Welcome to Day 4 of our Back-to-school week special. Today, we continue our countdown of Tom Asacker's Ten Truths with #4 and #3:

Truth Four - From Interesting to Interested

"It doesn’t matter what people think about you or your company. What matters is how you make people feel about themselves and their decisions in your presence."

"Take a look at 99.999% of all marketing communications, from Web sites and direct mail, to sales sheets and advertising. They're all SHOUTING . . . "Look at me!" "Am I great, or what?" "Buy me!" and other irritating noise that no one gives a damn about. This loud voice of business is completely out of touch with the subtle, more compelling voice in the heads of today's audience. Why? Because people aren't interested in you. They want you to be interested in them, and to show them how their association with you will help them feel better about themselves.

"I don't know why so many people and organizations get this wrong, but I have a guess. I think it's because being genuinely interested in others, and working to understand their feelings and motivations, is tough: it's imprecise, messy, and time consuming. It's much easier and faster to talk about something that we know a lot about . . . us and our stuff! We simply memorize all of the pertinent facts and then when it's time, flip the brain/mouth switch and out it pours.

"It's also easier to simply bury our heads and focus on getting things done, isn't it? "Five sales calls to make . . . better get hustling!" "Two ads to create, as well as a capability brochure and a direct mail piece. No time to think." "The company is measuring me on number of transactions. Slow down and listen? Yeah . . . right." But guess what? That's great news for you! Because by being other-focused and truly interested in your audience, you'll stand out. Simply because no one else is doing it.

"(...)If you want people to pay attention to your communication, you must tune into their frequency. Their current situation. Their anxieties, desires and fears. Establish an emotional bond based on your audience's feeling of finally having been understood by someone. Because if people feel that you are genuinely interested in them, they’ll be much more likely to open up and interact with you, and give you the information that you need. So stop, sit down and scrutinize every single piece of company communication, from sales presentations to annual reports. Do they speak to your audience in terms of what's most important to them? Do they speak with passion and caring and energy? Will they make their eyes grow wide and pulse quicken?"

Truth Three - From Capture to Attract

"Metaphors matter! They condition our sensibilities and behavior. Stop trying to force fit today's complex market environment into the outdated models of yesterdays' much simpler time."

"Peruse any business publication or be the proverbial fly on any organizational wall and you'll be repeatedly exposed to war and sports metaphors. You know: capture market share, armed with information, attack the competition, hit a homerun, go the distance, raise the bar, and so forth. It's difficult to change your thinking when you're surrounded by such inapt language. How can anyone treat customers like friends when they're consistently referred to as targets to be captured or territories to be conquered? How can you expect initiative taking, when managers are busy ordering the troops around and the troops are sitting around waiting for new marching orders? And how can you hope to build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships when you're busy hooking them and reeling them in."

"I've got news for you: Business is not war and it is not a sport. That's yesterday's worn-out thinking again. And by continuing to speak yesterday's language, you are unwittingly sustaining yesterday's ineffective actions."

"(...) Metaphors do a lot more than simply enrich your speech. They structure your thinking. They condition your sympathies. They direct your attention and influence your decisions and actions. James Autry, retired CEO of Meredith Corporation wrote: Becoming a manager has much to do with learning the metaphors; becoming a good manager has much to do with using the metaphors; and becoming a leader has much to do with changing the metaphors."

"The marketplace is not an objective process, like a physical science where you try to influence the behavior of chemicals in a beaker or balls on a pool table. Appealing to customers is a subjective blend of art and science, where you're subtly attempting to influence feelings (and thus, behavior). You're dealing with the perceptions and actions of intelligent, curious, socially influenced human beings. People whose preferences change constantly, especially in the United States of Extravagance. So stop looking at business as chemistry, physics or mathematics, and begin seeing it for what it really is: a study in social psychology."

