“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I feel reading emails or social posts coming from businesses I care about. And I find I’m often disappointed – especially when I’m a longtime customer and nothing in the email acknowledges that.
Too often the communication style has a generic, kind of ‘Teflon’ feel to it: nothing sticks, nothing’s memorable, and feels like there’s no real person behind the words.
I’m guessing this comes from an attempt to be professional, which is a veil between the business relationship and personal life. In reality, people have a continuum of experience of life. A position on that continuum likely depends on how much you matter to someone. And even though we have this belief that business can be compartmentalized into a less important position than our family or friends, the impact business has is often very significant to us personally. Obvious impacts are career, status, money. Less obvious are all the businesses that make everyday living a little more special for us. And that feels personal.
Here’s a suggestion — for me and for you this week:
Let’s think about how we’re limiting our business by limiting the language we use to communicate with our market, our audience, our customers, our clients, our prospects. Are we sitting behind the veil and not seeing how we actually touch the personal realm of people’s lives? How can we shift that?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
