Philip Yaffe asked:


What you are about to read will probably sound familiar. Indeed, it has been said many times before. However, I believe this formulation is original and may help you better apply it in your marketing communication. I immodestly call it Yaffe’s Law.

Yaffe’s Law

If you give people what they want first, then they are likely to accept anything else you want them to have. If you give them what you want first, chances are they won’t accept anything at all.

This is simply the classic principle that you should write from the reader’s point of view. And of course we all do this. Or do we?

How often do we interpret writing from the reader’s point of view as telling people: “What I have to say will be of benefit to you, so you should pay close attention”? When we do this, we are in fact writing from our point of view, not theirs. We may sincerely believe that our message is important and beneficial to our potential readers. But unless they agree—and agree almost immediately—the argument is lost.

We have all been guilty of such self-serving logic, and some of us do it more often than we would like to imagine. This is why this new formulation of the classic principle is potentially so useful. It forcefully reminds us that the readers are king. And like royalty they must be served first. Only after readers have sampled what we have on offer and find it palatable will they be truly inclined to listen to what we want to say. Assimilate it. And hopefully act on it.

The power of Yaffe’s Law lies in the fact that it is more than just a reminder. It is in fact a formula for ensuring that you will always write from the reader’s point of view. The trick is first to apply the formula, then check how well you have applied it—and, if necessary, reapply it.

The formula consists of three steps:

1. Determine what your readers really want to know, rather than what you want to say.

2. Give this to them–first.

3. Link what you want to say to what they really want to know.

Here are a few examples of how Yaffe’s Law works in practice.

Corporate Image Brochure

I was once commissioned to write a corporate image brochure. Two things are certain about these expensive, glossy booklets:

• Almost all companies of any size feel compelled to produce them.

• Virtually no one ever reads them.

By applying the formula, I created a brochure that people not only read. They called the company to request additional copies to give to friends, clients and professional colleagues!

How? I started from the assumption that no one would want to read anything about the company itself. So I asked myself: What things does the company do that people might really want to read about?

The company’s basic activity was producing vaccines. We are all naturally interested in health and virtually everyone knows the importance of vaccination. Here were already two things people might want to read about.

I was able to define seven areas of the company’s activities that could be naturally attractive to potential readers. However, it didn’t stop there. If all this interesting information were mixed up with company publicity, people would still probably not read it despite their natural inclination to do so.

The brochure was therefore laid out in seven double-page spreads, i.e. each of the seven areas of activity would be allotted two facing pages. However, the text would be rigorously segregated.

• Theory

The left side would be pure science; the company’s name would never be mentioned.

• Practice

The right side would explain how the company used the science to produce vaccines.

In short, I gave the readers what they wanted first (scientific information), then what the company wanted them to have second (company information).

When I proposed this to the company, the reaction was one of shock. “You mean people could read the brochure left side only and never ever see our name?” Exactly. But having learned about the basic science, wouldn’t they naturally want to learn how the company was using the science?

It took a while for management to accept the idea, but finally they did. When the brochure was ready, they couldn’t print enough of them.

Of course, not all companies would be suitable for this particular type of corporate image brochure. The important thing here is not the specific structure of this specific brochure, but the thinking process that led to it.

Stand Specific Video

I have done considerable work for pharmaceutical companies. This often included attending medical congresses. The first couple of times I did this, I noted something strange.

Pharmaceutical companies regularly erect exhibition stands to inform specialist doctors about new drugs and new applications of older drugs. I noted that many of the stands had several video monitors at their edges running videotapes. I observed the behavior of the doctors. The vast majority of them watched the tape for only a minute or two, then went away.

I asked an international marketing director why he was using these monitors and tapes. “To attract attention to our stand,” he said. “But the doctors stay in front of the monitor only a couple of minutes, then leave.” “Yes, but they were attracted to our stand. They know we are here and may come back.”

Frankly, this didn’t make much sense to me, but being young and inexperienced I accepted it. A couple of years later, when I felt I knew better what I was doing, I made a suggestion.

The videotapes ran anywhere from 10 – 15 minutes, then automatically recycled. The problem was, doctors who began watching after the tape had started never knew how long they would have to wait for it to finish and restart. Moreover, hardly any were likely to stand in front the video monitor for 15 minutes or more, even if they had known how long the presentation was.

The tapes were so long because they had not been conceived for medical congresses, but for a totally different purpose. They were used simply because they already existed.

I suggested making a “stand-specific videotape”, which would concentrate all key information about the company’s product into no more than 90 seconds. The fact that the tape ran only 90 seconds and then automatically recycled would be prominently posted, so that the doctors would know exactly how much time they were being asked to invest in it.

Consider the benefits:

1. Virtually all doctors who started to watch the tape stayed for it to recycle.

2. Because they got all the key points, many who wanted more detailed information immediately came onto the stand.

3. Those who were interested but were short of time probably came back later.

4. Even those who were not certain they were interested nonetheless went away with a complete picture of what the company’s product was all about.

