My wife and I are late to the party but are on season three of HBO’s hit show, “The Wire.” You know you’re getting old when you don’t know half of what the characters are talking about.

Some of the street slang, like “mos def” and “tru dat” is pretty cool though. I was telling some friends I wanted to find an opportunity to use it and since I was going to LA, maybe that’s when I could show how hip I actually was.

My much younger friends shook their heads and told me that those terms were from the nineties AND, when they were cool, they were East Coast slang not West Coast.

I decided not to mention some other phrases I wanted use that I learned after seeing “Straight Outta Compton.”

This brings up an important point when it comes the language you use in your sales presentations. You want to make sure it resonates with your audience and rings true.

If you use the wrong terms, you will be perceived as an outsider and that makes it more difficult to close.

For example, if I am selling to a group of golfers and I use the term “sand trap” in my presentation, my audience instantly knows I am not one of them because a true golfer never says that, they use the word “bunker.”

You also want to be careful of using words and phrases that your audience might not understand. I am constantly be admonished not to use the phrase “opt-in” when recording lead generation videos and instead to say “type in your name and email address.” The general public doesn’t know what “opt-in” means.

Look through your presentation and examine the words and phrases you’re using. What should be changed, eliminated or made more powerful?

Peace out.

Dave “It’s Hip To Be Square” Dee