It’s fair to say that businesses put a lot of thought into how they market themselves to their audiences. But sometimes intended messages can end up way too complex and convoluted in an attempt to appear a certain way. The overuse of buzz words can get too much for anyone.
Well this week, copywriter Jay Crisp Crow posed a question in our Business Chicks Facebook group: “What words do you really, really dislike (or are just bored of reading and hearing) when it comes to business copy?” Everyone had a lot of thoughts, so we’ve collated the most disliked words women come across when interacting with businesses.
Hustle
The word hustle implies that you always have to be on the go and working all the time to be successful, which isn’t realistic or sustainable. Work-life balance and rest is just as important as the grind.
Crushing it
Why does everything need to be crushed? Do we really need to be killing everything we do? This goes hand-in-hand with hustle because both words work to put way too much pressure on women to constantly give 110%.
Mompreneur, ladypreneur and every other variant of the word entrepreneur
The very meaning of the word entrepreneur is someone who starts their own business so why do we need to chop and change it up for women? It’s not like we ever refer to men as dadpreneurs and malepreneurs.
Tribe
Not only is the word tribe kind-of problematic because of cultural appropriation but it really is just overused at this point. Not every woman needs a “tribe” to find success.
Best version of yourself
Telling anyone that a certain thing can make them the “best version of themselves” just infers that they aren’t already there. Is that lipstick that’s on sale for 2 for $30 really going to make you the greatest version of yourself? Probably not.
Journey
Journey suggests that your path in business is stuck to set parameters. Goals change, processes transform over time and business never works in a neat, straight line.
Passionate
So many companies use passionate on every page of their website and in every EDM they send. The overuse of passionate makes all the previous claims of passion redundant. No one is actually passionate about iceberg lettuce, unfortunately.
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