This comes under the heading Seldom Asked Questions. SAQ.
“Which writers have influenced you the most?”
Tom O’Neill of Exodus Capital Advisors was the first client who had ever asked me that.
He explained that it was a good way to gauge a writer’s mindset and approach. And any writer who couldn’t point to role models and heroes was no student of the craft.
Luckily, I was able to rattle off a few idols on the spot. Enough to convince Tom I was no dilletante.
Since then, I have thought more about who has shaped how I build content for clients. Just in case anyone else brings up the question again.
The big guns, as I see them:
How to be interesting
Malcolm Gladwell, author of the Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and regular pieces in the New Yorker. I study the way he makes a case with a deft combination of story and fact. He gets you nodding, “Yes, yes, that makes sense. That’s intriguing.” He has a knack for finding a fresh take on topics covered many times before. Which is precisely what the best content should be doing. If we’re not fascinating, we’re not selling anything. The content world needs more Malcolm Gladwells.
Want people on the edge of their seats? Use bold visuals, skip all that text. And reveal a new slide every few seconds.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. His keynotes and product introductions are grand theater. A Jobs presentation becomes an event, buzzed about in advance, covered live on the Web, sound-bited on the Today show, and made available as streaming video later. (Anybody see what Dell or HP launched last week? Me neither.)
His style: Be casual, personable (though meticulously prepped and rehearsed). Love what you’re talking about. Weave in suspense. Unfold the story. Pause. Reveal. Build to a big finish. Leave out the crap.
And punctuate it all, every twenty seconds or so, with an elegantly minimal slide.
Whenever I take a lumbering, text-heavy PowerPoint and give it this treatment, the piece immediately takes wing. The effect is startling. And clients think me a genius.
For examples of other captivating presentations, see the TED Talks. And Garr Reynolds’s Presentation Zen.
Enthusiasm works.
Tom Peters. Okay, he overuses ellipses and dashes and overdoes the ALL CAPS. His sentences often take way too long to get where they’re going. But boy, his enthusiasm and velocity trumps it all. He pulls you along with sheer backdraft. The spit is flying, but you’re listening. And it sticks with you for weeks. Or even decades.
David Ogilvy, the late founder of Ogilvy and Mather advertising, famous for his Rolls-Royce and Hathaway shirts campaigns. He could make you ache for a product with just a few fascinating facts, and nary a touch of marketingspeak or infomercial-style hype. That’s a skill rarely seen nowadays.
"You cannot bore people into buying."
When I feel my copy getting off kilter, I reread Ogilvy on Advertising for a few minutes. That always puts things right again.
Readers Digest. The publication feels dated now, but they have a way of enticing you into their articles with irresistible headlines. And the prose is effortless to read. Like walking downhill with a tailwind. As a kid I used to read dog-eared copies of the Digest in the barbershop while waiting my turn.
Esther Benz, high school English teacher, New Providence, New Jersey. Retired 1981. She was BS-proof, merciless, (‘this is FLAB!’), but praised you to the skies when you got it right. She looks over my shoulder still.
Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire, the Legend of Bagger Vance, the War of Art, among others. He brings you into a story and keeps you there, without a hint of artifice. Very natural.
Elmore Leonard. I confess I don’t like his crime novels much. But I love his quote: “If it sounds too much like writing, cut it out.” And, “Leave out the parts that everyone skips.” Which goes in spades for marketing stuff.
John Caples, an old-school copywriter (Tested Advertising Methods). Simple ideas, simple language, zero extraneous matter. His claims and promises would never pass Legal today, but the approach still holds.
James Patterson, thriller novelist. Say what you will about his literary merits, but he knows how to pull you into a story and keep you there. Short chapters, too, make you turn pages.You won’t remember the story a month from now, but for the moment you’re in deep.