

I decided to sneak out anyway and maybe take a little trip to Las Vegas, where I could have some real fun and leave it all there. Unfortunately Attila the Nun, my wife of 43 years, found my airline e-ticket and hid my luggage and car keys.

I got even. Two days later, I drove home in my brand new Porsche convertible. Another failure. Once again, Attila hid the keys, but this time she called the psych unit at the hospital and had them come get me. I do have a private room and TV privileges.

I've had a lot of time to reflect on my mid-life crisis and it just proves that you cannot be something you are not. I am unqualified to philander or to drive a sports car.

This all, quite naturally, comes around to a sore subject with me—people trying to be someone they are not. Many of them, for example, master business jargon to prove that they're either a great salesperson who is in the know or a "with it" modern manager. Their jargon becomes so misused and excessive as to make me want to stay here in the funny ward.

Let's review some examples.

"Synergy." This word has been in vogue since the early 1950s and yet it remains a part of every meeting, in every conference room, every day. For some avant-garde business linguists this word had degenerated into "simpatico." You might hear them say, "There is a real synergy between our organizations. We are simpatico and I sense we are truly in sync."

It would have been much simpler if someone had said, "Your company, Fortune 500 Humongous Corporation, and my company, Main Street Litho, should work together. I believe there are several ways that we can save you some money."

"At the end of the day." This phrase has been sickeningly popular since the early 1990s. And, alas, it remains in use as it gets passed down to business students still in college. Couldn't we just say, "When the project is finished, our company will be more efficient?"

"Metrics." This is one of the worst. It was created and is used to prove that you possess some exotic business formula that is unavailable to your listeners. You can search high and low through all the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and read through all of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' guidelines and you won't find anything about any metrics.

Don't ever tell a client, "Well, the metrics of your job will require some overtime and you will have to agree to pay for up to 15 percent overs." The buyer is apt to tell you to put your metrics where the sun don't shine.

"Solutions." Everyone nowadays is a solutions provider. We have beat that to death and I'm sure that a lot of print buyers are tired of hearing they have problems that require "solutions." They may have goals. They may have objectives, needs, wishes and wants. But let's lay off the rhetoric about solving their problems.

"On the runway" and "traction." As in, "Your job is on the runway and we're getting some traction." Instead, how about, "Your job will go on-press at 1 o'clock and we expect to get it finished and out of the bindery by noon tomorrow."

"Win-win." This redundant phrase had its origin from among the multitude of negotiating skills consultants and trainers that sprung up after all of the corporate layoffs in the 1970s. It means, let's all say it together, "A successful negotiation is one where each party felt like he/she won." Or another view, "Attila the Nun told me what to do, I did it and she gushed, 'I won, I won!' "

"Value-added," "Paradigm," "Core Competency" and "Customer Centric." Here are four all at once. You have undoubtedly heard business big shots say stuff like, "We must change our traditional paradigm and focus on our core competency in order to become more customer-centric and generate more value-added for us and maybe some more added value for our customers."

What it Really Means

Translated, this means, "We have got to break out of this mess since daddy died, go back to printing black ink on white paper and start returning our customers' phone calls. Then maybe we can stop losing money."

Here are some newer business terms you'd better learn if you want to appear sophisticated and savvy.

"Smell test." "This new proofing system doesn't pass the smell test."

"Critical path." "The critical path for getting the Humongous account is diagrammed on these six flip chart pages. We have used both PERT and GANNT charting simultaneously."

"Low-hanging fruit." "Let's give the new salesman the old accounts where he can pick the low-hanging fruit. It will build his confidence." Instead, you should have said, "Let's give the new guy some existing accounts so he can make some easy sales and learn the ropes ("learning the ropes" was first coined in the 1930s at the U.S. Naval Academy and is not presently in use in American business.)

Oh, there's one more. It's "utilize." Try writing a sentence using the word utilize. Okay, rewrite the sentence and substitute "use." Refreshing, wasn't it?

I've said enough. I just want you to be your charming selves, eliminate business jargon and utilize the core competencies given you by your mamas and daddies.

This means it's time to get out there and sell something!

—Harris DeWese

About the Author

Harris DeWese is the author of Now Get Out There and Sell Something, available through NAPL or PIA/GATF. He is chairman and CEO at Compass Capital Partners and is an author of the annual "Compass Report," the definitive source of information regarding printing industry M&A activity. DeWese has completed more than 100 printing company transactions and is viewed as the preeminent deal maker in the printing industry. He specializes in investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, sales, marketing, planning and management services to printing companies. He can be reached via e-mail at DeWeseH@ComCapLtd.com.