Hi everyone!

Yes, the hiatus is over. Summer's coming to an end, the projects that have kept me away are almost complete, and I am finally back. (Yey!)

Aside from my long-awaited return (ahem), since this is "back to school" week in the US, let's focus on a handful (actually, two handfuls) of great marketing lessons, rather than on the usual timely and insightful commentary on the latest trends in the ever-changing marketing world. (No worries, we'll get caught up next week.)

Whether you're just starting in your marketing track in college this year or have been in the business world for fifty years, if the advice you find in this column over the next few days doesn't help you breathe new life into your business and make it even better than it already was, my name ain't Nathan Arizona! (Thanks to Tom Asacker for the incredible series of posts that this week will be based upon.) This stuff really should be taught in college. Maybe even high school.

Note: These bits of advice are way to good to be refered to as "the basics..." so let's just call them "the new basics."

Hmmm... that kind of has a ring to it.

Okay, let's get started with #10 and #9:

Truth Ten: From Rah Rah! to Ah Ha!

"To flourish in a rapidly changing world you need the ah-ha’s! and not simply the rah-rah’s! Success is a by-product of childlike inquisitiveness and rapid experimentation. And it comes from a culture of curiosity and caring, not from a head down, plow ahead mentality."

Pow! Take a minute or two to digest that. Go brew yourself a cup of tea or press yourself a cup of coffee, file a few folders, return a phone call or two, then come back and read it again. It's worth it.

"When they asked Wayne Gretsky, arguably the greatest hockey player of all time, what made him more successful than other players, he replied, "Most players tend to play where the puck is, whereas I play where the puck is going to be." Or as the professional trend-spotter may explain, Gretsky smartly followed the "drift" or "general course" of the puck. Now, to anyone who has played a game in which hitting or catching a moving object is essential, Gretsky’s insight is absurdly obvious. And to anyone who has developed a successful business from the ground floor up, so is trend-spotting customer behavior (regardless of the fact that major corporations spend a ton of money to frequently have it done for them). Because the truth about trends - and staying ahead - is that it has nothing to do with the future. It’s about being intimately involved with your audience today! Being part of the dynamics of change now!

"(...) Disturb the comfortable. Comfort the disturbed. Never let your brand become bland. Surprise people! You’re not in the "make stuff" and "do stuff" business. You’re in the life improvement business. So use your brand to heal the psychologically wounded, and to bring some excitement to the complacent and uninspired. Remember: Feelings are the only value proposition left in our developed economy. So rediscover your unbridled imagination and idealistic hopes and tap into that proposition and create new and preemptive benefits. Shatter what conventional wisdom tells you that your audience needs. Try wild ideas. Go for the extremes. Stay passionate!

Truth Nine: From Knowledge to Wisdom

"Knowledge speaks. Wisdom listens. Go into every situation with an inwardly calm mind, and be a learner, not a teacher.

"... Wisdom is all about aligning interests. It’s about using the best means to achieve the best ends. Knowledge, on the other hand, tries to win. To out-reason, to conquer. Knowledge is one sided. Wisdom works reciprocally. Knowledge is about getting the deal done. Wisdom understands that the purpose of each interaction is to grow the strength of the relationship. I meet a lot of very knowledgeable people in my business travels, but very few wise ones. Most people feel that they have to do all of the talking to prove their value, and to show how smart and dynamic they are. In fact, the key to building enduring relationships is to forget about you, be attentively silent and help the other person feel appreciated and valued.

"Why do we forget? Why do we continue to push our agenda, instead of doing what’s best for our audience? Because we’re in a hurry, goal driven and attention hungry. We’re listening to the facts and to the little voice in our head, trying to quickly figure out how to get others around to our way of thinking. Instead, we should be listening to their feelings. Slow down, relax, be engaged, try to understand, be empathic. Tune out your turbulent thoughts - your techniques, obsessions and personal biases - and tune in your audience’s need to be heard, acknowledged and uniquely understood. Thoreau once wrote: The greatest compliment that was ever paid to me was when someone asked me what I thought and attended to my answer. There is no greater gift you can give others than to be fully present with them, to make them feel that they are at they very heart of things.