"When asked what single event was most helpful to him in developing his theory of relativity, Einstein answered: "Figuring out how to think about the problem." With his enlightening answer in mind, here's a mental model to help you think about your problems and stay aware of and adapt to the increasing number of sudden and unexpected shifts in the marketplace:

"Think of yourself as a magnet, and your audience as iron filings. You could either say that you - the magnet - cause the iron filings to move towards you. Or you could say that the iron filings value movement towards you. Scientifically speaking, both statements are exactly the same. But metaphorically speaking, they are very different. To believe that you cause your audience to move towards you implies certainty. To believe that your audience values movement towards you implies preference.

"By adopting the cause-and-effect metaphor, you’ll have a tendency to follow formulaic thinking, even in the face of changing customer preferences and declining business. In 1999, The Gap reported profits of over $1 billion. Two years later, they lost close to $8 million. How? What happened to all of their loyal customers? What was going on in their world and why? The Gap should have been obsessed with finding out, and I'm not even sure that they were curious. Instead, they focused on their own world. They continued to pour money into television advertising, assuming it to be a formula for causing sales. It's a common mistake.

"Our assumptions - our mental models - determine what we see. We think we know what's going on and what the solutions are, and so we filter out everything that doesn't fit our way of thinking.

"Stop filtering and start rethinking your business problems. You can begin by dropping the words "loyalty" and "retention" from your lexicon. Why? Because repeat patronage was never anything more than a series of mutual concessions. (...) It has absolutely nothing to do with loyalty. It has to do with staying tuned in to your audience’s changing preferences."

See you guys tomorrow, when we will finish the week with the remainder of Tom's truths.

Have a great Thursday, everyone.

Welcome to Day 3 of our back to school week special focus on Corante contributor Tom Asacker's Ten Truths. Today, the countdown brings us to truths #6 and #5:

Truth Six - From Fact Telling to Storytelling

"Facts don’t persuade, feelings do. And stories are the best way to get at those feelings."

"We’re up to our eyeballs in information and sick and tired of 'Buy . . . Buy . . . Buy!' Give us an engaging and meaningful story. Something we can connect with and - heaven forbid - believe in."

"Storytelling was the original form of influence, and all through the ages great communicators have stirred people’s emotions and influenced their behavior through story. I know you know this. So why haven’t more business people embraced this powerful, persuasive form of communication? Think back to your last encounter with a salesperson. What was it like? Can you recall a recent advertisement? Describe it. Or how about your last meeting at work? My guess is that they were all fact-filled and uninspiring. What my friend Dick Orkin describes as "announcements." Which means that, by and large, they were ineffective means of influence. No engagement, no visualization. No visualization, no personal, emotional impact. No emotional significance, no change in behavior.

"(...) We believe what we internalize, what we decide for ourselves, not what we’re told. A story allows us to experience the knowledge in our minds eye and make the meaning for ourselves."

"Stories are the quickest way to communicate. They instantly transmit complex ideas; they’re a kind of cognitive shorthand. Stories are the most memorable, because they are laced with emotion. Want to be remembered? Tell a good story. Stories also put people at ease and help build relationships. And believe it or not, stories are the most believable form of communication. We are more deeply influenced by one person’s story, than we are by mounds of data. And by the way, don’t we love stories? Of course we do! Stories are embedded in our livesbusiness and personal. We love stories in song, in books, on TV, in film, and around the proverbial campfire and water cooler. We love to hear them, we love to tell them, and we love to participate in them. Stories are how we make sense of the world. We are storytelling creatures by nature. It’s in our DNA.

"So, tell me a story. Tell me a true story of someone you’ve recently helped with your products or services. That’s the first request I typically make to an executive team, prior to working with them to develop their brand. It may sound like a simple request, but I rarely hear a story. Instead, I hear all about the facts - when they started, the number of employees, their products and services, etc. But a brand is not about facts. A brand is a story. An engaging, authentic story that everyone in a company lives and tells. So, stop and ask yourself: What story does my audience conjure up in its imagination about itself when purchasing or experiencing my company or products? Do we complement and enhance that story in every single thing that we say and do? Do we even know what that story is?

