Marcia Yudkin‘s The Marketing Minute newsletter refers to a story The New Yorker‘s cartoon editor Robert Mankoff told in his book, The Naked Cartoonist: A New Way to Enhance Your Creativity.
Robert Mankoff, cartoon once set out to find a cartoon that nearly everyone who had any sense of humor would find funny.
He sent what he thought was his own very best cartoon to 2,000 men and women, asking them to rate it from 1 (completely unfunny) to 10 (extremely funny). About 80%
rated Mankoff’s cartoon 7 or above, which delighted him. Yet some respondents gave it a 1.Mankoff threw up his hands, calling this item “the most highly rated cartoon for funniness that I ever did, or (sob) will probably ever do.”
Yudkin explains that members of your target market have many differences and they won’t think the same thing when looking at an item, marketing message or what-have-you. Yudkin says, “It’s foolhardy to aim at universal praise or acceptance.”
Jason Spector shares an insightful thought of the day relating to people trying to do everything. The point is that no matter how smart and nice we are, there’s always someone who won’t like you or your work.
I took a management class when I worked for a teleco. One of the tasks called for us to send notes to different colleagues and managers along with a form they could fill out and send back to the school. The form contains questions where the answer would be 1 through 5 plus it contained space for comments. What makes the process work well is that people filling out the form can remain anonymous — so they can give honest feedback without worrying about retribution.
The reviews matched for the most part. Not perfect, but in the general area — except one. It slammed my work and had all low scores. I couldn’t imagine how someone thought I did a terrible job.
Then there are the reviews I post on Amazon. In writing reviews, I make an effort to give the reader a good idea of what the book is about beyond the obvious and judge its quality. A recent book review currently has 3 out of 5 people find the review useful. I’d love to make it better — but how? Maybe I can’t make it better… maybe I simply won’t be able to please those two people.
I honestly like working with all my current clients. I’ve had a couple of gigs that looked perfect on paper and fit my background, but they were stressful experiences with little enjoyment. It’s that point again — you can’t please everyone. This applies to marketing efforts, reaching your target audience, the people you work with and for… almost everything we encounter in life.
And here’s a story of “The Old Man, the Boy, and the Donkey” that I read in Book Yourself Solid that explains this whole “can’t please everyone” concept — it also appears on many Web sites:
An old man, a boy and a donkey were going to town. The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked.
As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame the old man was walking and the boy was riding.
The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed positions.
Later, they passed some people that remarked, “What a shame, he makes that little boy walk.”
They then decided they both would walk! Soon they passed some more people who thought
they were stupid to walk when they had a decent donkey to ride. So, they both rode the
donkey.Now they passed some people that shamed them by saying how awful to put such a load on a
poor donkey.The boy and man said they were probably right, so they decide to carry the donkey. As they
crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal and he fell into the river and drowned.The moral of the story?
If you try to please everyone, you might as well kiss your ass goodbye!