Substance vs. Terminology

Every business has its own terminology. For example, many of us refer to our customers as “customers”. However, professionals tend to refer to them as “clients”, while conference organizers refer to them as “participants” or “attendees”. Churches refer to them as “donors” and doctors refer to them as “patients”. Veterinarians sometimes refer to their customer's as “pets” while television stations refer to them as “viewers”. Boat marinas and real estate management companies refer to their customers as “owners”. The list goes on. This type of specific terminology is rampant throughout all businesses. Here are a few more examples:

Inventory items (aka “products”, “merchandise”, “materials”, “produce”, “goods”, “commodities” etc.);
Manufactured items (“kits”, “assemblies”, “bill of material processed items”, etc);
Units (“pounds”, “persons”, “cartons”, “quarts, “containers”, “pallets”, “hours”, etc.)

As one would expect, products targeted towards a specific industry will use the appropriate industry specific terminology throughout their product. Products targeted towards many different types of businesses will use more generic terminology throughout their product.

The problem is that many people fall into the trap of concluding that just because a product contains their particular terminology, that it must be ideally suited for their needs.