What writers & others say
“It’s not ‘who, what, when, where, why and how,’ it’s ‘YOU, what, when, where, why and how.’”
— Anita Allen, communicator at Sabre Travel Solutions
“When are you going to realize that if it doesn’t apply to me, it doesn’t matter?”
— Candice Bergen on “Murphy Brown”
“Failure in communications generally comes about because of our inability to reverse roles … to put ourselves in the position of those we seek to communicate with.”
— John F. Budd Jr., chairman, The Omega Group
“I-mail: Email … that excessively uses the pronoun ‘I.’”
— BuzzWhack
“There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. By making the other person want to do it.”
— Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People
“Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems. A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one’s neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa.”
— Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People
“If salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they won’t need to sell us. We’ll buy. And customers like to feel that they are buying — not being sold.”
— Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People
“People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves — morning, noon and after dinner.”
— Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People
“The New York Telephone Company made a detailed study of telephone conversations to find out which word is the most frequently used. You have guessed it: it is the personal pronoun ‘I.’ ‘I.’ ‘I.’ It was used 3,900 times in 500 telephone conversations. ‘I.’ ‘I.’ ‘I.’ ‘I.’”
— Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People
“‘Talk to people about themselves,’ said Disraeli, one of the shrewdest men who ever ruled the British Empire, ‘and they will listen for hours.’”
— Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People
“There are two steps to selling something: 1) Find out the prospect’s problem. 2) Solve it.”
— Al Cimberg, sales expert
“Study your reader first — your product second. If you understand his reactions and present those phases of your product that relate to his needs, then you cannot help but write a good letter.”
— Robert Collier, author, The Secret of the Ages
“Just showing your latest/best/most relevant work in a new business meeting is like showing up at a doctor’s office with a broken arm and the doctor starts showing you x-rays of other patients he’s helped. Make the new business meetings, pitches and introductions more about your prospect and less about you.”
— Kevin Dugan on his blog, Strategic Public Relations
“Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.”
— Gene Fowler, American journalist, author, dramatist
“The mistake most blogs and books make: they are about the writer, not the reader. The things that fascinate you about your life are almost always banal to strangers. Strangers want to read about their lives, not yours. And guess what? The same thing is true about prospects and customers and just about anything you can imagine marketing.”
— Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow
“While you may not recognize the name, you’re familiar with the Mimi Syndrome if you’ve ever been a parent, or suffered through the worst kind of blind date. Thanks to Mimi, many businesses have had zillions of dollars in sales vanish — without ever knowing why.
“The Mimi Syndrome happens because We want to talk about Our product, the result of Our superior process where We have developed the latest greatest breakthrough that We Us Me Me Me Me Me Me Us We have seen in Our lifetime. The reader/listener/watcher checked out early, because your 175-Years-of-Quality-Service-Solutions never even began to talk about the pebble in her shoe.
“Don’t assault your customers. Seduce them. Speak to their needs. Make them want you. Need you. When they pull out their wallets, the all-night romp of consumer satisfaction will ensue.”
— Killian and Company
“Put yourself on the other side of the paper.”
— Rebecca Kratzer, coordinator, annual giving, Geisinger Health Systems Foundation
“People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.”
— Frank Romer, business success author
“Marketers don’t understand buyers, the problems buyers face, or how their product helps solve these problems. That’s where the gobbledygook happens … When you write, start with your buyers, not with your product.”
— David Meerman Scott, author of Cashing In With Content
“People spend 99 percent of the time thinking about themselves. Actually, that’s probably a little low.”
— Liam Scott, Toronto-based speechwriter, quoted in Speechwriter’s Newsletter
“Keep in mind that you’re more interested in what you have to say than anyone else is.”
— Andy Rooney, humorist and commentator on “60 Minutes”
“There’s a huge difference between would you like to see my vacation photos & may I see your vacation photos?”
— Alan Weiss, consultant, speaker and author
“Write about the reader. Stop writing about us and our stuff.”
— Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications
“Stop WeWe-ing on your reader. Most people don’t like it.”
— Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications
“Writing about us and our stuff is the ultimate selfie. Looks like your company bought one of the sticks.”
— Ann Wylie, writing coach, Wylie Communications
“Your organization isn’t the topic. Your products and services aren’t the topic. The topic isn’t the topic. The reader is the topic.”
— Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications
“You’ll go ‘We, We, We’ all the way home — without the contract.”
— Wylie Communications’ client
How do you write messages that readers want to read?
If you want to Catch Your Readers, you need to think like a reader. Then you need to use the bait your reader likes, not the bait you like.
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