Most of my clients are native Hebrew speakers who come to me for their English language needs and generally accept my work without too many comments or changes. If there is criticism, it’s usually on a general level – tone, focus, style – rather than individual words and phrases.

My latest client is different. She picks me up on every word to make sure it exactly corresponds to what she wants. And if she doesn’t understand something, she asks.

That’s great for me, and ultimately for her. It’s another pair of eyes, another perspective, another critique of the copy picking up on nuances and expressions that I – too close to be objective – have missed out on.

Many experts recommend having a small group of people read your copy before you give it to the client and this is precisely why. When the mutual aim is to refine and improve the copy – when you and the client are on the same team – the ego factor and the “but I loved that alliteration or subtle wordplay” has to be put aside.

For this client, as for many others, it’s important that every word on her website is clear, easy to understand and relevant to her target market. No, it’s not a hard-sell sales letter where that’s all the more true, it’s just her website content.

But it shows she understands a very important and often overlooked fact. Your website is your store. Every paragraph is a sales pitch, adding information the reader wants, enhancing your own credibility, offering products of value. It may be called “content” but it’s really marketing and sales copy.

Here are a few examples of her astute comments on my work:

1. Don’t make it sound like the customer will have to make an effort. My client offers management courses and training and I’d written, “these intensive courses give you an in-depth grasp…” She told me to cut the word “intensive” because it implies hard work.

In a similar vein, we discussed the difference between seminars and workshops. Fairly interchangeable concepts, right? I think so. But which sounds like more effort? (clue: not seminars) So instead of calling them workshops, they’re now seminars.

And if you think seminars also sounds too academic and boring, then come up with a catchy name for these kind of sessions.

2. Always check to see what the most commonly known term is. I had used the terms “Duality Management” and “Dual Management” alternately. A quick Google search revealed that “Dual Management” is by far the most common.

Be consistent. Why did I alternate in the first place? Actually, I’d only used “Duality” once, but I’d missed it when I looked through the copy. It happens. I’m human too.

Once again it proves the usefulness of having someone else look over your work.

Another example was “managing change.” She told me the industry term was “change management” and indeed, there are over a billion entries for that on Google! Not such a big difference you may think, but if you are supposed to be presenting yourself (the client) as an expert in a particular field, you want to be using the jargon and the terms your target market is familiar with.

You want them to believe in you, trust you and ultimately work with or buy from you.

The copywriter may not always be proficient in industry jargon, so having someone who is look over the copy is invaluable.

Of course, if you have time, it is preferable to become familiar with specific jargon and research your target audience’s professional vocabulary before you start writing.

3. Keep it simple. The rule you’ll see in all writing advice! Because it’s so true. I’m usually good on this one but every so often an obscure or academic word slips into my copy and I pass it over thinking it’s perfectly understandable.

This time my client picked up on the word “congruent,” in the sense of “congruent with the company’s vision.” No matter how much you may like the word or how obvious you think the meaning is, is it commonly used by your target market? Nine times out of 10 you can always find a simpler word anyway. Here for example, I could have used “in line with,” “appropriate to,” “suitable for,” “in tune with,” etc.

Yes, the copywriter should go through his or her own copy with a fine toothcomb to pick out these and other possible trouble spots. Yes you should print out a hard copy and check that too. Some writers even read their work backwards so as to force themselves to consider every single word.

But there’s no substitute for another pair of eyes, another perspective, and if the client is on your side and understands the import of every word, you’ll get better and she gets what she wants.

I thought I’d finished with them years ago. I used to regularly get them after playing football (the authentic, original version), eating too much chocolate and on various other occasions.

A couple of tablets (not the Moses kind), a wet towel on the forehead and a good sleep usually did the trick.

As I grew up, my head obviously grew with me and developed a rather more selective attitude to these attacks. It just didn’t let them in. Well, every so often there was a minor headache here and there and sometimes the big, ugly Monster Migraine did return to haunt me, but nothing to write home about.

Yesterday, it caught me by surprise.

We were at a parents’ meeting at my son’s school, innocently listening to the principal, when suddenly it crept up on me and WHAM! Mike Tyson eat your heart out!

I asked someone for a couple of pills but they obviously weren’t strong enough. I told my wife we had to leave and that she had to drive (it must have been really serious if I let her drive.)

