Say What You Mean
When my niece Haley was eight, she made this advertisement and asked her mom (my sister) to post it around town and on the internet. Much to Haley’s chagrin, my sister couldn’t do that for obvious reasons, although it quickly became one of our favorite stories.
My niece’s desire to help people runs in the family and I believe that is the primary responsibility of any marketing consultant—to help. I appreciate her simple, straight forward tag: Remember, if you have problems, they should be fixed. That’s the beauty of kids; they take care of their basic needs without feeling the draw to fancy them up. There’s a lesson in that for all of us adults.
I often read proposals and firm marketing materials that beat around the bush. It’s a common blunder of the AEC profession to think that talking about what they do well is bragging. Instead, people write sentences like this:
We seek to empower individuals from diverse backgrounds to affect change in their community through design. (Take out “seek to” and you’ve got yourself a bold, affirmative statement.)
We will strive to meet your budget and deadline. (No one wants to hire a firm that only strives to meet their minimum qualifications and won’t commit to affirmatively delivering them.)
And as for fancying-up, I recently read a description in a random, online search where a custom home designer described what they do like this: Our work offers a sense of repose through its architectural awareness of the soothing mountains…
I believe what they mean is that the architecture emphasizes the spectacular surroundings by allowing nature in. Sited to take advantage of views and designed with ample windows, a home can feel like a sanctuary. But it’s hard to say because it reads like AI copy or bad use of a thesaurus. No firm’s work can “offer architectural awareness.” That’s just bad grammar.
Trying to be overly poetic or precious about your projects never bodes well. “Just say what you mean!” I tell people when I read this kind of copy.
My advice to all is simple:
Write clearly and concisely. Don’t overuse adjectives and adverbs (see what I did there). Nouns are a beautiful thing—use them and everyone will know what you’re talking about.
Finally, don’t be afraid to tell your clients and potential clients that you’re good at what you do. Speak in the affirmative and they’ll be more inclined to hire you.
As for Haley, she grew up to be an excellent writer and would like you to know she is mortified by those typos in her original copy!
