{"id":17225,"date":"2018-04-08T10:15:48","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T14:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wyliecomm.com\/?page_id=17225"},"modified":"2024-01-16T09:25:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T13:25:51","slug":"quotes-on-reader-centric-communication","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wyliecomm.com\/writing-tips\/persuasive-writing\/guidelines-for-reader-centered-communication\/quotes-on-reader-centric-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Quotes on reader-centric communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

What writers & others say<\/h2>\n

\"Quotes

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“It’s not ‘who, what, when, where, why and how,’ it’s ‘YOU, what, when, where, why and how.\u2019”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Anita Allen, communicator at Sabre Travel Solutions<\/h6>\n
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“When are you going to realize that if it doesn\u2019t apply to me, it doesn\u2019t matter?”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Candice Bergen on “Murphy Brown”<\/h6>\n
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“Failure in communications generally comes about because of our inability to reverse roles \u2026 to put ourselves in the position of those we seek to communicate with.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 John F. Budd Jr., chairman, The Omega Group<\/h6>\n
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“I-mail: Email \u2026 that excessively uses the pronoun ‘I.\u2019”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 BuzzWhack<\/h6>\n
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\u201cThere is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. By making the other person want to do it.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cRemember 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\u2019s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one\u2019s neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cIf salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they won\u2019t need to sell us. We\u2019ll buy. And customers like to feel that they are buying \u2014 not being sold.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cPeople are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves \u2014 morning, noon and after dinner.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201cThe 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 \u2018I.\u2019 \u2018I.\u2019 \u2018I.\u2019 It was used 3,900 times in 500 telephone conversations. \u2018I.\u2019 \u2018I.\u2019 \u2018I.\u2019 \u2018I.\u2019\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em><\/h6>\n
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\u201c\u2018Talk to people about themselves,\u2019 said Disraeli, one of the shrewdest men who ever ruled the British Empire, \u2018and they will listen for hours.\u2019\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Dale Carnegie, author, How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em><\/h6>\n
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“There are two steps to selling something: 1) Find out the prospect’s problem. 2) Solve it.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Al Cimberg, sales expert<\/h6>\n
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\u201cStudy your reader first \u2014 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.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Robert Collier, author, The Secret of the Ages<\/h6>\n
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\u201cJust showing your latest\/best\/most relevant work in a new business meeting is like showing up at a doctor\u2019s office with a broken arm and the doctor starts showing you x-rays of other patients he\u2019s helped. Make the new business meetings, pitches and introductions more about your prospect and less about you.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Kevin Dugan on his blog, Strategic Public Relations<\/h6>\n
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“Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Gene Fowler, American journalist, author, dramatist<\/h6>\n
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\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow<\/em><\/h6>\n
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“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 \u2014 without ever knowing why.<\/h5>\n
“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.<\/h5>\n
“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.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Killian and Company<\/h6>\n
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\u201cPut yourself on the other side of the paper.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Rebecca Kratzer, coordinator, annual giving, Geisinger Health Systems Foundation<\/h6>\n
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“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.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Frank Romer, business success author<\/h6>\n
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“Marketers don’t understand buyers, the problems buyers face, or how their product helps solve these problems. That’s where the gobbledygook happens \u2026 When you write, start with your buyers, not with your product.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 David Meerman Scott, author of Cashing In With Content<\/em><\/h6>\n
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“People spend 99 percent of the time thinking about themselves. Actually, that’s probably a little low.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Liam Scott, Toronto-based speechwriter, quoted in Speechwriter’s Newsletter<\/em><\/h6>\n
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“Keep in mind that you\u2019re more interested in what you have to say than anyone else is.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Andy Rooney, humorist and commentator on “60 Minutes”<\/h6>\n
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“There’s a huge difference between would you like to see my vacation photos & may I see your vacation photos?”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Alan Weiss, consultant, speaker and author<\/h6>\n
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\u201cWrite about the reader. Stop writing about us and our stuff<\/em>.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications<\/h6>\n
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\u201cStop WeWe-ing on your reader. Most people don\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications<\/h6>\n
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“Writing about us and our stuff is the ultimate selfie. Looks like your company bought one of the sticks.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ann Wylie, writing coach, Wylie Communications<\/h6>\n
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“Your organization isn’t the topic. Your products and services aren’t the topic. The topic<\/em> isn’t the topic. The reader is the topic.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Ann Wylie, president, Wylie Communications<\/h6>\n
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“You’ll go ‘We, We, We’ all the way home \u2014 without the contract.”<\/h5>\n
\u2014 Wylie Communications\u2019 client<\/h6>\n
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