"(...) Tell brand stories so people can live the experience in their own minds. So it becomes real to them, stimulates their emotions and helps them understand the ideas and behavior required to live the brand. Stop trying to change people’s minds with information or coercion. It doesn’t work. They feel manipulated. Instead, capture their imaginations with heartfelt stories so they can make their own meaning. And never - never! - stop telling those stories with conviction and passion."

Truth Five - From Branding to Bonding

"A brand is not a logo, and branding is not a communication strategy. A strong brand is a strong bond, and branding is your business."

"For the past 250 years, companies have leveraged their power to influence and - in many situations - control commerce. They’ve used various barriers to entry to curtail competition and grow significant mindshare and marketshare. The most common marketing related barrier employed was brand preference, created with mega spending on advertising and control of distribution channels. Building a strong brand was all about "top of mind awareness." I say "beer!" and you shout . . . "Budweiser!" And it's still that way in the case of habitual buying, which occurs when involvement is low and differences between brands is small. But for considered purchases - like choosing a new car or home - and ones involving a strong emotional connection - like deciding where to invest or donate hard earned money - building a brand requires much more than that. Today you’re competing for heartshare, not marketshare. Top of mind without goose bumps is a waste of money.

"Of course to those with a dated, mass-market mentality, branding is still all about image and awareness. It's about tag lines, logos, cute little animal mascots or clever jingles. It's about spending megabucks on Super Bowl commercials, hiring celebrities to sing your corporate praises, and covering cars with advertising banners. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that awareness is unimportant. (...) But, does well-known equal strong? Not any longer. The rise of the global economy, the rapid adoption of the Internet, and unprecedented access to capital, have all ignited commercial innovation, and put an end to those days forever.

"And please, don’t get hung-up on the word "brand." Schools, nonprofit groups, high-tech firms, and small businesses tend to fall into a camp that believes that branding is either too commercial, too expensive, or otherwise not appropriate or applicable to them. And that may have been true in the heydays of mass marketing, when branding conjured up ideas of spin, manipulation, and "in your face" corporate propaganda. But not any more.

Today, the word "brand" is shorthand for the gut feeling people have about something, some group, or someone. It’s a kind of Platonic Ideal, which stands for the essence of a business, school, organization, person, or even place. If you add up the tangible and intangible qualities of something - the gestalt - and wish to represent the meaning and distinctive character this greater whole conveys to its audience, today we call it . . . "brand."

"Think of your brand as a "file folder" in your audiences' minds (not a perfect metaphor, since memory is malleable, but stick with me anyway.). When they’re exposed to you (e.g., through advertising, design, a salesperson, word-of-mouth, etc.), a feeling is immediately filed away in that "brand file folder." As time passes, much of what your audience has filed away - the details - will become inaccessible. However, they will remember where they stored the folder: in the front (positive feelings) or pushed to the back (negative feelings). Given the sheer volume of brands trying to find a place in your audiences' overloaded "brand file cabinets," you must not only get their attention and be relevant (a file folder labeled with your brand name), but you must also get it placed in the front of their file cabinet (elicit strong, positive feelings of intense personal significance).

"(...) Despite what the Madison Avenue folks may tell you, the strength of your brand lies not in the fact that you own a folder with your name prominently displayed on it. Repetition does not create memories, relevance does. The strength lies in your folder's position in your audience's file cabinet (the emotions that linger in their memory). The strength lies in the bond! So make your brand about feeling, not just familiarity. Make it about shared values and trust. About honesty, vulnerability and presence. Because a brand is not simply a promise. How can it be, with everything changing at breakneck speed? A brand is a living, breathing relationship. Revel in the messy world of emotions and create a brand that’s about leadership and differentiation; about customer insight and radical innovation; and about clarity of purpose, passion and a sense of humor."

I'd love to comment on all of this, but... what's the point? I don't think I could put it any better myself.

Tomorrow, we will look at Truths #4 and #3: Reaching your audience, and (at long last) the crucial role that metaphors play in all of this marketing and business stuff we keep talking about.

Until then, have a great Wednesday, everyone. :)

Have a great Tuesday, everyone. :)

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