John E. Fike Copywriting Services; Copy, Content & Custom Publications for Companies Who Make Life Worth Living

Be Clear on Your Goals

Reading a recent entry on Seth Godin's blog: Are we solving the same problem? It struck a chord with me. Everyone sees things through a different perspective. When you ask someone to solve a problem or give their opinion without defining the desired result or the kind of opinion you're seeking, then you get an answer based on the person's own motivations.

For example, I recently wrote an award entry for a client. They are trying to win an award based on a project they completed. When I finished with the first draft, my contact with the client passed it out to everyone who worked on the project to get their opionion. There are several things wrong with that approach, but the biggest one was that my contact didn't qualify the kind of opinion they were looking for. What we needed was a review of the facts to make sure nothing was misrepresented or forgotten. What we got back were largely comments on the literary style of the entry. And one crew leader was just about outraged at how little of his crew's "passion" for the project came through.

While grand literary style and a story of "passion" would make a great magazine article or short story that would attract readers, that wasn't our goal. We had to win a contest based on four distinct criteria. The entry would win only if we showed how my client excelled in all four criteria. Unfortunately for a certain crew leader, "passion" wasn't one of the criteria. It certainly was an important part of what made that project important to the client and their customer, but it wasn't what the judges were looking at.

Actually, the draft that was passed around at my client's office was the second draft. The first one I wrote with the kind of style and grandeur that makes a good profile or story. Unfortunately it came out twice as long as the contest allowed. So what got cut? Everything that didin't directly support my client's case for winning according to the criteria. That meant that some of the literary grandeur that folks in the office would have liked to see got sacrificed. I kept the language simple and easy to understand so that judges could clearly understand the excellence of the project, but to get all the facts and supporting information in there it wound up reading more like a hard news story than an article fit for The New Yorker magazine.

It's not that the feedback we got was "wrong". It's just that they didn't know the criteria by which they needed to judge the piece. Once I reminded the client of the particular goal we were trying to achieve and what we needed to do achieve that goal, we found that we were actually on the same page.

So, the lesson is, when you are asking for feedback, opionions or solutions, make sure that everyone understands what the goal is and what is required to get there.

Labels: , , ,

posted by John E Fike @ 6:01 AM,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home