Some marketing words should be put to pasture.

Real estate is not an easy occupation, especially in a metro area as large as ours. After all, you’re competing with thousands of similarly talented, driven professionals, all of whom are marketing their respective talents to consumers.

When it comes to those marketing materials, though, there are definitive “dos” and “don’ts,” and we figured that we would spotlight some of the most common marketing words that you’d do well avoiding.

1. Innovative and Exciting – The words “innovative” and “exciting” have become so commonplace nowadays that, as Geoffrey James recently wrote for Inc., they have been “rendered meaningless.” Instead of using such obvious buzzwords for your business, cite specifics. Does your CRM improve your response times to clients? Does your showing software result in greater returns on listings? Are you able to demonstrate a short market time for your listings? We live in the era of big data, so embrace numbers over empty words.

2. Quick – Okay, sometimes you get lucky and someone purchases a house mere days after you put the sign out, but such strokes of magic are quite rare, and the last thing you want is to artificially raise your client’s expectations for a “quick” transaction. With inventory remaining low (especially for middle-income consumers), both buyers and sellers are an increasingly finicky bunch, and your clients should be aware of that.

3. Easy – This one is even worse. The buying and selling process is many things, but it’s rarely easy! From finding the right home, to securing financing, to negotiating the final terms of the deal (and getting it confirmed by an appraiser), there are so many things that could go wrong on the path to homeownership that it’s dizzying; so again, avoid distorting your client’s expectations.

4. Substantial – As James puts it, “This is just a pompous way of saying ‘big.'” Sure, you can claim to offer prospective clients “substantial savings” with your services, or that you have a substantial amount of experience, but as we mentioned in our first point, why go with such a broad, boring word when you can be so much more specific, instead? Specificity is the mother of success!