I felt groggy, nauseous, about to vomit and had a sledgehammer banging me over the right eye.

It was the longest drive home I’d had for a while (actually only 24 minutes.) I began by sitting in the passenger seat, asked my wife to stop along the way so I could get out and breathe some fresh air – and maybe vomit – leaning on the car to stop myself from falling, and then crashed onto the back seat, writhing from side to side as the car speeded along what seemed like an never-ending 4X4 mountain trail.

And even more scary, I couldn’t feel my extremities. The bottom of my legs and my hands were just numb. A heavy pins and needles sensation.

I made it home somehow (let’s applaud the driver here), and dived straight into bed, sweater, socks et al. There were apparently children screaming and punching each other in the kitchen but I was out for the count. Mr. Migraine had thoroughly beaten me this time.

To cut a long story short, I slept for 4 hours solid and woke up, still feeling a little tired but mercifully clear of heavy industrial tools in my head.

All pretty scary if you ask me.

I called my doctor this morning for a second opinion (mine was the first), and he said it’s nothing to worry about. Apparently retching and digital numbness are common migraine symptoms. To say I was calmed by that would be an exaggeration but still, it gets you thinking.

Was God trying to tell me something? Maybe I should remember I’m not in the driving seat? Maybe I’m thinking too much?

Is my body just telling me to slow down and relax? Good excuse to take the day off …

Or was it just a strange, inexplicable, one-off occurence?

Who knows? Could be all three.

At any rate, the medical establishment have yet to discover conclusive reasons or evidence for why migraines occur. Some people are affected by high winds, others by washing and drying their hair in a certain way and one New Zealand woman’s attacks are triggered by blue and pink neon lights and citric fruits (presumably not simultaneously.)

So I think I’m onto something here. How about initiating some research into whether parents evenings are a significant factor…

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”

“Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel you can trust them too – even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”

“A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops.” (Henry Adams)

“Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, “Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?”

“Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

“Most of us walk around as if we’re sleepwalking. We really don’t experience the world fully because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.”

“Love each other or perish.” (W.H. Auden)

“If you hold back on the emotions – if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them – you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.”

“…What she mostly wanted, he learned, was the same thing many people want – someone to notice she was there”… “the core of the problem… human beings wanting to feel they mattered.”

“We all know how to be a child. It’s inside all of us. For me, it’s just remembering how to enjoy it.”

“We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of – unconditional love, unconditional attention. Most of us didn’t get enough.”

“You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive.”

“I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own!”

“These people were so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.”

“What really gives you satisfaction?” “Offering others what you have to give.”

“Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”

“When Morrie was with you, he was really with you. He looked you straight in the eye and he listened as if you were the only person in the world.”

“Marriage: If you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble.”

“The biggest value is your belief in the importance of your marriage.”

“Morrie believed in the inherent good of people. But he also saw what they could become.”

“The biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become.”

“Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.”

“Living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them.”

“Forgive yourself before you die. And then forgive others.”

“I mourn my dwindling time, but I cherish the chance it gives to make things right.”

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

“How could he find perfection in such an average day? Then I realized this was the whole point.”

“Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.”

READ THIS BOOK! GET REAL WITH LIFE!

Thank you Morrie. Thank you Mitch.

And if you can arrange a discussion with your teenage audience after a showing, you could do more for them than a good few years in school. Better still, free up an evening to spend with your teenage children in front of the screen and enjoy the movie with them.

But be warned! You may need tissues!

Based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel of the same name, though somewhat adapted to modern audiences, the film focuses on the relationship between Landon Carter, a cool and cocky playboy type and Jamie Sullivan, a religiously devout and bookish student.

It’s a story about peer pressure, moral values, believing in yourself and doing the right thing. It also offers our teens (and us adults too) an insight into value-based love and what genuine living is all about.

Without giving too much away, here are 7 insights I took from the film and would like my teens to live with:

1. Have ambitions and grandiose dreams. And write them down. Jamie has – amongst many –  an ambition “to witness a miracle” and “to be in two places at the same time.” Both are fulfilled by the end of the movie.

2. When you help others fulfill their dreams, you will achieve more of what you want too.

3. Take time to appreciate Nature, as Jamie says, “Love is like the wind. You can’t see it, but you can feel it.” (Although the film certainly does not depict this teen love as infatuated feeling like so many other movies.)

