Using Adjectives to Distinguish Your Business
This is one of many exercises I will share with you to help you make your business better. It is the kind of exploration that works from the roots upward. Yet, it requires you to move inward, plumbing the depths of the dream of your cherished enterprise.
Task: I would like you to make a list of ten adjectives that say something about your business.
As you isolate these words in a list, and then write about why they distinguish your business, you will get a better sense of how you fit into the great mosaic of local and world business.
This exercise asks you to use your right brain, while you inject artistic intentions into your work.
I will go through the exercise myself here, and share my results with you.
Here are my adjectives:
- Green
- Enlightened
- Sustainable
- Mountainous
- Flexible
- Home-based
- Hazleton-loving
- World-loving
- Energetic
- Adoring
And now you will see, what I’ve learned about Mountain Laurel Copywriting.
Once you have made your list, I’d like you to elaborate about why each adjective fits your business.
While this is a lot of fun, this exercise should also yield some serious and surprising results.
First, as I frequently say, “Words create reality.”
This is a great reason for you to care about your sentences, in fact, every word you speak or write.
I’ll take this state to the next level, “Your words create your reality.”
Finally, your business‘ words create your business’ reality.
Now let me explain my words.
It is obvious that Mountain Laurel Copywriting is “green” in the best sense of the word. We have worked mostly for organic, natural products companies.
It follows that I see this approach to living as “enlightened.”
For me, that word means “full of light,” and that is what I want it to be.
“Sustainable” is almost a buzz word these days. But it shouldn’t be.
In everything we do, we need to consider if what we are doing and the way we are living makes or breaks the future.
When we do this, we know where our feet are planted.
Since we are located in the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania, we are literally “mountainous” in terms of our geography. But I also see our business as a mountain that we are ascending, I hope, with Himalayan courage.
Next, we are flexible. Although we have written mostly about niche products in a green market, we cast our net into more general markets, also.
Yet, as much as we are flexible, we will not work for any company whose agenda we consider negative or potentially destructive in any way.
We are, after all, not a corporate entity, but rather a modern mom- and -pop company based at home.
Indeed all we need are our laptops and a phone to conduct business.
“Simplify. Simplify,” the great American philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote in the 19th century – and that is exactly what we did.
Additionally, we are based specifically in my hometown of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, a place that I genuinely love; however, I see our small city as a microcosm of the world.
As for energy – no business can move on without it.
We would like to see our energy derived from solar, wind or waves, and perhaps even geothermal sources.
This is another way that we write for the future.
The final word on my list is “adoring.”
I adore this word, indeed. Is that redundant? I don’t think so. It’s just factual, and completely makes sense where I walk. The words roots in Latin mean “covered in gold.”
I have always taken this idea a step further, meaning that what I adore becomes covered in my mind’s gold, for the mind is the truest gold mine.
Bringing the word “adoring” into play means that I wish to create mutual prosperity – for my clients – and indeed for myself – in everything I write.
Few businesses go so deep in describing themselves, and that’s a shame.
I created this exercise for potential clients so that they can know me. And if they also do this exercise, I will know them better, too.
Yes, it goes deep. But the answers show us where we fit in the great mosaic of business.
The great philosopher Plato’s work put much emphasis on the power of adjectives, feminine or yin elements in grammar.
Next, we will look at Aristotle’s masculine, yang favorites: nouns.
Together they will dance, forming the Tao of your writing – and mine.
Maria Jacketti
© 2016 by Maria Jacketti
No part of this essay may be used or reprinted without the author’s written permission.
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