Are You a Thinker or a Feeler?
My friend John Agno recently published this review of
personality types in his Coach2coach newsletter
(johnagno@signatureseries.com).
I think it contains important information to consider when
writing your ezine to attract clients.
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The Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory is a method for
helping people match their communication styles to others’ personalities.
Understanding Myers-Briggs allows you to foster the kind of interpersonal
climate that paves the way toward better understanding.
One of the four Myers-Briggs dichotomies is:
Thinking/Feeling—that people use to assess their preferred
ways of communicating, processing information, analyzing that
information, and coming to a decision.
The population is evenly divided between thinkers and
feelers. Two-thirds of men are thinkers and two-thirds of
women are feelers, but 70% to 90% of businesspeople are
thinkers, regardless of gender. The name of this
dimension is slightly misleading. Thinkers aren’t unfeeling,
and feelers aren’t fuzzy-headed. Both process information carefully.
The difference is in what facts each group considers to be most salient.
Thinkers are drawn to objective information. They tend to
overlook personal factors in favor of logical analysis. To assess a
situation, they detach and observe. In contrast, feelers are drawn to
subjective information. They focus on human values and the impact a
decision will have on the individuals involved. A feeler will think about
a situation by throwing herself into it and getting the “inside”
perspective.
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Have you ever read an ezine and got a queasy feeling of
disgust? Maybe it was just too subjective, airy-fairy and
touchy-feely? If so, then you may be like me, a
thought-processing person who wants facts and data when
reading an ezine. I like to cite studies whenever I write
about a concept, sort of like to prove my point.
But my readers aren’t all like me! (Well, on second
thought—process of elimination—maybe the ones that still
subscribe actually are. Probably all the “feelers”
unsubscribed a while back!)
It is important to appeal to your readers. If half of them
are feeling-types, and half thinking-types, you may have to
step back and look at how your writing reflects your own
preferences. You probably need to modify some of your
phrasing to include the people NOT like you.
Like the MBTI information (taken from Financial Planning,
March 2003) included above, feelers aren’t fuzzy headed at
all. You can appeal to their emotions, their sense of
caring, and write an ezine that is well-rounded and appeals
to both the feelers and the thinkers.
My challenge to you: take a look at the last ezine you wrote.
(You are writing one regularly, aren’t you- yes yes of course
you are…)
In what ways does it reflect your personality type? How can
you rewrite it to appeal to both feelers and thinkers?
Let me know how you do, just press the comment button
below and comment… (Or, for all you ‘feelers’ out there,
let me know you care! I love you, really, I just can’t express it!)
Patsi
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