When Not to Put Yourself In Your Audience's Shoes

“Put yourself in the audience’s shoes.” How many times have you heard that? Supposedly, if you put yourself in the audience’s shoes, you can communicate better with them. It seems like good advice, doesn’t it? It’s especially popular among marketers - copywriters in particular. But this well-intended advice may do more to harm than good.

Let me explain…

Being a bit of a musician, I occasionally perform in front of an audience. I’m willing to do it from time to time, but it’s not really my favorite thing to do. And to tell the truth, I used to be terrified of playing on front of people. I dreaded performances. Whenever I was obligated to play for a group of people – regardless of how large the group was – it might as well have been my execution… I was so scared.

The reason I was so scared of playing was really very simple. I didn’t want to mess up. I dreaded the thought of making a fool of myself. But as time went on, I seemed to make more and more mistakes. That made me even more terrified.

Looking back, I now realize what the problem was.

You see, I’ve always tried to think from the audience’s position – and look at things from their perspective. I’ve tried to visualize how I’m perceived. I’ve tried to picture exactly what my instrument is sounding like to the people listening. I’ve tried – as much as possible – to mentally put myself in the audience… watching myself play.

That seems like it would be helpful. But there’s a problem.

Musicians - just like anyone else - have a limited amount of focus. They can choose to use that focus as they wish. They can put their focus completely into playing music. They can focus on acting as maniacal as possible – as we’ve seen in more recent times. They can focus on what the audience is thinking – as I did. Really, there’s any number and combination of things a musician can put his focus on while playing.

Here’s the problem.

Whenever you focus more on one thing, you tend to focus less on another. So as I started to focus more on what my audience was thinking, I started focusing less and less on my playing. As a result, my playing started to suffer. I made more mistakes. The music seemed forced. And I became more uncomfortable playing.

But the worst part is, I thought my problem was that I wasn’t putting ENOUGH focus on the audience. So I started trying harder to see myself from the audience’s perspective. Subsequently, I put even less focus on my playing. And that made things even worse. It became a downward spiral.

I forget exactly when I discovered my mistake. I don’t think there was ever was any one “Ah-ha” moment. It was a gradual realization… slowly making itself evident over time.

But I finally realized my problem. I finally realized that putting myself in my audience’s shoes doesn’t work. It just does not work.

Well, wait a minute. Let me make something clear…

To put yourself in the audience’s perspective is actually great. But only if you do it BEFORE OR AFTER you perform, write, or whatever it is you’re doing. Putting yourself in the audience’s shoes beforehand gets you psyched up for what you’re about to do – and how you should best approach it. Putting yourself in the audience’s shoes afterward helps you to edit your writing or improve your performance.

But putting yourself in the audience’s shoes while performing or writing (or whatever you’re doing) doesn’t help ANYTHING. Instead, it redirects your focus… damaging what you’re trying to accomplish.

Think about it this way. Suppose you’re on a date. And suppose that during conversation you suddenly become very self-conscious. As a result, you suddenly start trying to control your gestures, your body language, and your tone of voice - trying to create good image - trying to think about how you appear to the other person. In other words, you’re focusing on anything and everything BUT your communication.

What happens in a situation like that?

Do you think the person you’re “communicating” with feels like you’re paying attention? Do they feel that you’re being sincere? Or do they feel that your mind is elsewhere?

This relates just as much to copywriting. Think about it. You have an audience you’re trying to communicate with. And more importantly, you’re trying to get them to do something – buy what you’re selling. As we all know, persuading someone to buy something is a very delicate business. There are a lot of things to think about… Where the prospect is, mentally… How much the prospect knows about the product... How the prospect is likely to react to different headlines and leads…. How the prospect is likely to react to the price of the product.

And then there are the technical details… How to write a powerful headline… How to write a great lead... How long to make the sales letter… How to best write the offer…

Of course, these are all important things to keep in mind. Not only important, absolutely crucial. But they’ll all fail if the prospect isn’t able to trust you and feel comfortable with you. It’s as simple as that. And as I’ve shown you, focusing on the intricacies of written communication while writing will result in the prospect feeling uncomfortable and distrustful.