The Vendor Pitch

Liquid lunches haven't been a thing since the 1980s, but if 2020 and 2021 didn't induce a revival of the trend, then nothing ever will. Who knows, maybe it's already started. What do you think all those people who never turn on their Zoom camera during meetings or who chug "coffee" at sixty second intervals are really doing?

As for me, I'm not a drinker and I want to keep my job, so I'll play bingo instead. Easy to do if you keep the card out of the camera's sightline and refrain from jumping up and yelling "BINGO!" when the card fills up.

Why? Not COVID business disruptions or Zoom fatigue but a pitch by the VP of Sales of the software developer or UX designer or whatever or whoever's trying to get your business. Their slide deck isn't the problem. These people know the four-by-four rule. Or the rule of six. Or the seven-by-seven rule. They're all the same. Keep the deck tight. No more than X words per bullet and no more than X bullets per page.

They didn't spend time wordsmithing the deck because time is money. But they did bring their best business jargon for the voiceover because talk is cheap. Whoa, has the game already started?

Cards and pens ready? The rules are easy. First one with a full bingo card wins. Let's go!

The meeting starts. A pregnant pause as people fiddle with pens. Eyes glaze over.

"Oh, sorry, I was on mute. 

"I'm Reed from Acme Enterprises. Thank you for reaching out to give us the opportunity to tell you about our bleeding edge technology that will really empower your staff and impact your operations. Since our company was founded in 1990, this has been our core competency.

"To develop this game changer, six months ago we called in the whole food chain for a thought shower. After we brainstormed, our SWAT team drilled down. We had an aha moment."

If we weren't on mute, you'd hear bingo cards shuffling.

"We leveraged our development team who gave it 110 percent and we're proud to introduce our most robust solution yet. We threw it over the wall to some of our clients who gave us great feedback about their best practices and then we iterated it."

Finance Manager Bill has taken 19 slugs of his "cola" since the meeting started. He's starting to look a little wobbly.

A minute later, Bill drops off the call (and probably his chair.)

"I'm sure, like most companies, yours has lots of moving parts and you don't have time to boil the ocean. With limited resources, you have to make hay while you can. 

"Let's start with the low-hanging fruit, because we don't want to reinvent the wheel.

"We're not like some companies who keep moving the goalposts.

"We just know this is going to gain traction."

Jill from Marketing is bobbing up and down in her chair.

Our Teams chat is blowing up. Jill: BINGO! BINGO!!!!

Jill drops off the call.

"We're here to make sure your company doesn't jump the shark. It is what it is.

"The key takeaway is that this is a game changer."

Phil from Customer Service emails our team a screenshot of his full bingo card.

Phil drops off the call.

"We have about 10 minutes for Q&A before our hard stop at 3:00. I'm out of pocket for the rest of the week, but reach out any time you want to do some blue sky thinking. We have plenty of bandwidth to deal with it.

Andy, Stan, Linda, Craig, and Beth drop off the call.

"Don't worry if it's mission critical. Our development team is in the loop. They bring a lot to the table and we'll move the needle, guaranteed.

Mercedes and Neil drop off the call.

They immediately pull up their resumes to update. Tomorrow they'll scan job boards and consider going back to grad school.

"Hey, it's been great to chat with you all. I know we share core values, and I can feel the synergy. Let's circle back next week, okay?"

45 Business Jargon Terms and Phrases (With Example Sentences), by Indeed Editorial Team (March 21, 2021)