Newsletter Contents

• Rappers are Smart
• Quick Quirky Quotes
• Our Blog
• Free Stuff!

Rappers are Smart
Play to Your Audience
by Jerry Hocutt

The surest way to fail is to try and please everyone. – Bill Cosby

I hate rap music.  Maybe it’s because I don’t understand a word they’re saying.  Of course, I don’t like opera and I can’t understand them either.  I think rap is secretly opera with and attitude.

But rappers are smart.  They play only to their audience.  They don’t try to convert people like me.  They let their audience find them.  Rappers are smart.  Regardless of what I think or say about them, they’ll continue to make their music(?).  They love what they do.  Their audiences love them for doing it.  My criticism means nothing to them.  And I wouldn’t expect it to.

Rappers have a lesson for us.  Know your audience.  Play to them.  Forget your critics.  I think Liberace was the first entertainer who got it right when the critics constantly tried to humiliate him.  “Yeah, I cry all the way to the bank.”  For those of you too young to know who Liberace was, think of Richard Simmons with a candelabra.  (I didn’t like Liberace either, but he merrily tinkled his tunes to the bank.)

Sales rule

One of the rules of sales is to know your audience.  Not everyone is a prospect.  In sales, the more specific you are about who makes up your audience the quicker the sales will come.  Who’s your audience?  Get out your customer records and start profiling.  The Mackay 66 (http://harveymackay.com/pdfs/mackay66.pdf) is such a profile.  Then find people who look exactly like them.  Where do they live?  Work?  Play?  What do they read?  What do they buy?  What’s their income?  What kinds of entertainment do they like?

Many companies have services or products that the entire world should be using.  But one of the best things a salesperson can do is to narrow the world down into maybe ten zip codes.  By having a less intimidating territory to work, you’ll learn more about your audience, their whims, and their buying patterns.

One of the criteria I look for in a buyer is their personality.  Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.), the Father of Medicine, was the first to identify the four basic personality types: Driver, Analytical, Amiable, and Expressive.

Every person has one cross-personality they have difficulty dealing with.  For example, Drivers find it very difficult to sell to the Analyticals.  Drivers hate detail, but Analyticals love it.  If I’m a Driver I have to either learn to deal with detail when selling to Analyticals, or hire someone who can. 

But it’s still not the Analyticals who are at odds with the Drivers.  It’s the Amiables who drive the Drivers over the cliff.  If I’m a Driver and my service is for an audience of Amiables, my options are simple: change, adapt, or hire any of the other three personalities to hold hands with the Amiables.  A Driver trying to sell to an Amiable is like a rapper trying to sell to a redneck.

Don (the “voice of God”) LaFontaine – the movie trailer guy

Are you familiar with voice-over actors?  These are the “announcers” you hear but never see on the TV and radio commercials.  You see a slick ad for the new Lexus and hear the soothing voice in the background touting the luxury and class that can be yours.  The voice-over actor has a targeted audience and his or her calm, confident, soothing voice was hired specifically to appeal to that very narrow audience.  (Why rappers don’t do Lexus commercials?)

On the flip side, during your ball game the screen comes alive with all those 20-somethings having fun and rollicking with their lite beers and intertwined with their “rowdy friends”.  The guttural, edgy, exciting voice you hear in the background was hired because that is the tone and delivery that appeals to the youngsters. 

Believe it or not, that may be the same voice-over actor doing both commercials.  But because of his professionalism, he’s able to change his tone of voice and delivery style for each specific audience. 

Once you know who your audience is, you’ll know how to deliver the most effective (i.e. believable) message.

But here’s something you may not know.  Advertisers work closely with marketers to find just the right voice-over actor for specific commercials.  They’ve even divided the four personality styles into ten sub-groups.

They found that different audiences respond to certain voices, delivery styles, and speed of delivery.  That’s why the voice for the Lexus is radically different than that for the beer.  The researchers even know the words that need to be said in order to motivate each of the ten groups to buy. 

Mom was right

That’s why it’s important to identify your audience.  For example, the Territory A group is concerned about social growth, they’re socially involved, and they’re networkers.  They’re motivated by newness, curiosity, and the unusual.  The tone of voice they best respond to is that of persuasion.

Territory C1 is loyal, duty bound, and conventional.  They’re motivated by belonging, stability, family, and comfort with the familiar.  They respond to the voice-over actor whose tone builds on trust.

Territory C4 is materialistic, seeks pleasure, and has a need for recognition.  They’re motivated by thrills, diversion, exhibition; they want to be entertained and they’re highly attracted to the “new”.  The tone of voice that stimulates and flatters is the one they respond best to.

The point?  Mom was right...you can’t please all the people all the time.  We don’t all speak the same language.  Find your audience, play to them, and appreciate them.  They’ll appreciate you.

Now HER, I Understand
“If I make a record I love, then somebody will like it.  Maybe not everybody, but that won’t matter.” – Norah Jones

Bummer
“Being an optimist after you’ve got everything you want doesn’t count.” – Kin Hubbard

It Just Feels Like It
“Fear is nothing more than a feeling....  You feel hot, you feel angry, you feel afraid.  Fear cannot kill you.” – Joel Gray as Chiun in Remo Williams, The Adventure Begins

Will Someone Please Just Stop Me?
“Insanity: knowing that what you’re doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can’t stop it.”  Elizabeth Wurtzel