"Empathic listening is the very first step in making people feel good about themselves and in creating richer relationships and deeper trust. And it’s also the first step towards a compassionate heart. And it’s compassion that inspires us to improve people’s lives with our creativity and resourcefulness. To make them feel loved, appreciated and cared for. In fact, the closer we get to our audience and their problems, the more unbearable we find their suffering. We feel a responsibility to improve their well-being. We are compelled to take action. I love inventor David Levy’s curse method for developing new products: "Whenever I hear someone curse, it’s a sign to invent something." And that desire to improve life is the key to innovation, differentiation and success in today’s marketplace."

Tomorrow, we will look at truths # 8 and 7: Authenticity and caring.

Have a great Monday, everyone.

Technorati Tags: Tom Asacker, marketing,web designback to school, business lessons, customer service, marketing 101, corante, branding

Today, instead of covering one post in depth or giving you a digest of what everyone wrote about this week by topic, we're just going to share some of our favorite bits of wisdom from the last few days. No editorials or summaries. Just the beef. Enjoy.

"If you treat people like adversaries, they’ll act like adversaries. And, if you act like employees are just out to steal from you, they’ll very likely – um – steal from you. At the very least, they’re not going to come to work with a song in their heart and a spring in their step, ready to go that extra mile for you and your customers." - Mary Schmidt.

"Brands should put their customer service at the center of their brand universe. Customer service is where people give you real feedback about their brand "experiences," and most often when things start going negative, as was the case when Jeff Jarvis started documenting his negative experiences with Dell on his blog - it starts off in the customer service department. In fact, Pete said, "the value of the customer service department may be 10 times as valuable as bean counters account for..." - Francois Gossieaux (paraphrasing Pete Blackshaw of Nielsen Buzzmetrics)

"I have a personal theory about surfing. It takes riding a thousand waves to become a surfer. It doesn’t matter if you catch 20 waves a day for 50 days or one wave a day for a thousand days; you just can’t get around the experience of learning the hard way.

"Just as in surfing, there is no substitution for one thousand waves, or in this case, a thousand personal interactions with your customer. I know it seems like an overwhelming number, but there is just no way around it. Mastering the seven steps above takes lots of practice. And practice will give you the chance to develop your own style of engaging in a bottom-up strategy with your customers and the marketplace, giving you the opportunity to drive real innovation." - John Winsor.

"When you’re getting hit from all sides with daily work and firefighting, it’s difficult to fit in much else. So, in market scanning, it’s easy to get into the habit of reading the same industry pubs, talking to the same analysts, tracking the same competitors, etc. All the usual suspects. However, to really be prepared (and spot new opportunities) it’s necessary, to ask questions such as, “What changes could make our product obsolete?” We also have to look at things outside our own industry. What’s going on in our society? Legislation (existing & pending)? The economy? Demographics? Weather patterns? (Got a critical supplier in a hurricane zone? ruh-roh.)" - Mary Schmidt.

"With the partial exception of truly image-driven categories (such as fashion, perfume or liquor), which offer no tangible benefit to speak of, companies become and remain leaders by offering consumers a tangible reason to choose them over the competition. Soon after they fail to deliver, they fall from grace." - Mark Babej and Tim Pollak.

"Authority is rather different from popularity. For some subjects, you might find BoingBoing has the most linked posts, but that doesn't mean their voice is the most influential." - Johnnie Moore.

"Marketing is all about today, not yesterday. Experience is valuable, but the ability to read and react and think on one’s feet is a far more precious commodity. In a marketing environment where performance data is available instantaneously and myriad variables come into play that were unimagined years or even months ago, street smarts trump book smarts. A marketer schooled in the marketplace…or trained to think broadly…enjoys the upper hand. When everyone has the same wisdom, it soon becomes conventional wisdom. And conventional wisdom, in a fluid and dynamic market, is the kiss of death." - Tim Pollak .

And finally, this gem:

"The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow."

- William Pollard.

Pow.

Have a great weekend, everyone. :)