If you’ve ever sat through a meeting where someone listed industry acronyms for half an hour, you’ll understand the fatigue and frustration that can come with over-technical communication. It doesn’t necessarily suggest that the person is trying to confuse anyone, they might just be excited to “talk shop” as the term goes, as most specialists are. But again, if you’ve had no reason to be trained in that language, you can feel lost.
It’s not always limited to the meeting space either, and that can be an issue when you’re communicating with clients, pitching services, or updating your own website to try and become more open.
For this, you have to know your audience to see if the approach is reasonable. If you’re a high-end technical service you may expect some knowledge for customers going in as stripping all the technical language out of what you’re saying doesn’t always help you get the point across. At the same time, you don’t want to alienate possible customers because they have no idea what you’re saying. Worst still, you don’t want to seem like you’re throwing out terms as platitudes to sound impressive. We see this with new industries that can struggle to explain what it is they actually do.
How do you get that balance right? Let’s consider that here:
You Don’t Have To Dumb Anything Down, Just Guide People Through
A common misunderstanding is that when you’re talking to a non-technical audience, you have to water everything down until it’s unrecognizable. That’s not true, and most people will notice if you’re being overly simplistic with something that clearly has more depth to it. In fact, people tend to appreciate being included in more complex conversations, as long as those conversations are explained with care.
The real skill here is in how you deliver the information. If you assume a base of knowledge, do you have other material that onboarders can look at to get ahead? Even just a glossary of terms can help. Say you’re offering SEO services and you’re explaining how Google’s algorithm changes impact visibility. You don’t have to avoid technical terms about how the algorithm works, but you might frame it in a way that gives someone the tools to follow along. Measures like this can help.
You Can Use The Right Words, But They Need The Right Context
Technical terms are useful because they’re specific, often necessary, and they help avoid being vague or talking around the topic. But in business-facing communication, they don’t mean much unless you wrap them in the right context. The term itself can stay, it just needs to be supported. Someone might be able to figure out the term even if they don’t know it.
So, for instance, if you’re talking about a content management system, calling it a “CMS” might be fine, but if your audience doesn’t live in that world, they may not know what that means. Instead of removing the term entirely, just guide them through it. You might say, “A CMS, or content management system, is the software we use to manage everything you see on your website,” or other similar approaches. That can help you make the approach accessible while also remaining technical.
Your Voice Still Matters More Than The Vocabulary
We often find that companies get caught up trying to sound a certain way, especially when they work within a more technical or specialized field. New companies can also think if the writing doesn’t sound formal enough or contain all the proper terms, people won’t take them seriously. However, you’ll often find that tone plays a much bigger role in building connection than jargon ever will, and that’s because tone gives you room to actually relate to people.
Think of the way you’d explain something to a colleague who works in a different department. You probably wouldn’t drop every term you know into the explanation, instead you’re much more likely to focus on what matters and use brevity to do so, and also explain how it connects to what they’re doing. That’s pretty good practice for learning how to widen your general net of understanding for people who work with you, because your voice and your approach can matter more than technical terms. You can also avoid certain terms that mean nothing this way, as you’ll focus on the substance more than anything else.
With this advice, you’re sure to better introduce technical language to your business audience and without jargon for doing so!
