Jargon is the "specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group." When you've been working in real estate for awhile you begin to learn and utilize the different phrases, abbreviations, acronyms, and expressions that are used within the industry to describe many different things. While these expressions may be fully and completely understood by your peers and fellow agents in the industry, when you utilize these same phrases with your clients and prospects they may not know what the heck you're talking about.

The problem that this can then create for you is the risk of alienating your clients and prospects and having them feel more distant from you.

Imagine for a moment that you're in the market to buy life insurance. An insurance salesperson is making a presentation to you about the different options available and they're throwing out jargon phrases and insurance terms matter-of-factly in their presentation as if you fully understand what they're talking about. So my question to you around this is how do you feel while this is going on?

Our tendency in situations like this can often be to want to look like we understand everything we're hearing ... even if we don't. The salesperson is rattling off terms and phrases that we don't really understand and yet they're behaving as if we should be comprehending everything that they're saying very easily. In short, the insurance salesperson is making us feel uncomfortable about ourselves while we're sitting right in front of them. And a salesperson having his or her prospects feel uncomfortable in their presence is normally not a good indication that a sale is about to be consummated.

I'm bringing this up because a lot of times as real estate agents we forget where the line is between what the general public normally knows and what we as agents know every day of our lives simply because we are real estate experts constantly working with others who are also real estate experts in our industry.

As an example, just recently I received a flyer from a real estate agent that offered me a free CMA. The flyer also told me that APRs have never been lower and invited me to let the agent put my home in the MLS. Now having been in our industry for over 20 years I understood that CMA meant "Comparative Market Analysis," that APR meant the "Annual Percentage Rate" on loans, and that MLS meant "Multiple Listing Service." But I know that many others not in the real estate industry who are prime prospects for this agent may read these same terms and not fully understand what they mean. While the flyer that the agent was distributing was intended to generate more business for the agent, clearly using jargon that makes the reader feel that they should be easily understanding terms that they don't does not do much to build a warm feeling in the prospect towards the agent. As people, we like to be around others who make us feel intelligent and good about ourselves. We don't feel too great about others who make us feel that we're not as intelligent as we think we are.

Whenever we're about to make an important decision in an area that we're not an expert in we look to be guided by experts who we feel know what they're talking about, care about our best interests, and clearly explain all the important details to us. The better you are able to do this with your real estate prospects the more successfully you will enroll these people in wanting to do business with you exclusively.

The media, both inside and outside of the real estate industry, love to recite new jargon terms as if everyone should know exactly what they are talking about. In our industry one of the most recent jargon terms that I've seen being utilized over the past months is the term "C-Suite." When I first saw this term appearing in real estate articles I found myself trying to figure out what the heck these journalists were talking about. But they were offering no explanation whatsoever in their articles for what this term meant.

And as an industry expert I must admit that I felt pretty strange not understanding a term that these real estate journalists seemed to imply was a term that I should already have a full understanding of. It was only after reading between the lines in several of these articles that I finally understood that these journalists were utilizing the term "C-Suite" to refer to the top executives in real estate companies who make all the important business and policy decisions for the companies. These journalists were utilizing the term "C-Suite" to represent the executives who occupy the "corporate suite" in major real estate companies.

Being a 24-year veteran of our industry, if there are some real estate jargon terms that I don't know the definition of do you think it's possible that some of the terms you utilize daily in your real estate business may not be fully understood by your clients and prospects? Remember, your clients and prospects will feel closer to you and want to work with you more when you talk to them in a language and in a manner that has them feel that they fully understand everything you are saying to them.

So notice the real estate jargon terms that you constantly utilize without consciously thinking about them every day in your real estate business. Once you become aware of these terms make sure that you either eliminate or fully explain them when utilizing them with your clients and prospects. When you do this your clients and prospects will feel closer to you and be much more interested in working with you exclusively.

Published: September 18, 2003

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