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"I think I can safely say that nobody
understands quantum mechanics."
Richard Feynman
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It probably doesn't really matter how I'm different so much as why it matters to you. But that is the subject of the next section. The "how," however, may give you some sense of what to expect when we work together.
That last phrase should give you a clue -- "we work together." Writing may be a solitary sport, but you're the reason I play it. We're in it together. It starts with what you want to accomplish and ends when we've accomplished it. I'm just the vehicle that channels everything you really really want -- and everything your customer or prospect really really wants -- and makes it appear on paper or on a screen in a way that delights you with how smart you are.
That's the key. Delight. Maybe that's the wrong word. Maybe it's too frivolous for what I really mean, but frivolous is the right attitude to bring to the table.
Because what we do should be fun.
Let me repeat that, . . . fun. Because I guarantee you, if you're not having any fun creating it, your audience is not going to have any fun reading it or watching it. (That doesn't mean, by the way, that you have to have giggle-silly fun (although you might), but rather the deep sense of joy you feel when you're doing something that's really hard really well.)
Does that matter? Only if you want to make a sale. Or build a relationship. Or persuade a crowd.
Communication is a two-way street. Just because you send it out doesn't mean they take it in. Hearing may be a passive process, but listening is an active one. And you want your audience to listen. That means you have to engage them. And that means to you have to, yes, delight them.
Here's the big bad secret of marketing communications: Nobody cares what you have to say.
Nobody is sitting out there wanting your product or service. They are not pining away their day waiting for the mail to arrive with the one magazine containing your ad that is going to change their life forever.
Most of what we do as marketing people doesn't matter to anyone but other marketing people -- and then only because they want to steal your idea if it's better than theirs or pat themselves on the back if it's not.
I don't mean to be blunt or simplistic (or both), but in the real world of the living, a lot of marketing is wasted.
BUT . . . some of it isn't. When what you're selling is relevant to your audience -- no, no, when it's relevant to one person in your audience -- then it can be the most extraordinary business tool ever invented that The Video Professor doesn't already have software for.
See, I believe in the power of words and in the magic of images. I believe that effective communication doesn't just happen, but that it is created, it is sculpted out of ideas and concepts and metaphors, out of facts and figures and flights of fancy. And when all those forces come together -- the forces of knowledge and analysis and synthesis and insight and inspiration -- when all those forces come together you end up with a piece of communication so compellingly powerful that your audience, your audience of that one individual to whom you've addressed your entire message, that person will sit up and take notice and say, Wow, I never thought of that! That is so cool! That is exactly what I need! I want that!
And you will have given them . . . delight.
And that's why I'm different. Because I expect nothing less from us working together.
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