word inflation – when only 250% makes the grade …

It seemed only last week I heard someone use 210% but I guess it was inevitable that the bench mark of ‘true commitment’ would be reset.   Recently, I sat through a sales pitch where we were assured by the consultant:

"we give 250% … to everything we do!"

The time for a mathematically reasonable 100% is gone apparently.   So has demonstrating commitment by ‘giving 110%’.   Was 250% an implied promise to put two and a half people on the assignment, all for the price of one?    I doubt it.

There was more to the 250% offer though.   This was to be 250% of ‘proactive’ effort.    Apparently being ‘active’ was not up to the mark either.   No, absolutely not.   By claiming to be ‘proactive’, we are meant to conjure images of stunning innovation accompanying an abundance of greater effort.   All of which infers unquestionably significant results and greater value.

Just don’t ask for details of what it all means or how it is measured.

By the way, my client’s reaction to this proactive new bench mark?

“Summed up the whole presentation really”, he said.   “Heard it all before. Nothing different ...”

Well, this was one sales pitch that failed before it finished.   My client automatically  filtered through the sales jargon, sifting for something new or of greater value.   And found?   What he expected.  Words.  Generalities.  The additional proactive 150% was not backed with specific, commercially relevant benefits.

Here is a classic example of a consultant speaking in words without substance.   Figures of speech no less and definitely no more.

However, if we don't question the basis of the language thrown at us, we can easily find ourselves accepting the ‘spin’; accepting the presumptions that the language has been designed to imply.

Welcome to the marketing equivalent of the arms race: the words race.   The seemingly endless drive [or is that drivel?] through words alone - to create a point of differentiation in the mind of the potential buyer, and a sense of superiority and justification in the mind of the seller.

‘Proactive’ and ‘250%’ are both examples of cliches that infer an underlining sense of increase in quantity; of ‘more’, of better value for money.   This is the world of reverse psychology.

Not that 250% is greater than 100% but its opposite:

• 100% is somehow perceived as less than 250%,
• active less than proactive,
• that at 100% we might believe ourselves to be receiving less than the best available (currently a very proactive and probably ‘sustainable’ 250% as I now have witnessed...)

100% just doesn’t sound as big, does it?    We expect 100% effort … by not promising to go beyond this (however meaningless this might be), can we infer you aren’t going to try as hard as the competition?     At 250%, someone must be very keen to win the contract … after all they are prepared to go the extra mile (don’t ask what that means either ….).

Perhaps there is a discount for just being ‘active’ or for only 100% effort?  Don't hold your breath, Nic.

Enough.   We all get the point.

My client summed it up quite well – along the lines of,

“Give me people who think for themselves; who express themselves clearly regarding what is important and what options I can consider.”

“Cut the ‘sound bites’, the generalities and jargon catchphrases.”

So,
The next time you are offered a greater than 100% proactive effort, humour me and ask for clarification of what the inferred additional benefits might be and how they are valued. 

The answer should tell you all you need to know.

Cheers
Nic

PS

So what happened to the word ‘active’?

I guess it has now been relegated to a milder form of its earlier meaning; along the lines of ‘a little bit’ of activity.
Or perhaps just some form of neutral: the engine is on but we are not going anywhere until it is ‘proactively’ put in gear …

In short, a perfectly good word has been neutered by meaningless word inflation.

I can only presume that shortly proactive will, in its turn, be equally passé. Standby for the next prefix beyond ‘pro’…

Nic