I had an interview a few weeks ago for a sales role. I suspect being an engineer my answers along the lines of “don’t you just phone them?” didn’t quite have the same gravitas as “I’d reach out to the consumers”.
Our office has a list of the that get ticked off over the course of the day. Use and abuse at your leisure:
??? piece (context, “we’re doing a lot of work on the data migration piece”)
Bayonet the dead
Best in breed
Break through the clutter
Calibrate expectations
Class leading
Close the loop
Customer centric
Disruptive innovation
Elevator pitch
Fulfilment issues
Have a V2V
Herding cats
High order thinking
It is what it is
Just doing my job
Let’s not try and boil the ocean
Leverage
Low hanging fruit
Mission critical
Money maker
Par for the course
Paradigm shift
Quick and dirty
Sometimes you have to shoot the puppy
Synergy
Thought leadership
Value add
Did that in a speaking slot at a conference in Vegas a couple of years ago. Told colleagues I’d be doing so beforehand. Poor things were at the back of the hall in tears by the end!
Alas call reached its natural conclusion (I wasn’t listening) before I had a chance to fully British it up.
I did have a thought at what the chaps on the other side might have thought when trying to decipher our accents: west indian, yorkshire, laaandaan and me (moderately RP).
“We are a class leading, customer centric provider who offer best in breed solutions. We don’t go after the low hanging fruit or offer quick and dirty solutions, the way we work is a paradigm shift from the usual migration piece. We can break through the clutter and leverage your fulfillment issues, offering thought leadership on your mission critical systems. But, before I give you my elevator pitch, lets have a further V2V and I can explain our value add.”
I heard ‘It’s like trying to heard geckos’ the other day.
A nice variation if nothing else.
‘Re-inventing’ seems to be à la mode right now. Is it just me or is it a self-contained paradox? You either invent something (i.e. create something new) or adapt something. How can you re-invent something?