In short, virtually 100% effectiveness!

There was no way to gauge the effectiveness of the previous system. But if it had been as much as 10%, I would have been shocked.

Interactive Stand Animation System

Another thing I noticed at medical congresses. Doctors would come onto the stand, pick up the brochures and scientific papers, put them in the congress bags, then move on to the next stand and do the same thing. The problem is, pharmaceutical companies could never really tell if doctors actually read the materials they take away. Estimates are that up 95% of it ends up in the hotel’s wastepaper basket without ever being opened.

Using the method of Yaffe’s Law, a few years ago a colleague and I created what we call the Interactive Stand Animation System. It is applicable not only to medical congresses, but virtually every other kind of professional trade show.

There is not room here to describe how it works, but I can tell you its results.

With this system, you are certain that your brochures, data sheets, etc., are being read, because people read them right in front of you on the stand. Even better, they actually study the documents, then discuss, debate and compare notes with their colleagues. At the same time, they provide you with valuable market research information that would be difficult to obtain in any other way. This can be very important for determining the best ways of presenting your products, which features to emphasis, which aspects may require change for later versions, etc.

I once described this system to the international marketing director of a major pharmaceutical company. He was very sceptical. Basically he said: “I have been in this business for nearly 30 years and I have attended dozens and dozens of medical congresses. What you are telling me just isn’t possible.” He maintained this position until he went to a congress where we were running the system for another company. His reaction: “I’ve seen it, but I still don’t believe it. I never would have imagined anything like this could possibly be true.”

But it was.

Editor’s Note

Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. In the “I” of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like A professional, his recently published book, is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).

Aaron Wilmont asked:

Congress will begin debating if a Consumer Financial Protection Agency should be created, that will help to make credit agreements transparent. Banks complain this would obstruct credit.

All in all, consumer credit counseling services are in demand for many people, because of the lack of understanding of the contracts involved. There have been attempts made to protect borrowers from the confusing agreements with some transparency and Congress is being urged by the present administration to make lenders agreements even more transparent.

On the whole, this is basically an attempt to make it less of a risk for people that are taking loans to understand clearly what is entailed in the loan agreement to the dismay of some lenders.

Having stated this, however, it should be duly noted that this is really not so very different from the Georgia predatory lending laws that were enacted from the fall of 2002 to the spring of 2003 that required investors that purchased secondary mortgages to hold liability for wrongdoing in the original loan.

The predatory lending law was later repealed as it was felt it might prevent credit for the borrower that needed it most. This is what banks are complaining of with the transparency from lenders that Congress is currently debating, the fear of choking off credit from those borrowers that need it.

Regarding the ethics of many of the credit counseling firms as well as the many free and non-profit Debt consolidation and debt help organizations, a good general rule of thumb to use regarding them is that when debt settlement appears too good to be true, in most cases it probably is, and the only way to be sure according to financial experts is seek the advice of a credit counselor prior to agreeing to pay an amount decided upon by a credit card company in general. This is your due diligence as a consumer, as well as good common sense overall.

In many cases with some adjustments to the person’s budget they are able to pay off the debt and when using a licensed credit counseling company it is possible for them to help make arrangement to have the payments lowered to an affordable price. Choosing this type of option rather than agreeing to a payment is the fact that it will not affect the person’s credit rating in the same manner.

There are actually many different places where it is quite possible to find reliable credit counseling companies like the website for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling or the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies. Just go to your favorite search engine and type those names in and their website url’s will appear along with other related resources. Just remember that when dealing with a non-profit credit counseling company a fee of approximately $20 per month can be expected and in cases where it is not possible to pay one of these companies the fee can be waived until the financial debt issues have been satisfied.

Chad asked:

When Cary Hicks lost his group health insurance earlier this year, he was floored by how much an individual policy could cost him because he is a diabetic.

“I was looking for anything,” said Hicks, who runs a small construction company. “I didn’t have insurance. I couldn’t afford any.”

That’s when Hicks discovered a new public health insurance program created by the North Carolina legislature. He now pays $550 a month in premiums — not cheap, but one-third of what a similar policy would have cost him in the private market.

As Congress debates how to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, North Carolina has dipped its toe into the public-option debate. Those who can’t find affordable health insurance from private companies because they have cancer, heart disease or other ailments now have the option of buying insurance from a high-risk pool set up by the state.

The program, called Inclusive Health, is little known. It has enrolled 2,050, only half of the number expected. But an estimated 1.4 million North Carolinians don’t have health insurance.

Inclusive Health is aimed largely at helping middle-class people who wake up one morning and find themselves without health insurance. Enrollees have either been turned down by private insurance companies, have lost their jobs or don’t have access to Medicare or Medicaid.

