Verbs > Adjectives

When you’re writing marketing materials, you can almost hear the adjectives whispering: “Use me,” they say: “I’m bold. I’m innovative. I’m world-class.”

And sure, they sound nice. Cushy. Soft-focus lens nice.

But adjectives are freeloaders. They hang around the page, puffing up their chests, doing absolutely nothing. They don’t change the reader. They don’t change the story. They’re the linguistic equivalent of putting sequins on a potato.

Verbs, on the other hand, walk in like they own the place.

Verbs shove the story forward. Verbs make your reader picture something happening. Verbs leave fingerprints.

You can ignore an adjective. In fact, the human brain is so used to marketing adjectives that it skims right past them, the way you skim past those long store receipts that list coupons you’ll never use.

But a verb?

A verb grabs your attention by the shirt collar.

Think about the difference between:

“Our platform is innovative”

versus

“Our platform reshapes how work gets done.”

One is a pillow. The other is a punch.

Verbs force you to get specific. You can’t hide behind them. You can’t paint a foggy generality and call it strategy. You have to decide what’s actually happening. What the product does. What the customer feels. What the world looks like after the thing lands in it.

And that specificity makes your writing harder to ignore.

Readers don’t want adjectives. They want action. They want motion. They want to see something change. Verbs give them that. Verbs are tiny machines that pull the reader forward, sentence by sentence, until they’re somewhere new.

So the next time you’re staring down that blinking cursor and the adjectives start whispering sweet nothings, remember: they’re not here to help you.

Reach for the verbs. Reach for the words that crack, shift, lift, shake, pull, deliver.

Write like your copy means business. Write like you want the reader’s brain to sit up and pay attention.

Your audience will thank you by sticking around for the next sentence.

And the next one after that.