Listen To This

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”

― Ralph G. Nichols

As a writer, especially a writer of advertising, one of the most powerful tools you have to help you improve the quality and effectiveness of the ads you write; is the ability to listen.  That may seem a little counter-intuitive since what you’re trying to do is improve as writer.  But listening can help you in several ways.

The first is way it can help is to give you an idea how real people talk…not the phony conversation you hear in 90 percent of all “conversation style” ads – but real conversation.  This is why one of my biggest pieces of advice to any writer who wants to improve, is to go out into the world – and just listen.  You can do it so easily.  When you’re shopping, going out with friends – in fact anytime you are out in public.  Shut up – and listen to people talk.  But don’t just listen.  Listen carefully and with your full attention.  Try to pick up cues about the way people talk.  I’m willing to bet you’ll notice people speak in incomplete sentences, run-on sentences and often incomplete thoughts.

The 2^nd thing you can pick from just listening, are some golden idea generators.  Truthfully, people say the darndest things – some of them truly brilliant.  Interesting and unusual turns of phrase, regional expressions and just plain unique thoughts that would be absolutely brilliant included in an ad.  They ring true with the listener because they are true – and they are most often not ad-speak so they stand out. 

But don’t trust your memory to record all these little gems of truth --- take a little pad of paper with you, or use one of the many apps that help you save notes on your cell.  I like to think I have a really good memory, but I know there are numerable times when I’ve been somewhere and heard a real gem of conversation – and thought “I’ve got to remember that one”…but I didn’t.  Who knows what great chances I lost to write ads that resonate and persuade – simply because I didn’t have a way to save those ideas for future use. 

  When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”

― Ernest Hemingway

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