Have you ever noticed how in our businesses (and in our lives), we use made-up terms or ideas that might not be super obvious to everyone who doesn’t live inside our head and heart all day every day?

Lexi of Pretty Decent called mine my “Ashlee-isms” on a recent call. And she’s right…I do have a lot of them.

(I wrote a blog post about my experience working with Lexi and I interviewed her on the podcast!)

As a caveat, it’s not a bad thing to have our own vocabulary. It reflects our personality and our methodology and our culture and sometimes even our values.

And when you put all your -isms together, that’s basically the framework of your intellectual property and thought leadership. It could became an outline to a book, a talk on stage, a course. Or at the very least, it’s the basis to work with ease and systematize your personal work style.

(Plus, your personal -isms aren’t quite the same as industry jargon, though they’re related. Here are some of my thoughts on to jargon, or not to jargon.)

But we do need to be aware of what makes sense to us and what is understood by everyone else. ****

Because (as any trip abroad may have shown you firsthand) you can be as eloquent as all get-out, but if you’re not speaking the same language, a LOT is going to get lost in translation.

And the whole point of communicating is that give and take. The sending and receiving. Being mutually understood and seen and heard.

(I have a whole podcast episode about how connection is everything when building a thriving business.)

**As Seth Godin puts it, “A word points to a container and the container holds the concept.” It’s the concept we’re constantly trying to get at. But you can’t understand the concept without the words that connect the dots for you.**

Here are some of the concepts that I talk about on repeat that miiiight need a little translation from the typical Ashlee-isms I like to use:

  • Values-aligned visibility: To me, this means doing all the marketing, putting yourself out there, making your point of view known, but by using your own unique brand values as the jumping off point and the gut check tool.
  • Getting visible on your own terms: When I say this, it means not taking all the internet’s “best practices” at face value, but instead, filtering everything through your own values, your own audience, and your own goals. Basically, doing what feels good to you, ignoring any “shoulds” along the way.
  • Collaboration Call: aka a sales/discovery call. But for me, I really view my clients as collaborators and this call as a conversation. We tend to go deep into who they are and what they’re dreaming of building right off the bat, so it’s truly the start of a collaboration (even if no money ever ends up exchanging hands).
  • A “focus”: This is more of an internal term, a mindset shift I wanted to make—basically, it’s what everyone else calls a launch. But launching felt really heavy (you either take off, or crash in a spaceship launch, for example) and inflexible (most “launches” take months of runway and planning). Instead, a focus felt like something I was missing in my content and business planning that I wanted more of, plus it allows me to hone in 1-4 weeks at a time, then shift my focus again. It’s been working really well for me. (Happy to share more about this in a future post if that’s interesting! Let me know)
  • Messages that matter: While nearly everything else seems to have changed, this phrase is something that’s stuck since I first started my business almost 5 years ago. I love the concept of sharing, defining, amplifying ideas that make an impact. Things that matter to you, to your people, and to the world at large. That’s one of my primary aims through the work I do—equip you to take confident, meaningful action in tandem with sharing messages that need to be heard.
  • Even the names of my offers (Quick Win Consulting Calls, Messages That Matter VIP Day, Messaging Momentum, Momentum Meet-Ups) are a little nebulous, but I’m a word person and I want that reflected in my offers. I want to spark a little something in people’s brains when they see how we could potentially collaborate, and in many ways, I want them to have the space to interpret what it means for them and their businesses.

I made these -isms up organically because they felt right, they felt like me, and they felt like something I could get behind and talk about with excitement. Which I think is super important when making those human-to-human connections that are SO essential in business.

Now, ask most copywriters and they’ll argue that clearer is kinder (and converts better…) than clever. And I totally think that’s the case. Buuuut, I also think there’s some wiggle room for building up some personality behind your messaging and some points of connection with your audience.

So, if you want to chat about what makes you unique and how to clearly, confidently communicate that special essence across your entire brand, book a free Collaboration Call. (Remember from above? These are empathetic, connection-based conversations about how we can collaborate as humans first in and through our businesses.)

 

Toward Purpose & Progress,

Ashlee

 

This is an excerpt from Toward Purpose & Progress, my newsletter where I share business tips, good news, shoutouts to Founder Friends, and other juicy snippets. Subscribe here for more rants, reflections, and resources.