How is your terminology?

Two recent conversations have led to this particular post.

One is a web client who had a need for a single web page to be set up for her business. She kept using terminology that made me think she wanted something else, i.e. a landing page, which is usually a call to action, with the same link or form several times, collecting people’s contact information before leading them to the rest of the site. But what she wanted was quite different, although some aspects were the same. She was using words she’d heard mentioned and thought that was what she wanted. Took a while for both of us to get on the same page so I could complete the job for her.

The second was a lady looking to join the Virtual Assistant industry. She shared her interests and her background and we spoke about what she could do as a VA.  Then we began to chat about social media and she mentioned the different profiles she had at one of the social media sites. I immediately asked questions about what she had set up and how it was set up.  You see, Facebook and LinkedIn (in particular) have rules about one account per person, but some people seem to think they should have one for personal, one for each business hat they wear, and so on. She soon confirmed she only had the one account and that it was probably the way she spoke about it that made me think otherwise.

Terminology. Very easy for two people to be on two different pages if there isn’t the same understanding with respect to different words and terms being used. It is worth asking questions till you can verify you have an understanding of what the other person is talking about.