Industry Lingo Links Clients and Rainmakers

Let’s say you are meeting with potential clients in a particular sector of an industry.  Make sure that you learn - and use - the jargon of that industry when talking to your prospective client. Whether pharmaceuticals, energy or banking, each industry has it own professional terminology.   If you don’t know some of the relevant terms, find some trade publications and learn a few.  Demonstrate your interest in the industry to your prospective client by mentioning how you have read some of these publications.  

Even companies within the same industry sector use different expressions internally.  These reflect a company’s unique culture.  For example, one successful store chain makes its employees eschew the word “problems” and instead use the word “opportunities.”  The employees of a now-defunct energy trading company coined - and often used - the term “optionality.”  Some companies also heavily rely on acronyms. Ask current (or former) employees about some of these terms advance, and integrate them into your client meeting.  
 
Also make sure that your terminology translates across cultures–literally and figuratively .  Sometimes companies in the same industry (like the energy sector) are based in very different cultures (Saudi Arabia and the United States, for example). Look, listen and stay tuned for clues during client meetings.  Some industry lingo may work well in the US oil patch, but be too informal/slang for the Middle East.