4. Work on understanding who you are. Don’t behave in certain ways just to impress the crowd, especially if it’s going to hurt someone else. (The movie depicts some classic examples of adolescent peer pressure which cause both physical and emotional injury.) And of course, don’t judge by appearances, which is not so easy in our superficial, glossily-packaged world.

5.  Rise above suffering. I won’t tell you what happens in the movie but suffice to say the characters leverage the opportunity given to them by suffering and sadness and use it to grow, to flourish and to enjoy life to the full.

“We are not always responsible for the circumstances that come into our lives, but we are responsible how we react to them.”

6.  Believe in yourself. Landon is able to pull himself out of his “road to nowhere” lifestyle and eventually get a place in medical school because Jamie believed in him more than he initially believed in himself.

7.  Enjoy life. There’s so much meaningful pleasure to be had in life. Go find it. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Read quality books. Listen to good music. Have a hobby or two.

And learn how to dance.

“What was the difference between you and first place?” I asked him, after high-fiving and praising him of course.

“About 4 cm,” he said, “but he stepped on the line.”

“So why was he allowed to win?”

“The judges let him through.”

My nephew came second in the 60m run.

“I should have won, but the other boy blocked me out.”

“So why wasn’t he disqualified?”

“The judges didn’t see.”

Umm… interesting.  What’s going on here?

I can see where they get it from. Almost every week we hear some soccer coach complain about the atrocious refereeing decisions that cost his team the match.

On the other hand, it could be that the soccer coaches haven’t grown up yet either.

Of course these are perfectly natural reactions for children, but for adults they’re worrying.

The message is “I’m OK. There’s nothing wrong with me. I was perfectly correct. I did all I could.”

When you switch the blame to someone else, you’re not only giving up responsibility. You’re giving up. Period. You’re saying “I don’t have to change. It’s the other guy.”

And that’s dangerous.

Because it means you can go through life without growing. And you’ll always feel that you’re not getting what you want because someone else ruined it for you. You’ll be resentful, frustrated and have a false sense of pride. You’ll always blame others and that’s what you’re children will learn from you.

Remember! No-one else will take responsibility for your life. As coach Bob Proctor says, “You are the only problem you will ever have and you are the only solution.”

Of course there are exceptions. Of course referees and judges make mistakes. Of course there are times when you really do give your all and you just don’t win.

But it’s not anyone else’s fault.

It’s your life. The buck stops with YOU.

Excuse me? What did you just say?

This is from a company’s home page. One of the opening sentences.

They probably knew what they wanted to say, understand it perfectly, have been using it for years and so had no problems shooting it off into cyberspace.

Just one problem.

They forgot what the purpose of a website, and particularly the first lines of a home page, should be.

It’s your store window to the world. On the crowded high street of the Internet, your window display is what’s going to attract passers-by to stop and take a look. If they can’t understand at a glance who you are and what you’re selling – and more importantly, WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR THEM – they’ll quickly move on to the next store.

We see this kind of copy all the time. And maybe because everyone sees everyone else doing the same thing they think it must be okay and the “standard website format.” And maybe targeted site visitors do have patience for this kind of self-indulging, self-defeating copy.

But most likely they don’t – they’re rushing down the street – and it’s probably not worth your bottom line to risk using less than the clearest and sharpest messages on your site. At least on the first page your potential customer sees.

The guiding principle must be “put the customer/reader/visitor first.” What’s in this for them? What do we do for our customers? How do we make their lives better, more efficient, save them money, improve their prospects, cure their ailments, etc.?

And just tell them. Straight and simple.

“CORNS GONE IN FIVE DAYS” was a headline for an ad that ran for years. And if you see the same ad running for years it’s a sure sign  it’s working very well.

Why is it such a good headline?

1. It’s totally focused on the target market (people with corns.)

2. It addresses their primary concern – getting rid of their corns.

3. It makes a clear, specific and believable promise – “gone in five days.”

4. It conveys a sense of urgency.

Maybe the company has been providing unique, turnkey pedicure solutions for over a quarter a century. Maybe its professional, experienced and highly skilled team do operate the latest state-of-the-art cosmetic medical technology using a propietary and painless laser-operated methodology.

But don’t tell me that within the first two paragraphs of your home page. Stick it in your “About Us” if you must.

