Geek4Eva

Whether it is a manager or a team member everyone has a certain lingo that they commonly use in their regular conversation; either with their colleagues, in meetings or while talking to their managers. I haven’t really made a conscious effort of noticing people’s lingo but now after reading this it makes me think – Yes, I think I have worked with people who use some commonly used phrases in their day-to-day conversation.

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Even the most boring office space has sources of amusement. You just need to know what to look for. One such source can be ‘office lingo’. These are phrases that bosses insist on overusing. As stupid and irritating as they are, they can lighten up your day as well.
According to HR expert Abhishek Bohra, there are simpler ways of saying the same things. “But bosses prefer to sound authoritative without realising that they simply sound corny. The only thing you can do is use your politest fake smile and bear with it,” he says.

We decode the 12 most common ones for you:

Give it your 110 per cent

Meaning: Make an extra effort towards work.

Think out of the box

Meaning: Get more creative and innovative.

Do you have the bandwidth for…?

Meaning: Can you fit more into your schedule?

I have you in my radar

Meaning: I’m tracking what you are doing.

Have 360 degree thinking

Meaning: Make sure you take all contingencies into account.

Don’t let the grass grow on this one

Meaning: I need this done as soon as possible, preferably yesterday!

Let’s brain storm

Meaning: Let’s put our heads together for better ideas (usually ends up being a useless meeting!).

Take it to XYZ level of granularity

Meaning: Pay attention to the details.

Let’s touch base on XYZ

Meaning: Let’s discuss something. This usually means you are in trouble.

Let’s knife-and-fork it

Meaning: A nice way of saying your work was crude and needs refinement.

You need to push the envelope

Meaning: Give your work more, more and more.

I can see where you are coming from

Meaning: I get your point. The only reason this is annoying is that it’s always followed by a ‘but’!

Office speak can be annoying when it’s directed at you, but it also makes for great dinner table conversation. Pick your favourite phrases and start a conversation about them the next time you have a bunch of friends over. They will come up with even better ones of their own!

Here is another one: Decoding Office Lingo

So what’s the lingo like in your office? And who are the people who generally do that? Is it your mate, manager or a colleague? It would be interesting to know.

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1. Write.
2. Write more.
3. Write even more.
4. Write even more than that.
5. Write when you don’t want to.
6. Write when you do.
7. Write when you have something to say.
8. Write when you don’t.
9. Write every day.
10. Keep writing.

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Selecting correct words in your conversations is very important. As they say – ‘words once spoken, cannot be taken back’.

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But on a lighter side – the good thing about your personal blog is that you can go back and make changes

Ali Hale in her post – Are Vampire Words Sucking the Life Out of Your Writing? has presented a short list of wishy-washy list of words which one should try and exclude from their post and mainly from the headlines of a blog post:

* Quite
* Fairly
* Sometimes
* Often
* May

These are mostly those adjectives and adverbs that make the readers either switch-off or loose interest. So as suggested by her go ahead and start making changes to your blog

Another great post from ‘Copyblogger‘ by Nathan Hangen on ‘How to Get Past No‘ and trigger the buying response from potential customer.

What I learned was how to identify and overcome objections, which in turn taught me that sometimes no doesn’t really mean no. Many times, a customer simply wants you to help them make a decision by answering their questions before they pull out the credit card.

Their first instinct says no, but what they really want is for you to convince them to say yes.

Maybe their budget is tight and they just want to be cautious. Maybe they don’t understand your product and want you to explain it to them.

There are a hundred different reasons why people might initially say no to you. Your job is not to shrug and walk away, but to get to the truth behind the no and find out how you can really meet their needs.

Online, it’s your copy that must do the job of getting past no by knocking down every objection.

Here are some simple tips for getting past no online:

* Break the ice with a cheaper version of your product as a lower-risk purchase. They’ll get to know a little bit more about you and will feel better about buying more in the future. Even making a tiny purchase, say a $7 special report, makes it much more likely for that customer to buy from you again.
* If your product is expensive, offer a payment plan. $39.99/month for three months looks much cheaper than $119.97. Any good shopping cart program can handle this for you.
* On your landing page, go ahead and confront the most prevalent objections head on. Don’t be afraid to mention them . . . your customer has been thinking about them from the moment they clicked on your link.
…

So if you are planning to or already have an online business then this should serve as some very useful guidelines.

Just stumbled upon this great post on ‘The Single Most Important Thing Your Headline Must Do’ by James Chartrand.

James has used five (5) example headlines and quite correctly guessed it which one would tempt the reader to click through.

Let us try it out…

The deal is: it is Monday morning and you’ve got a busy day ahead; while having some coffee at your desk you are skimming through the headlines on your RSS reader; From the following 5 headlines which one would interest you most?

* “Plane passengers survive shaky landing.”
* “Teen sex dropping. Parents relieved.”
* “How a cashier stopped a train with her bare hands.”
* “Vacation spotlight: Tahiti.”
* “NHL receives award of excellence.”

Leave your answer in the comments below and click here to find out the answer.