K atie c ouric

FEELINGS/COMPASSION
and speaks to
Harmonizers: “It feels good, it looks nice, and you’re going to be so
comfortable driving this car.”
• This sentence uses 
HUMOR
and speaks to Rebels: “All your
friends are 
finally
going to want to hang with you because this car’s
awesome.”
As you can see, the ad is written to speak to all the personality types
(except Imaginers because they’re harder to connect with in this context).
Thinking this way allows you to reach a very large audience and speak to
all kinds of people, and content has to connect with an individual before
that person is going to share it with someone else. Those who perceive the
world through feelings will share content that makes them feel good. Those
who perceive the world through humor will want to make their friends
laugh, too. Whatever content speaks to them the most will be the content
they choose to share.
If you understand how your audience perceives the world, and you
incorporate it into your communication style, it can be very effective in
helping you develop content. King shares that to reach the majority of
people in the population, it’s best to focus on 
feelings/compassion
, which
speaks to Harmonizers, who make up 30 percent of the North American
population; 
logic
, which speaks to Thinkers, who make up 25 percent; and
humor
, which speaks to Rebels, who make up 20 percent. King
recommends focusing on those three personality types to create content that
reaches a very broad audience. That way you’ll tailor your content so that
most of North America can really hear, understand, and engage with your
message.
The PCM has proved so powerful and effective that politicians at the
highest level use it. One of the key turning points during the 1996
presidential election was when Bill Clinton won a critical debate against
George Bush. King explains that during the debate there was a woman who
asked a question about how each party would help people in her situation—
her family lived in poverty and struggled to eat. Bush responded to the
question with thoughts and logic as well as value and opinions. However,
the woman perceived the world through feelings and emotions, thus Bush’s
answer didn’t connect with her. On the other hand, Clinton picked up on her

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communication style right away, and before answering the question Clinton
addressed her by saying, “I feel your pain.” He connected with her on a
deep level. He saw that she was a feeling-based person (like 30 percent of
the North American population). By using those words, he immediately
gained the trust of the people in that group and made the woman (and
people like her) feel understood and heard.
Clinton is known for having mastered the PCM technique. King shares
that it helped him become president of the United States because he focused
on including feelings, logic, and humor in his speeches. People may not
agree with all of Clinton’s ideologies, but most feel that he’s a great
communicator and that he’s speaking directly to them. He studied the
technique in depth and knows how to identify a person’s personality type
very quickly. Also, when he speaks to a broad audience he’s sure to hit all
the currencies.
Remember, it’s not always about the content but rather the context you
present the content in. Construct your messages so they connect with all the
different ways people perceive the world. Communicate the same message
in different styles. This allows you to maximize the reach of your content
and, ya know, have more of the attention you crave. (Just kidding.
Remember, it’s about giving. Please tell me you’ve been paying some
attention.)