13 Brand Buzzwords to Nix From Your Vocabulary - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

13 Brand Buzzwords to Nix From Your Vocabulary - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career What is one word or phrase youd like to see brands stop using to describe themselves? Why? The following answers are provided by members of  Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched  StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. 1. One-Stop Shop You are not a one-stop shop! You excel at one or maybe a couple things. You water down your impact and your brand when you think that making a blanket statement is benefiting your marketing.  Be confident to own what you are the best at, and dont claim you do it all!   â€"  Darrah Brustein,  Network Under 40 / Finance Whiz Kids 2. Disruptive Disruptive. The word just needs to be retired. Focus instead on actually conveying what customer problem your business exists to solve and how you and your team can do it better than anyone else. Demonstrating passion and relevance helps users (and investors) connect the dots.   â€"  David Ehrenberg,  Early Growth Financial Services 3. Innovative We all know if youre innovative or not by how you explain your company.  It doesnt take a rocket scientist to know that youve got something amazing. You dont have to tell us. Yes, your product is the coolest thing since sliced cheese but we dont need to hear about it every time you pitch your story.   â€"John Rampton,  JohnRampton.com 4. The X of Y Everyone wants to be the Uber/AirBnB/Twitter of Y. By describing your company as intrinsically relative to another, you can limit (a)your own creativity, and (b) how others perceive you. The most successful startups especially marketplaces are ones that actually dive deep into the peculiarities of their own industry.   â€"  Basha Rubin,  Priori Legal 5. Guru Please stop saying stuff like youre a social media guru or ninja. As my buddy says, the louder you are, the more you are trying to prove yourself. Let the work do the talk and the clients do the talking for you.   â€"  Kenny Nguyen,  Big Fish Presentations 6. Game Changer Every new product or service could be classified as a game changer if it is slightly different than what is available on the market. Instead of using time in your quick pitch to tell people your idea is a game changer, spend the time telling us about the problem you solve, how you solve it and where you are at today. Let the proof be in the pudding.   â€"  Andrew Hoeft,  Pinpoint Software, Inc. 7. Authentic If you have to point out to people that youre really authentic, theres a problem. Ill decide for myself if I think you and your business are authentic.   â€"Natalie MacNeil,  She Takes on the World 8. Best in Class Unless you are objectively the market leader, you are probably not the best in class. Brands are better off showcasing real, tangible benefits customers have received and letting those benefits speak for themselves.   â€"  Alexandra Levit,  Inspiration at Work 9. Global The past generation of entrepreneurs feels the need to artificially inflate their footprint and show themselves as global or national with offices in all the major cities. Young people can see right through that and the push is to work more locally if possible so its actually counterproductive to making sales.   â€"Josh Fuhr,  Auditrax 10. Crushing Anything This needs to stop being used if anyone ever uses it,  it usually means the opposite. Real  words to use to talk about success are active, particular, and relevant to your business niche, like, Were developing  a suite of elegant  social media tools instead of Were crushing social media. Unless youre actually taking an object and applying force to reduce its size youre not crushing it.   â€"  Jared Brown,  Hubstaff 11. Innovative Apples website never (or rarely) uses the word innovative. Its the first word that springs to mind when describing the company yet they never say it about themselves. Thats because innovation speaks for itself. Its like being cool you dont get to decide if youre cool; other people do. The second you start calling yourself innovative, people begin to doubt it.   â€"  Brian Honigman,  BrianHonigman.com 12. Alternative The word “alternative” is extremely  vague; what exactly is the company or product the alternative to? If it is the alternative to the brand’s perception of the status quo, then it would be more prudent for the brand to use more descriptive, creative words to enhance value to the name.   â€"  Firas Kittaneh,  Amerisleep 13. Scrappy Take the s off the beginning, and thats exactly what this word conveys to potential investors, customers and employees. Most people who are starting a new company begin  small, but thats not a bragging point. Use adjectives that convey the authority and trust you need to build up in the beginning, and most importantly, follow through with actions on your part to create those values.   â€"  Dave Nevogt,  Hubstaff.com