I just finished the copy for a new client. He’s a chiropractor. During our initial interview, in typical doctor fashion, he used a hundred big long words that I didn’t understand.

Doctors are notorious for speaking like this. Just look at the first couple sentences from this Wikipedia article (the first one I found in a search for “most obscure condition”):

Hyperprolactinaemia (BrE) or hyperprolactinemia (AmE) is the presence of abnormally-high levels of prolactin in the blood. Normal levels are less than 580 mIU/L for women, and less than 450 mIU/L for men.The hormone prolactin is downregulated by dopamine and is upregulated by estrogen. A falsely-high measurement may occur due to the presence of the biologically-inactive macroprolactin in the serum. This can show up as high prolactin in some types of tests, but is asymptomatic.

Um. Huh? What does that mean? Do I have that? Am I dying?

Doctor-talk can be indecipherable and mean nothing to the patient, but it actually accomplishes two very important things.

One, it establishes the doctor as an expert. You’re in over your head: that’s why your at the doctor’s office in the first place. The doctor uses a few words you’ve never heard before to reassure you that he knows his stuff and that he’s capable of taking care of you.

Doctorese is also comforting, in an odd way. Doctors are supposed to talk like that. Even though it’s horribly ineffective at getting meaning across, if you can’t understand the doctor, he must be pretty good.

Imagine going to a doctor who, instead of saying “you have a benign growth on your uvula,” said, “you’ve got something growing on that little thing that hangs down in the back of your throat.“ You know exactly what he means, but is that the way you’d want your doctor to talk?

The same can be said for your industry. Your clients are not experts in the your field (if they were, why would they need you? :-). Establishing yourself as an expert builds trust. You don’t need to use huge words that your customers don’t understand, but you should find a way to communicate to them that you’re an expert at what you do.

Take a look at Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, or Aaron Wall. They are experts in their field because they’ve shared their knowledge in a meaningful way with the rest of us. And if I had a writing, blogging, or SEO problem that was completely out of my league, their services would automatically be at the top of my list.

Would your clients say the same about you?