Tell me what you can do for me.

Tell it straight.

Tell it simple.

Show me you care.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The astonishing truth is that a small percentage of factors control the vast majority of results in virtually all human activities.

Just check your own habits:

Do you wear the same 20% of your clothes 80% of the time?

Do you eat the same 20% of your favorite food at 80% of your meals?

And  – think about this one – do only 20% of your daily activities generate 80% of your most important achievements?

This is a fascinating subject  on its own, and when we realise its power, we should be able to increase our productivity no end by simply focusing on that 20% that creates the 80%. To understand more of what this can do for you, see this: http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/gary-bencivenga/the-strategy-for-exploding-your-productivity-this-year.html#more-1106 or read “The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less” by Richard Koch.

But for now, I wanted to be far less serious.

I spend 20% of my time turning off 80% of the lights in the house.

Whether this is a hobby, a habit or a neurosis, I don’t know, but I do know that I constantly preach to my kids to turn the lights off when they’re not in a room.

It’s something I got from my own parents, an electricity-saving gene that evidently skips the third generation.

I have no idea how much electricity we would save if we only put the lights on when we need to,  and we’re now using all energy-saving bulbs anyway, but still, it’s the principle.

What principle?

Aha! Now you’ve got me thinking.

What is behind my sinister darkness crusade?

Let’s switch the question (if you’ll excuse the pun.) Why do my kids leave lights on?

1. Could be the old responsibility thing again – if you see someone else taking responsibility for something, you don’t need to bother.

2. Just a habit they’ve had from birth. Probably deeply related to the first post-utero experience in which they were suddenly blinded by an awesome new light. (yeah sure)

3. They don’t appreciate the need to save and not waste.

4. They don’t pay the electricity bills.

5. Or maybe the poor darlings just need a little more light in their lives. After all, if you had a neurotic father who spent most of his day turning off light bulbs, you would also search for something rather more illuminating.

So why do I bother?

Well, for starters, precisely because it’s been indelibly implanted in me since birth as well!

Secondly, I suppose, it’s because I want them to take a little responsibility and be aware of unnecessary wastage and the importance of saving. After all, these are universal principles that will help them in all areas of life.

Or maybe, I prefer to add light to their lives in some other way. Smiling and hugging are certainly two cheaper alternatives to electricity.

Ummm… come on! Get real!

You know what? You’ve convinced me.

I’m just going to put up “Have you turned the light off?” notices in all the rooms and go concentrate on the 20% of my activities that may actually prove successful.

My emotions were kicked up a level this morning when I came home to find my son (who should have caught the school bus at 06:50) still at home.

“I missed the bus,” he tells me, as if I hadn’t guessed.

“Why?” I asked. (Good question, no?)

“Because I was almost at the pick-up point when the bus drove off. The driver saw me, my friends told him to stop, but he just ignored me.”

I don’t recall the exact expression I used.

Granted, these bus drivers have a tight schedule in the mornings and they are pressurized to make their rides on time.

Granted, this particular species may have had a bad night. His 2-year-old didn’t sleep, the water pipe burst and he spent most of the night mopping up the mess. Maybe…

Granted, he may just have sneezed at the moment he passed my son, and really didn’t see him.

But I’m not going to take the poor driver to task here, because I think it’s symptomatic of a bigger issue.

Self.

Or more specifically, not thinking of others.

No, I ‘m certainly not suggesting we should allow ourselves to be trodden on and give in at every opportunity.

But I am asking for a little more consideration.

A little more listening, understanding and willingness to accept someone else’s position.

A little sensitivity. A little more putting yourself in their shoes.

A little more open-mindedness, humility and readiness to learn something from someone else.

A little more responsibility, appreciation and giving.

For “the more you help others, the more you help yourself,” or as Barcelona soccer star, Samuel E’too, said after scoring his 18th goal this season, “I just hope we carry on playing with modesty and with much respect for our opponents, because when you lose that, you begin to fall.”

Modesty is not meekness. It’s appreciating that all you have comes from God.  He gave it to you to use and to share with others.

And respect for opponents, whether on the playing field, in business or for the kid who just wants to get on your bus, is one of the most basic rules of life. Whether it’s “love thy neighbor like thyself” or “do not do unto others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you,” the message is the same.

Even if you’re angry, frustrated or upset.

