Your audience is below average intelligence
Would you write that in your newsletter?
Your monthly blog?
I had the pleasure of reading this in an email that landed in my inbox this week.
Be careful whose opinion you expose yourself to.
Beware the expert from on high.
And besides the words of warning, if you take no other action from this newsletter, ask yourself this... who, in their right minds, would want to buy from someone who wrote that in an email?
Can you even imagine if next week my message read...?
“Afternoon guys,
“Well, you lot are pretty dim, so I guess I'd better shepherd you along to a place where you can write some copy.
“Writing begins with the alphabet. Repeat after me: A, B, C....”
How rude! How insulting. I should hope you'd slam the door in my face, bash the phone back into the cradle, and click that ‘unsubscribe’ button in a fury.
Why, why, why, anyone selling something, hoping to influence someone, or trying to HELP people, would take a condescending, arrogant, dismissive tone is totally beyond me. I do not get it in the slightest.
And yet I see it constantly. Expert after expert after expert runs down the competition, berates another industry, attacks others who practice what they do, lords it constantly over the great unwashed masses whose reek they cannot abide and yet whose presence they are forced to accept because if they don't, well, who the hell else is going to keep feeding their ego machine?
Don't do it. Please, for the love of all that’s pure, just don't
If you want to help people, help them. If you’re in the privileged position of surveying the world from your ivory tower, why don’t you sprinkle fairy dust from your window, rather than lobbing out the contents of last night’s chamber pot?
I read a fantastic quote a few years back from Baroness Karren Brady, which she attributed to her grandmother. It went a little something like this: “The only time you should look down on someone is when you are helping them up.”
Your audience is more intelligent, more switched on, and more tuned in to what they want and need than any of us will ever know. And the moment we forget that as business owners, and as people, we are in one nasty creek without a paddle.
“The customer is not a moron. She's your wife.”
- David Ogilvy
Your words matter,
Laura
The Weekly Writing Reflection
Welcome!
Each week I share an inspirational quote and a writing prompt. The idea is for you to spend a moment doing some active reflection through writing.
Something to calm the waters after the storm that rocked the boat…
“We’re not the survival of the fittest. We are the survival of the nurtured.”
- Louis Cozolino
And your writing prompt (should you want to use one):
My work nurtures...
What’s caught my eye this week
Each and every week I’ll share a few snippets of inspiration, thought-provocation and jubilation. Hand-curated delights, selected by yours truly, to stimulate your mind and soothe your soul.
A dash of nature this week. Deep breath in… and ouuuuuuuttttt. Ahhhhh.
Enjoy, lovelies.
This green and pleasant land – National Trust members (and non-NT’ers) this one’s for you. If you’ve spent any time exploring the gardens of this land, you’re sure to have enjoyed the work of Mr ‘Capability’ Brown at some point. The Shakespeare of gardens, so they say.
Sanctuaries of Silence – Just click the link. You won’t regret it. I can feel my heart rate drop at the thought of these blissful soundscapes.
Any secret fiction authors out there? – 10 writing rules, for clean, effective prose and impactful storytelling, courtesy of Elmore Leonard.
That's it for this week…
If you know someone who doesn’t like to be insulted (that’s everyone then), feel free to share this post with them. If they sign up, they’ll get a dose of weekly marketing advice and life lessons that sound like a human said it. And I won’t make any presumptions about their IQ either. Imagine that!
With love, sweets.