Motivating your audience

A tenet of good advertising copy and selling technique is don’t talk about your company, your product and other things important to you. Talk about your prospects and what they’re interested in if you want to hook their attention and motivate them. I didn’t have to wait until college to learn this.

We were playing for the regional high school football championship. Half the sports writers were picking us to lose. The other half was picking us to die.

It was rumored that our opponent’s linemen were bred for gargantuan size in the deep forests of the state, and force-fed raw beaver a dozen times a day. This, combined with a strict regimen of rock quarrying, produced behemoths long on muscle and short of temper. I was a bit dubious about this, but it was hard to argue with the results.

Fall Friday afternoons usually culminated with a raucous pep rally. However, on this particular afternoon, the bleachers were strangely subdued. Our classmates could barely meet our eyes. I don’t think they expected to see us again.

Even the locker room was uncharacteristically quiet. Just before we took the field, the coach addressed us. “Men, you face one of the greatest hurdles you’ll ever come up against.” Now that’s a confidence builder.

“But, when you’re out there, I want you to think of the honor of our school and all that it has meant to you.” We loathed that dump.

“I want you to think of the pride of your classmates.” That didn’t sweeten the deal.

“And, I want you to think of me, the man who has taught you so much.” If there was one thing we detested more than the school, it was him.

Fortunately, the referees called him out into the hall before he propelled us into a deep state of clinical depression. Bobby Hart stood up in front of us.

Bobby was our young defensive coach. He had been a starting guard for a Division I college at a meager 202 pounds. 202 pounds of determined gristle.

Bobby stuck his head out into the hall to ensure no one was within earshot. Then, he turned to meet our eyes.

“Boys, I wish I could tell you how to beat Bishop Egan, but I just don’t know. What I do know is that if somehow, some way you figure it out, there won’t be a girl in all of Philadelphia that you can’t date.” (I cleaned that up a little.)

We roared out of that locker room and ripped Egan 41-0.

The lesson learned was to know your audience (in this case, teenage males) and what’s important to them.

Oh yes, the promised results? I later ran into Bobby and said that we hadn’t found his prediction to come entirely to fruition. He laughed. “Hey, I can’t coach you guys at everything.”