When you are running a business you need to avoid being vague. If you’re vague about what you are selling, then your customer may be disappointed and irate. If your marketing was too vague they won’t even know what you are selling, why they’ll want it or where to find you and you’ll fail to attract enough customer to survive. If you are vague about prices people will either feel that you are ripping them off, continually try to negotiate them down or just not even bother trying to deal with you at all.

Conversely when you are buying on behalf of your business you can not afford to be vague about what you want and how much you are willing to pay for it. Otherwise you risk buying the wrong thing and wasting the businesses money. At its worst this sort of behaviour will result in you going out of business.

To avoid being vague I suggest you look at your marketing, sales notices, product (or service) descriptions and ask yourself "would the typical customer understand exactly what this means". Although putting yourself in the customers shoes is not so easy as it sounds, especially if you work in a jargon filled industry. Another approach you can try is to create a set of question that your customers are likely to ask as part of their buying decision and then to check your material against the questions – if the answers aren’t clear then you’re being to vague. Finally if in doubt ask you Mum! If your mum doesn’t understand it, it’s probably too vague.

Equally when buying on behalf of your business take some time to write yourself a clear set of requirements. Ideally you (or your supplier) should be able to say yes or no when asked if a solution meets each requirement, otherwise it’s too vague.

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