When someone tells you that they are going to a car show, an amateur persuader for example would try to connect to that person through cars.

“Oh, a car show! What kind of cars do you like?” – this is fine at times but when you only deal with things, you tend to not connect with the human behind them.

More profound is connecting through the identity: the fundamental set of beliefs, desires, fears, status, experiences and social ques that brought them to the car show in the first place.

Are they going to the car show to be different or to fit in? Are they trying to connect with people or win at the car show?

The “thing” as nothing to do with it, once you uncover the vibrancy of the emotions and motives under it.

When ever you have a story in your head or in other words a series of thoughts that keep cycling around.

If you don’t like them at any point, remember that you have the power to change the story you tell yourself.

Change your story and you change what you experience.

Once you figure out how to do this with yourself, (and feel the shift) it’s much easier to do this to other people.

Marketers change things, one of those things we have the skills to change are peoples stories.

For marketers to do their job and add physiological innovation to the products and services customers experience – we must have the use of placebos.

The only reason more expensive wine tastes better is because we believe it should.

So as marketers we put on shows and create games for customers to play.

It could be the game of buying an expensive wine or buying an expensive car.

It could be the thrill of finding a deal at a discount store or the joy of connecting with people who have the same clothes.

Either way the customer goes on a journey and in a lot of ways that is a game. 

There are rules. There are loop holes. There are certain things that customers can do to play that will create the by product of the placebo effect.

To have any impact in marketing you got to be clear about what you are even talking about.

The problem is: marketing is confusing. People throw around a lot of terms and use certain words, that actually technically mean something else.

They will say they are running an advertisement, when really they are marketing. They will assume that promotion means giving a discount.

They assume that marketing has nothing to do with inside the organization.

If you can’t be clear about these fundamental terms – then how could you ever make a huge impact in marketing? 

When I say “notebook” what do you picture?

You might picture a Field Notes branded note book, one from school when you were growing up or something like a three ring binder.

I don’t know what it was, but the thing that I can bet on was that it s a different picture from what is in my head.

Different people have different pictures of what different words mean to them in their head.

If you seek to do effective marketing, you must first understand the picture that is in their head.

In hopes of ever changing someone, you have to first meet them where they are at.

It’s the only way you can create everlasting change in a person, and of course that is what great marketing does for groups of people.

Change doesn’t start from you, it starts with them.

Has Steve Jobs said: you want to start with the customer experience first – not the technology.

The same goes for marketing, because in fact – that is marketing.

Marketers must start with the customer experience; not marketing tactics or technology.

Not starting with data and numbers. Not even starting with the new hot platform or the new buzz word.

Marketing technology is not what creates change, its empathy.

Starting your marketing strategy from marketing technology is faulty. Start your marketing strategy from the customer experience, that is designed from empathy.

Marketing that hides information with customers and demands control are in short supply now and it only works with certain status brands and tribes.

Transparency is one of the core things that creates trust.

If you are not willing to tell your customer the truth about your product or service – they why should they even buy from you at all? 

Marketers need to have empathy for when people are buying something.

Even when the purchase is small, almost everyone’s heart rate increases before the make a purchase.

The more we understand that tension that they are experiencing, the more that we can move them to the change that we seek to make in that moment.

But it starts with empathy, and understanding the feeling of your own heart racing.

Before you sell anything, you have to ask a single fundamental question:

How will this effect the persons identity? 

Does this decision effect who they think they are as a person? Do they believe they are going to move up in status or down? Do they feel their identity is being affirmed or denied?

When the young entrepreneur walks into a car dealership to buy a car, based on his or her identity, you can tell the story of saving money and getting a Honda Civic with hail damage or tell them the story of being an ambitious up and comer that has the brand new car and the whole image.

These are two fundamentally different stories but they are both based on the central question of identity.

Note that, identity also doesn’t mean job title. Identity is much more profound. It’s really based on how someone relates to their job title and what people around them say they are.

Who is your customer? Who do they believe they are? Who do they believe they are not? Where do they believe they are going?