Impact Words

Been doing some work with my customer service guys which I realise can help sales people.  I’ve never been a fan of seeing the same word used more than once within a piece of prose, and I kept seeing ‘increase’ & ‘decrease’ cropping up in their reports with irritating regularity.  So I got them to do an exercise to think of alternative “impact words” to ‘increase’ & ‘decrease’.   For more, slip into something comfortable, like www.thesaurus.com! For now, here’s my guys’ quick brainstorm:

‘increase’ is better presented as….

jump, gain, conquer, dominate, brighten, soar, rocket, strengthen, add, develop, build, reinforce, multiply, bolster, construct, heighten, elevate, magnify

‘decrease’ is more evocative as….

waste, delay, rob, cost, plummet, loss, fall, decline, drop, squander, wreck, destroy, ruin, reduce, weaken, erode, collapse, obliterate, pilfer, taint

The outcome is clear, a more colourful picture is painted in the prospect mind’s eye through use of such words, so is there a word you repeat all the time? If so, simply swap in a powerful alternative every now and then.