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.

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.

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