‘A trillion here, a trillion there, soon we will be talking about real money’

The eurozone's bailout fund now stands at one trillion euros (£880bn or $1.4tn) after a deal was thrashed out in Brussels by European leaders. A trillion is a number - 1,000,000,000,000  – we all need to factor into our trade strategies! In fact the Namnews team are currently exploring the possibility of increasing the Namcalc cell-size to accommodate more up-to-date number sizes….

However, the real issue is how to keep the sheer scale of a trillion front of mind, lest we end up ‘signing off’ our entire future through over-familiarity..

One way to enhance understanding is to divide a big number by the number of people affected, so if the population of the eurozone is about 330m, then a trillion shared represents about 3,000 euros for each person. Another way is to count the numbers one at a time, one per second. A million seconds is 11 days, a billion seconds is about 32 years and a trillion seconds is 32,000 years.

For those in sales and marketing, the use of 'trillions' in our general conversation can be seen as part of a trend towards linguistic inflation or 'bigging up'. This means that some words are used to the point of exhaustion and need replacing with others in order to maintain the strength of expression. So 'heroes' are now 'superheroes', we're not just angry any more, we are 'incandescent with rage'.

This suggests that it may be time to take a fresh look at your brand and concession-value claims in a search for new superlatives?

Finally, those working on future trade demands may appreciate the following definitions

Trillion - 1 + 12 zeros

Quadrillion - 1 + 15 zeros

Quintillion - 1 + 18 zeros

Sextillion - 1 + 21 zeros

Septillion - 1 + 24 zeros

Octillion - 1 + 27 zeros

Nonillion - 1 + 30 zeros

Decillion - 1 + 33 zeros