Skunk Your Sale

Time to consider skunking on your bid?

A “skunked term”, according to a lexicographer called Byran Garner, is a word that becomes difficult to use because it is in the middle of transitioning from one common meaning to another. ‘It can’t be used without creating a stink‘.

Can you skunk up the vocab of your potential buyer?

Is there a word or term that you can amend or provide new meaning for? Reclaim as your own. Make part of your prospect’s unique project syntax. Or perhaps more knowingly, stop it causing issues for its use when seemingly stacking against you.

Is there a word associated with alternative options for your spend? One that you can actively skunk. By linking it to something even ever so slightly malodorous?

I am prone to repeat a selling aphorism; own the language own the bid.

You could also plump for a portmanteau. A mash-up of two or more existing words, even adding a funky prefix or suffix if it makes sense. Although such neologism isn’t perhaps strictly a skunk, it’s close enough so long as it sets you apart.

Skunking bid labels though, has other openings. A term morphing can give other frame-owning opportunities.

I’m reminded of the many times I’ve taken a key word ripped from the latest stone tablets that have descended the mountain top in the CEO’s hands and adapted these to align my ambitions with prospect strategic direction.

Even to the extent of creating a new word from the acronym the freshly fabled ‘values’ or ‘actions’ creates.