We all know someone who never stops talking. Every time you see them they are always blabbing about random topics or interests they have.
If you take a moment and listen to what they are saying you will notice that 90% of the time what comes out of their mouth is bullshit.
In the business world, this is called “corporate jargon” but we call it “waffling”.
And it’s something you should avoid, let me tell you why.
What is “waffling” and why avoid it?
Think of it as taking the humanity out of the conversation. When used it blows up a sentence making it lose all meaning.
You’ll see what I mean, take a look at this email I got a couple of days ago.
This was the opening:
“I hope this email finds you well. I’m reaching out because I believe their company can offer valuable solutions to help my company grow and thrive in today’s competitive market.”
Before we dissect this abomination I want you to keep something in mind. When reaching out to someone no matter the reason, we always want to get to the point quickly.
Doesn’t matter if it's email, phone call, text message, carrier pigeon, or smoke signal.
Why?
Because people are busy and don’t care what you have to say if it doesn’t benefit them.
We want to get to the point quickly and we do that by cutting out all the passive language. (Which is another word for waffling)
How To Forever Fix Waffling.
Your goal should be to make the sentence readable so a 10-year-old can understand what you are trying to say.
Let’s see this in action.
We go from this:
“I hope this email finds you well. I’m reaching out because I believe Company Name can offer valuable solutions to help Business Name grow and thrive in today’s competitive market.”
To this:
I found your business when looking for niche in area.
Which one do you think is more human and less alien? People respond positively when they know they are talking to other people.
Let’s take a look at another one:
“I’d love the opportunity to discuss how we can support your business goals. Would you be available for a brief call or meeting next week? Please let me know a time that works for you.”
Waffling is simply adding words or entire sentences that have no business being there.
They don’t add any value and are ugly to look at.
Like the nerdy kid at a high school party, most will ignore him and some won’t even notice he was even there.
Using passive language like this makes your writing timid and fragile, and nobody wants timidness or fragility.
Now let’s make this into something you would send to another person.
From:
“I’d love the opportunity to discuss how we can support your business goals. Would you be available for a brief call or meeting next week? Please let me know a time that works for you.”
To:
“Would it work for you if we had a quick call one of these days to see if I could help?”
By avoiding passive language and cutting out waffling we make sure that every message we send is clear and understandable to the person at the other end.
Making it easy for them to respond which will generate us more money.
P.S. If you want to know how you can eliminate waffling and make every prospect hang to every word you say, you can do so by filling out this form.
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