Just because you had a bad hair day doesn’t mean everyone around you has to suffer.

While the adults were sitting around the dinner table and discussing politics (as adults do), the children were having a far better time Wiing (if you’ll pardon the expression.)

I’m not a particularly enthusiastic politics discusser, so my attention was fixed on the wee Wiiers.

This is obviously a step up in the world of computer games. Oh come back Pac-man, all is forgiven!

As my sons punched each other in a virtual boxing ring, huffin’ and puffin’ and sweatin’, I was thinkin’ – sorry, thinking – whether Wii was just another technological advance for the sake of technological advance or whether it was actually useful to the betterment of humankind.

Oui or non?

Of course my opinion is limited to my hour’s observation yesterday, but as they say, first impressions count.

To its credit, it seems a lot more physically active than the traditional “sit-frozen-lock-eyed-lock brain” computer games. The children were standing, running, punching, jumping and obviously getting some physical exercise too.

It also looks good for improving full body coordination and reactions. One game I saw involved balancing on the footpad in order to collect points, and another involved avoiding flying shoes (George Wii Bush?) by moving head and hands.

No more need for babysitters…

Useful tool for the various child therapists…

And hours of fun and entertainment.

However – and I suppose this is true of TV and computers in general – the Wii once again raises the question of social interaction. In an increasingly virtual social interactive world, are our children becoming more and more isolated from healthy human contact?

Wiill they lack the social and communication skills needed to function well in a world of human interaction? How wiill they fare in conducting important human relationships? 

Or wiill they become the new generation of advanced computer geeks?

Another question concerns the effect it has on their hormones and emotions. I know there are conflicting studies on this issue regarding TV and computer games, but if you’re standing up and punching a virtual opponent on a screen for an hour, what does that do to a child?

Wiill they tend to resolve more conflicts with their fists or with their words?

And even more worrying, with the astonishing capabilities and limitless possibilities of the Wii, who needs friends?

After all, it’s not just me playing. It’s Wii.

Maybe it’s because elections are so frequent here.

Maybe because the main parties have lost their distinctiveness.

Or maybe it’s just because we can’t trust our politicians any more. Can anyone?

Let’s put it another way.

There are two roads to the top. One is by working hard, and earning promotion and recognition by merit. The other is by pushing other people down.

Sadly, Israeli election ads and promos spend most of their time denigrating their rivals. Here’s an example: “A vote for Tzippi (Tzippi Livni, current Foreign Minister and leader of the Kadima Party) is the only way to beat Bibi”  (Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud opposition party.)

It’s not why she deserves my vote. It’s so the other guy doesn’t get in.

No credibility. Although maybe it is the way many people think here. There’s no-one really suitable to vote for so let’s just make sure the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.

Nevertheless, bad marketing.

It’s like saying “buy my widget because ABC’s widget is worse.”

Bibi himself has a more promising billboard message, proclaiming himself as “Strong in Security. Strong in Economy.” In marketing terms, that’s a very timely message. It’s getting into the minds of the voters, because those are the two most important issues at the moment. Whether people believe that he is indeed strong in these areas is another question, but I think it’s a wise marketing ploy.

Unlike one of the smaller parties, whose slogan is “We’ll deal with crime. Now!” So what? Who cares about crime when there are rockets raining in from Gaza, the economy stinks, and I need to pay my mortgage?

Bad marketing.

And here’s another strange ad campaign that misses the mark in my opinion. It’s not election-related, but it fits in to the same category of  failing to address the target market. I saw it on the back of a bus this week.

A young man is smiling, evidently having just received a bouquet of flowers from a female admirer. The slogan reads “surprise him while you’re on your way” and gives you a number to call.

Wait a minute. I haven’t researched the issue but I would make an intelligent guess that over 90% of flower orders are made by men to send to women.

So why suggest the other way round?

How many men do you know who would enjoy receiving a bunch of flowers?

Maybe there’s some reverse psychology at work here. Maybe when a man sees this ad he’ll realise he hasn’t sent his beloved (or his mother) flowers for a while and he’ll impulsively dial the number.

It’ll be interesting to hear what kind of response they’re getting (if they’re even measuring response that is.)

At any rate, it looks like bad marketing to me.

On a more positive note, I’m off to vote now. Because if I don’t, the one I don’t want will get elected!