Coyote Theory consists of eight lessons and a wrap-up. This essay reprints the introduction to "Lesson One."
Lesson One
Effective writers always keep their eyes on the reader. The writer is only marginally
important to the reader, but the reader is always very important to the writer.
Lesson Two
Fear prevents most readers from acting on new ideas. Overcoming that fear is the
writer’s primary goal.
Lesson Three
Be true to yourself.
Lesson Four
Push the reader’s “emotion buttons.”
Lesson Five
Craft your message to motivate the reader.
Lesson Six
Grab the reader’s attention right at the beginning.
Lesson Seven
Tear down barriers that separate writer from reader.
Lesson Eight
Stick tight. Once you catch your reader, never let go.
Keep Your Eye
on the Reader
The following essay is an excerpt from Persuasive Writing, The Coyote Theory Guide to Powerful Writing by Paul Clark Landmann.
Effective writers always keep their eyes on the reader. The writer is only marginally important to the reader, but the reader is always very important to the writer.
Persuasive writing never loses sight of the reader. That is why Coyote Theory puts their readers in focus, and keeps them there.
Putting a twist on the old admonition a mentor of mine loved to repeat “public relations practitioners should be heard but not seen.” It is a good rule for all of us who work with words.
The writer is a messenger and a motivator, but not a player. The writer is never a player when writing. The writer is only a technician when writing. Writers, plumbers, dentists, and lion tamers are all technicians. Customers do not care about a plumbers’ “plunger technique” as long as the plumber repairs their plugged drain. Patients do not care about the details of a dentist’s training or professional standing as long as the dentist pulls the impacted tooth without inflicting too much pain. Lion tamers are successful if they do not lose their heads.
Lion tamers lose their heads when they fail to remember “what is in it for the lion!” Most writers lose their heads for the same reason, usually in the first paragraph.
Often, writers lose their heads because they think they are smarter than their readers, and they tell their readers as much. Other writers think they must impress their readers because they believe they are not as smart as their readers. Many psychologists have said that an inferiority complex is just the flip side of a superiority complex. Our convoluted reasoning goes something like this, “We pretend that we are perfect because we think we should be, but know we are not.” Whatever the cause of our arrogance, the self-important writer is like the man Robert Louis Stevenson described, “Who has brains enough to make a fool of himself."
When we sell our ideas, we must think about the reader first; the product or idea, second; and ourselves, last–if at all. Writers should start by evaluating their audience.
Writing for the reader is the most difficult lesson for most of us to learn. The concept is too simple for most of us. The best salespeople know how to “read” their customers. Sales are not about the seller. It is not even very much about product. It is about the customer. Forget about yourself, focus on your reader.
“Lion tamers lose their heads when they fail to remember “what is in it for the lion!” Most writers lose their heads for the same reason, usually in the first paragraph.”
A Guide to Persuasive
Writing
Most reasonably intelligent people can master the art of writing persuasively. Paul Clark Landmann shows you how to make “eye contact” with your readers and much, much more.
Coyote Theory is a 20,000-word manual packed with useful tools to make your writing sing. Completely revised and expanded in late 2004, Coyote Theory is guaranteed to make you a better–and more effective–writer if you apply just one or two of the hundreds of tips.
That is a lesson Willy Loman never learned. The tragic central character in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman never learned that salesmanship was more than pitching a product:
"Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to life, He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back–that's an earthquake.”
How many ads have you read that were “out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine?” How many TV commercials? How many sales letters? How many business proposals? How many sermons? All of the bad ones, all of those that did not work!
Willy sold himself. He put himself at the center of the sale and, when that was not good enough anymore, Willy’s sales career ended. He never learned to put the customer first. In fact, most writers do not learn it. Only good writers learn it.
Two of the reasons most of us have trouble with this lesson are 1) fear of rejection and 2) selective vision.
Fear of rejection is our first, and biggest, enemy. Persuasive writing blends psychology with art. Fear of making mistakes and fear of humiliation are neurotic phobias. Sometimes fear overwhelms us. It paralyzes our thoughts and it prevents us from acting. Involuntarily, we revert to old habits which either worked for us in the past or we thought worked for us in the past. Because of fear, we dawdle to the last minute and then rush to finish work that demands more care. The result is sloppy, incomplete, imperfect, and ineffective work. Reverting to old habits is many times worse. Willy relied on his shoeshine and a smile which, early in his career, projected confidence and trust. But Willy’s hat is stained and his confidence is gone by the time we meet him.
Clichés are a writers’ shoeshine. Mediocre writers lard their prose with hyperbole and boasting. Technicians pepper their copy with jargon. Academicians retreat behind artificial, contrived sentences. They all hide behind their clichés, and they never make eye contact!
We write to communicate; we do not write to hide. Writing enables us to provide our audience with more complete or more accurate information. Often, writing allows us to reach larger audiences. Writing allows us to “get it right” without stumbles or forgetfulness. But writers still need to make eye contact to communicate effectively.
That last sentence is the key to effective written communication. It is a lesson that should be tattooed on the inside of our eyelids. Memorize this sentence, “Writers need to make eye contact to communicate effectively.” Writers are technicians, neither superior nor inferior to their readers. They must be able to write as if they are looking their reader right in the eye.
Become a more effective writer this week!
Of course, writing as if they are looking their reader right in the eye demands a different approach to writing than most writers have. “Old Coyote” can show you how to do it, and Web Landmann guarantees that you will succeed. You have nothing to lose, except some bad writing habits. Available as a PDF download to save you money.
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