Hicks, 54, of Garner, said he had never given much thought to health insurance before this year. He was covered under his wife’s policy until January, when her employer, Corporate Press, a 40-year-old Raleigh printing company, went out of business. His construction company, which mainly builds fences, was too small to afford health insurance.

Bad luck sometimes comes in bunches. Hicks, who had not been hospitalized in 12 years, got an infected elbow in March, and the infection spread to his bloodstream. It put him the hospital for a week — a $12,000 out-of-pocket expense.

After a taste of being uninsured, Hicks went shopping for a health insurance policy. But because he is a severe diabetic, and therefore viewed as a high risk, the cost was prohibitive. Hicks said the state’s biggest insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, which has 86 percent of individual health insurance policies in the state, offered a policy with a $1,648 monthly premium. Hicks said that was unaffordable at a time when his household had gone from two incomes to one.

“We’ve got to eat, and we’ve got a house payment,” Hicks said. “It was just too much to handle.”

He saw a brief item in The News & Observer about the start of a new state health insurance program. Within a month, he had enrolled in Inclusive Health. His premium is $550 per month, and it covers his three daily shots of insulin, his blood pressure medicine and other medical costs.

North Carolina became the 35th state to create a high-risk health insurance plan in 2007, after a decade of debate in the legislature. It began offering insurance policies in January.

The measure had the backing of health groups, physicians, hospitals and insurance agents.

Adam Searing, a health-care consumer expert, said North Carolina’s high-risk pool is relatively industry friendly compared with those in other states. It includes a restriction that the risk pool charge premiums 175 percent of what private insurers charge, so as not to compete with private markets. And it provides no subsidies for the poor.

While it helps middle-class people without insurance, it is of little use

World Energy asked:

Carbon offsets have received some bad press of late, some of it deserved but much of it misdirected. This is due in part to the fact that there is no single prevailing quality assurance standard or government oversight of the voluntary emissions reductions (VER) market. However, the variety of standards means that there are high quality and lower quality offsets, and therein lies the challenge.

The truth is there are many praiseworthy carbon reduction projects. To increase the odds of selecting one, offset buyers must become educated consumers. Only through education can buyers ensure they are purchasing the right carbon commodity for them and avoid the traps that have tripped up the most well-intentioned greening efforts.

Buying Carbon Offsets: A Quick Primer

Carbon offsets serve a number of purposes. In the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), under the auspices of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), European companies can invest in emissions reduction projects in developing countries and claim the reductions as their own. That’s because greenhouse gases, unlike local pollutants such as mercury, are global: reducing one ton of CO2 in China has the same result as reducing one ton of CO2 in Germany.

Cognizant of this fact, and seeing an opportunity for wealthier countries to reduce their emissions at the lowest cost while simultaneously contributing to international development, the framers of the Kyoto Protocol included the CDM as a cost containment mechanism. In the US, where there is not yet a mandatory federal cap-and-trade scheme in place, offsets can be purchased by those companies that would like to voluntarily reduce their carbon footprint but find it too expensive to curtail their own emissions without an incentive to do so.

There are several key components of an offset that every potential buyer should examine closely before making a purchase:

Five Easy Pieces: Your Offset Quality Checklist

Verification standard: There are numerous standards under which an offset project can be certified (a good comparison of the major standards can be found here). The most important criterion for many buyers is additionality, or whether the project goes beyond business as usual. If you are about to invest in a project that can’t meet the additionality standard: think twice! A rigorous additionality requirement is the most important component of a high quality offset.

Project type: As with additionality, some standards are more selective of the types of emissions reductions projects they will certify. Moreover, from a public relations perspective, some project types can be more appealing to stakeholders than others. For example, while a wind farm and a landfill gas capture project may have identical emissions mitigation potential, the former might look better on your company’s annual report.

Project location: The geographic location of an offset project may be important to a company looking to make an investment in a strategically significant region. Where a project is based can also introduce geo-political risks. Knowing where a project is based can allow buyers to factor country risk into their pricing considerations.

Co-benefits: Some projects provide employment in the local area. Others create clean drinking water as a by-product. Auxiliary benefits such as these can make offset purchases more attractive.

Likelihood that offsets will be accepted under a future compliance regime: As the US Congress debates a mandatory, federal cap-and-trade scheme, there is speculation as to which offsets, if any, will be permissible in meeting compliance obligations. While there is no way to be certain that offsets from a particular project will be accepted, a good rule of thumb is that the more rigorous the protocol a project adheres to, the higher the probability that those offsets will be fungible.

These factors, amongst others, demonstrate the need for transparency in the offset marketplace. When buyers know exactly what they are buying – when they can see all project documentation and compare offsets from projects based on the criteria that matter most to them – they will be making an informed decision that they can defend to their stakeholders. And thankfully, opportunities to buy high quality offsets at a reasonable cost and in a transparent and liquid marketplace are closer than you might think.