Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine ( the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers )
No, really…welcome. Don’t click away yet! Have just endured reading yet another, ‘tips to improve the readership of your blog’ advice-posts, and I agreed so much with what the writer said that I decided to start today’s Post with a quote:
In that (incredibly short and unforgiving) time frame, a new visitor decides as to whether, a) They like you, b) They think you have something valuable to bring to the table, c) They’re going to buy ( continue to read) it. (Ashley Ambirge of themiddlefingerproject.org )
We all know that the Wakefield Doctrine is a fun, amusing, productive and totally unique way to look at personality types. With the insights provided by the Wakefield Doctrine, the behavior of the people in our lives (can) finally begin to make some sense:
- if you know that your husband is a scott, then(his) tendency to blow-up over totally minor frustrations will seem less…irrational;
- if you know your wife is a roger, then her insistence on providing meals that not only come from a cable TV Cooking Show, but it is an exact duplicate of a meal from a cable TV show (so much so that you are half expecting to see one of those fake cooking interns that serve as background set-decoration on shows like America’s Test Kitchen);
- if you know your boyfriend is a clark, then the incredible flights of fancy that somehow combine genuine intellectual rigor with a creativity that suggests insufficient medication won’t seem so odd;
- if you know your girlfriend is a scott, then the guys that seem to gather around her at any social occasion that does not involve nuns and has more than 3 people in attendance will not bother you quite as much, because you will be able to have a conversation with the girl, whose boyfriend is doing his best imitation of a Labrador puppy in front of your girlfriend;
- as the clarklike girlfriend, you will now be able to enjoy the conversation of the clark (who showed up with the scottian girlfriend) and know that ‘rogers will be rogers’ and even though you may give your rogerian boyfriend the silent treatment after this event, you know that you are acting according to your personality type when you try to decide between forgiving the boyfriend and becoming a nun.
The point of the advice column (and the title of today’s Post) is simply that the average Visitor to the Wakefield Doctrine is more than capable of ‘getting it’, the responsibility of the authors (of this blog) is to present what we have in a manner that is clear, concise and easy to understand. The quote above from Ms. Ambirge is referring to the 8 seconds that the average internet tourist will spend on a site, judging if it is worth their time. One of the better salesmen I have known, Alex Mouzas, taught in sales seminars that our strategy must be three-fold. He would say at the beginning of each session, “tell them what you will be telling them, tell them and tell them what you have told them….pretty simple, isn’t it?”
Now students of sales technique will recognize that little bromide, it has formed the foundation of sales presentations since way long ago. Note: Alex was training new reps the basics of sales, it was in order to prepare them to be successful in ‘timeshare sales’, which is a ‘segment’ of the (sales) industry that had a rich, and often picaresque heritage. Daily Sales Meetings were not considered complete until at least 2 sales reps were fired, in front of the entire staff, and at least one chair was thrown across the room… to emphasize a subtle point while encouraging the assembled sales reps to work harder.
But, this is a ‘printed’ medium. And while we do have many tools at our disposal it all comes down to this:
what good is this Wakefield Doctrine to you?
why should you spend another second at this site?
where does it demonstrate a value that you can realise now…today?
If you are still reading, then:
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you think you are sure that you know what we mean by scotts, fairly certain that you will recognise a roger and need more description on clarks
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you are bothered by the fact that you, yourself seem to be one of these (clark) sometimes, another of these (roger) the rest of the time and a scott (only under duress)
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you think you would like to come back and read this blog again, but don’t want to bother subscribing, (’cause you get enough email as it is)
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you have a friend you think would really get a kick out of this and you will try to remember to show it to them later
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you see that there are music videos, so you figure, what the hell, I’ll play it once…
In the words of a certain woman, whose name was on the Social Register, “Thats how it began”.
So, as a reward for your attention, a music video from that ‘lil ole band from Texas’
