The Words Your Industry Loves That You Need to Kill
Category language is the verbal version of blending in. Here are the words draining your brand of personality, and what to say instead.
New here? Start with How to Stand Out When You’re Introvert AF to understand my approach. Then read How to Build a Brand Voice with Teeth if you want context on why voice matters.
You’ve probably never questioned the words you use to describe what you do.
They came from somewhere. Maybe a competitor’s website you admired, or a template that seemed to work, or a course that told you this is how professionals in your space talk.
And now they’re baked into everything. Your bio, your sales page, your Instagram captions. Words like “transformational” and “results-driven” and “step into your power.”
Here’s the problem: those words aren’t yours. They belong to your entire industry. And when your language belongs to everyone, your brand belongs to no one.
This is category language. And it’s quietly killing your ability to stand out.
Why Category Language Kills Your Brand
When you use the same words as everyone else in your space, you disappear into the noise. Your message stops being yours. It becomes category wallpaper, pleasant enough to look at, impossible to remember.
Think about the last time you landed on someone’s website and read their headline. Did it stick? Or did it slide right off your brain because you’d seen some version of it a hundred times before?
“Helping ambitious women build businesses they love.” “Empowering you to live your most authentic life.” “Your partner in creating meaningful change.”
These sentences could belong to anyone.
Which means they belong to no one.
Category language is the verbal version of blending in. You follow a template, use the approved vocabulary, and end up sounding exactly like the competition you’re trying to stand out from.
How It Happens, you ask?
Nobody chooses to sound generic. It creeps in.
You’re writing your bio and you’re stuck, so you look at what other people in your space wrote. You borrow a phrase here, a structure there. It sounds professional. It fits. I’ve done this countless times myself.
You’re working on your website copy and you’re not sure how to describe what you do, so you reach for the words that feel familiar. The ones you’ve seen work. The ones that seem to be what people in your industry say.
You’re creating content and you want to sound credible, so you lean on terminology that signals “I know what I’m talking about.” Even if that terminology has been drained of all meaning through overuse.
Each decision makes sense on its own. But stack enough of them together and you’ve built a brand that sounds like a template someone filled in.
The Words That Need to Die
Let me name some of the worst offenders. These show up constantly in certain industries, and they’ve become so overused they’re now red flags for “I haven’t thought about my actual message.”
In coaching and personal development: Journey. Authentic. Transformation. Alignment. Step into. Unlock. Your best self. Limiting beliefs. Abundance mindset. Show up as. Hold space. Deep work.
In business and marketing: Results-driven. Data-backed. Full potential. Strategic. Proven. Comprehensive. Solutions. Optimize. Streamline. Scale. Growth mindset. Level up.
In wellness and health: Holistic. Nourish. Mind-body. Self-care. Wellness journey. Healing. Balance. Mindful. Restorative. Inner peace.
In creative industries: Storytelling. Authentic voice. Visual identity. Brand experience. Creative vision. Unique perspective.
Notice something? These words all describe real things. They’re not wrong. They’re just dead. They’ve been used so many times by so many people that they no longer communicate anything specific. When you use them, you sound like everyone who came before you.
What to Use Instead
The fix isn’t finding a list of “better” words. The fix is finding YOUR words.
Here’s how I approach it:
Say it like you’d say it out loud.
If you were explaining what you do to a friend at a coffee shop, what would you actually say? Skip the elevator pitch and the polished tagline. I mean the real, unscripted version.
That’s usually where the good language lives. Before you clean it up and make it professional.
Get specific instead of abstract.
“I help people transform their businesses” tells me nothing. “I help service providers figure out why they keep attracting clients who haggle on price” tells me something real.
Specificity is the enemy of category language. The more concrete you get, the less you sound like everyone else.
Name the thing your audience is actually feeling.
Generic words describe generic experiences. But your people aren’t having generic experiences. They’re having specific frustrations and fears that keep them up at night.
Instead of “I help with confidence,” try “I help with that moment when you’re about to post and you delete the whole thing because it suddenly feels stupid.”
Instead of “I help with business growth,” try “I help with the part where you’re working constantly but nothing seems to move the needle.”
The specific version resonates because it names something real.
Steal from outside your industry.
Category language comes from looking at what everyone else in your space is saying. So look elsewhere.
What words do writers in other genres use, or musicians, or chefs? What about industries you’ve never worked in?
Borrow vocabulary from unexpected places. Mix it with your expertise. That’s how you build a language that sounds like you and not like your competitors.
The Test
Here’s how to know if you’re using category language:
Take any sentence from your website or content. Remove your name and logo. Could a competitor use this sentence without changing a word?
If yes, it’s category language. Kill it.
Write something only you would say. Something that comes from your specific experience and your particular way of seeing the problem.
That’s the sentence that belongs to you.
A Note on “But Everyone Uses These Words”
You might be thinking: if these words are everywhere, doesn’t that mean they work? Doesn’t that mean people understand them?
Yes, people understand them. That’s not the issue.
The issue is that understanding isn’t the same as remembering. Comprehension isn’t connection. Your audience can read your copy, nod along, and forget you existed five minutes later because nothing stuck.
The words that stick are the unexpected ones, the ones that make someone pause because it feels like you reached into their brain and named something they hadn’t found the name for yet.
You don’t get there with category language. You get there by killing it.
To help you, I’ve compiled an entire list of category words for you to download so you know what to kill.
The Category Language Kill List is a Notion swipe file packed with the stale, overused words your industry keeps recycling. Use it to catch the language that’s watering down your message, rewrite your copy with more specificity, and build a brand voice that doesn’t sound like borrowed beige nonsense. You can add your own words too, so it becomes a living list of what to kill in your niche.
Hi, I’m Jessica.
So glad you’re here reading my stuff. Thank you for that!
I help quiet founders build brands that stand out without the constant visibility grind. Disruptive branding, sharp positioning, and strategy that works even if you hate being on camera.
Most strategists talk about alignment. I talk about opposition.
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