I really hate drug company commercials. What I hate most is the explaining I must do when a prophylactics commercial pops up in the middle of Dora the Explorer. A close second to that would have to be all the acronyms I’m expected to know. COPD, ED, IBS, ABC, XYZ…I can’t keep up. I’m not a doctor, yet everyone thinks that I should automatically know what IC stands for. Every industry has their acronyms. Unfortunately, every industry also forgets that not everyone understands what they heck people are talking about when they are used.
Banking and Lending are one of the worst offenders. For the first eight years of my career, and Home Equity Line of Credit was a “HELOC”. That’s how most of the industry refers to these equity lines. When I joined First Union in 1999, however, they looked at me like I had three heads when I used the term HELOC. After using my Star Trek Universal Translator that allows me to speak to all forms of aliens, I was informed that it’s not a HELOC. It’s a “PEL”, or “Prime Equity Line”. I was then informed that a “HEL” was an installment loan where the home’s equity was used as collateral. It sounded an awful lot like those pesky TPS Reports from the film “Office Space”. Banks are terrible about the use of acronyms and when a member of the public gets glassy-eyed at their use, bankers tend to look down their nose at those bumpkin rube non-bankers.
The fact of the matter is that whether you are flipping houses, holding rentals, buying notes, or whatever you choose to do, there will be acronyms that most people outside of the industry just won’t understand because they do not hear them every day. It’s important to remember that most people will not correct you when they don’t understand you for fear of appearing to be stupid. When they don’t understand, they don’t tend to want to work with you. Avoiding the use of acronyms is a critical step in having customers understand what you are telling them and, in turn, you more easily gain their trust.