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Walter’s Rule #147
In a discussion with quite a bright guy himself, I was talking with my good friend Kyle McFarlin (and check out his site The Underlying Blog — your IQ will increase by several points just by doing so!), and we were kicking around the nature of brilliance and how it manifests . . . or fails to.
We were talking about some frustratingly brilliant people we know and I related my clash with an (allegedly) brilliant algebra teacher in junior high and the last thing I said to him before I was forever thrown out of his class.
And I repeated that line to Kyle to prove my point. The “you” in the next line is directed at the algebra teacher, not Kyle.
“If you’re so #$%& brilliant, they why can’t you explain it in simple terms?!”
Believe me, the stunned look on the teacher’s face and cheer that went up behind me as I was marched off to the principal’s office was worth it.
The radio edit version of that is: “If they’re really that smart, they can explain it simply enough so everyone can understand.”
And that became Walter’s Rule #147.
And there’s a reason I wanted to bring that up because it concerns jargon and how it’s used, sometimes unconsciously, but more often deliberately to create a gap between them and you.
When’s the last time you said to someone, “Gee, can you say that in a more convoluted, incomprehensible way?”
Rarely, right? More often you’ll say, “Can you say that more simply?” Or my personal favorite: “What’s the English version of what you just said?”
See, it’s not true what they say. I do know how to win friends and influence people .
Remember, “If they’re really that smart, they can explain it simply enough so everyone can understand.”
Now . . . what does that have to do with writing effective sales copy? With marketing? With increasing revenues and responses?
By Walter |
Topics: Client Top Secret, Inside The Mind, Pet Peeves, Walter's Rules |