Lost in Translation – Business Jargon Interpretation

Sometimes you will write things that may sound great and reasonable to you, but to the reader, those same statements will mean something totally different. Your text will be lost in translation. That’s why you should be vigilant to double meanings and other connotations of your business language. Now is your time to master the art of business jargon interpretation.

To interpret business jargon or language you have to be wary of what you actually are writing. Avoiding misconceptions are usually accomplished by keeping your writing concise, to the point and highly factual. This will also mean that you should avoid any statements which are absolute or exaggerated. You may not that “…our product is 93 per cent complete…” but the investor will see the truth maybe that the remaining 7 per cent will take four times as long to finish with a cost of double as the first 93 percent. You may write that “…my business has no competition…” but to the investor this will spell out as other business (not necessarily in your industry) will have the same business somewhere.

Business plan writing where your business language can be misinterpreted are usually seen in absolute or exaggerated statements of truth. “We have a proven business model” may tell the investor that you’ve had a few customers and none have complained. You may then say: “Our management team have a great deal of industry experience…” when all they did to deserve the title was that they bought the product and used it once. “We conservatively estimate…” will tell the stakeholder reading your business plan that you simply took a random “educated guess” number and multiplied it by 6. “Our investors are projected to make a return of three times their investment…” may tell the investor that your business will return them their money in five years time AND only if everything goes absolutely to plan. “If we capture 20 percent o the market then…” may have the investors interpreting the statement as saying “… there are ten other competitors with the same idea, who are running the same campaign…” It is paramount to back up and support any statements you make in your business plan with strong facts and evidence.