back to article Revealed: Vendors’ worst sales fluff

Reg readers often show little love for analysts, labelling them over-priced prognosticators with tenuous ties to reality. But a new Gartner blog post on "Useless Sales Pitch Slides" may win back some favour, as it reveals the six worst pieces of meaningless marketing messaging vendors put before the firm, and those to whom …

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  1. Herby
    Joke

    Sales??

    Well, out people who have a global presence have an end-to-end offering that our solution provider who is a trusted partner for our clients will be focused on business value-add with our common solution provider.

    All this seems very obvious to me. Do I get the contract??

    Sorry, I couldn't resist, being close to April 1. For those playing at home with the latest version of "buzzword bingo", please keep score at your next presentation.

    1. Scott 26
      Joke

      Re: Sales??

      "out people"????

      Are they gay, or outdoorsy folk?

      1. James Anderson

        Re: Sales??

        Probable muted by android every helpful spelling munger.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sales??

        Are they gay, or outdoorsy folk?

        Bushwhackers? :)

  2. southpacificpom

    One phrase which is guaranteed to make me tune out is "our mission statement is...". In other words all the bollocks they value in their company culture but never live up to - pack of twats.

    1. graeme leggett Silver badge

      If a company has to say that a piece of prose is it's a mission statement (rather than just saying what it does) , then they have already gone down in my estimation.

      I'm not expecting English Literature in a company's brochures or website, but ordinary plain English Language would do.

      (shouldn't be one to talk - I got a B in the former but only a C in the latter when I took my O-levels. And in the former I answered the question about Macbeth without having read the text only going en masse with the class to see the Polanski film)

  3. Don Jefe
    Happy

    Analysts Analyzed

    I'd like to see Gartner do an analysis of analysts to determine the biggest bullshit terms they use.

    1. Ronny Cook
      Thumb Up

      Re: Analysts Analyzed

      I'm sure we, as a trusted partner for our clients, can provide an end-to-end offering to show our focus on business value-add. The global presence of our people means we are the ideal solution provider for your meta-analysis needs.

      (Not actually from Gartner, but it's scary that that sounds almost familiar.)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Re: Analysts Analyzed

        Yo Dawg, I am analysing your analysis of your Analysts so you can analyse your analysys' whilst doing analysis of your analysing.

    2. Fatman

      Re: Analysts Analyzed

      You guys are spelling it wrong!!!!!!!

      It should be spelled:

      ANALysts

      Get the difference????

  4. Esskay
    Flame

    Unfortunately...

    "There buzzwords are out"

    is usually a precursor to

    "These buzzwords are in".

    Waiting to be "positively incorporated" into the next "target-oriented vocabulary" any moment now...

  5. Euripides Pants
    Thumb Down

    Lousy list

    They left out "exceed your expectations". When I see that I don't expect much more than flatworms.

    1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge

      Re: Lousy list

      I'm possibly not spending as much time as I used to with consultants*, but I haven't heard these phrases in YEARS:

      - Turnkey solution

      - Centre of excellence (usually a large hall filled with people who shouldn't be touching stuff).

      * Happiness all around.

    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Holmes

      Be Advised that we have Good Results On Target, which is Outstanding.

      I think that's actually straight from the Total Quality Management Manual. I had a course in this.

      Consider:

      "The Fundamental Concepts of Excellence are the underlying principles of the EFQM Excellence Model which are the essential foundation of achieving Sustainable Excellence for any organisation. They can be used as the basis to describe the attributes of an excellent organisational culture. They also serve as a common language for senior management."

      Sounds better than "bunch of pretty general good system-oriented practices [see Deming and Wiener], some of which you may even manage to implement so that customer buy more from you and you don't fuck up your reputation or violate property rights".

      The ones about sustainable future etc. just went too far. Who is to decide? Greens? Feminists? A boardroom oracle? Bring out the joss sticks. Confusingly, the course attendants did not seem to see any logical or economic problem with such progressive statements.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Be Advised that we have Good Results On Target, which is Outstanding.

        Of course the holy grail of TQM wankwordiness is ISO 9001 certification, which appears to be a way that dubious offshore developers can try to persuade me that their caged monkeys on homemade PCs running pirated copies of Windows XP home are going to provide 'plenty goodness and much cheapness'.

        In the last 15 years I've been running a business, the only company that ever managed to pay one of our invoices to the *wrong* company (a sister company on another continent) was ISO 9001 certified. But to be fair, I am sure they documented the screw up very well.

        1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Be Advised that we have Good Results On Target, which is Outstanding.

          Actually, ISO9001 is more about controlling specific processes (basically define your process and implement the feeback mechanisms; the ISO9001 manual can be used as a somewhat relevant checklist but I recommend at least learning about BPMN or UML activity diagrams), and TQM is the "holistic" agenda (always vague but opens the door for gurus of various couleurs). Both are not actually on the same level.

  6. John Tserkezis

    It's just no challenge playing Wank Word Bingo anymore...

  7. Magani
    Unhappy

    Also missing in action...

    Outcomes, stakeholders, result-orientated, taking ownership, our human capital, leverage (especially when pronounced 'levverige') , etc, etc, ad nauseum.

    While there are doubtless sales guys out there who care, most in my experience are just trying to flog the tatt de jour to get their commission. If it happens to coincide with a customer's requirements, well that's a plus.

  8. Grikath

    the Reg Hack is too kind...

    "labelling them over-priced prognosticators with tenuous ties to reality."

    Is about the most politically-correct, gender-neutral, polite description of the real sentiment to "Sales" , and for that matter "Anal-ists" you see here.

  9. Christian Berger

    Actually I've seen "Trusted Partner" seen used by a customer

    It's the usual reply you get when you ask people why they use .net or Silverlight.

  10. Julian Bond
    Facepalm

    In other news

    The X Market will be Y big in Z years.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: In other news

      But does X² + Y² = Z² ?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mean while - if you go to the original article on the garner site, & click on the synopsis - Mr Jester has written a "helpful" document called "Marketing Essentials:Creating Effective Sales Presentations". In the blurb used to pitch, centre stage, the phrase "goal oriented". A phase curiously absent from his list....

  12. The Godfather
    Meh

    Hang em..

    High time they came out with another...Executive speak blurb on people changes, results and financial statements. Every time I read the words 'execute' or 'execution' .....I throw up.

  13. Herby

    My bad...

    My typing is bad. Please: s/out/our/

    Thanks.

  14. Esskay
    Trollface

    Another phrase to get rid of:

    "Face time". (icon seemed appropriate).

    I've got a manager that repeatedly talks of Face Time - not getting enough, needing more, scheduling some in - ironically, usage of the phrase is a good way of ensuring that no-one wants to give him any.

    For more phrases that need to be restructured going forward, see "Death Sentences" and "Weasel Words" By Don Watson.

    1. Magani
      Pint

      Re: Another phrase to get rid of:

      Have an upvote for the Don Watson reference!

      Have a refreshing ale, too.

  15. saleshub

    Vendor's Best Value

    What might Rolf Jester's (Gartner) view be of 'meaningful' differentiators ?

  16. spiny norman

    Hype cycle

    Years ago I created a hype cycle of Gartner buzzwords. Phrases had to climb the Peak of Blank Incomprehension and descend to the Trough of Endless Repetition, before finally reaching the Plateau of Weary Acceptance.

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