We’ve all used the old phrase “Hindsight is 20/20” when describing the fact that it is easy for one to be knowledgable about an event after it has happened. Well, had we known now what this year had in store what would we have done differently say starting in February or March? No matter what industry you’re in, we have all been blindsided this year and we’re all hoping that 2021 is magically going to return business to normal.

So what are you going do to in the first few weeks of the new year as you look to your business future? Do you have the right people or teams in place to help you make those decisions to take 2021 in the right direction? If not, you might want to consider looking for an objective resource such as an outside marketing consultant. We’ve come through 2020 helping clients make sound decisions, even if those were to shift course into unknown territories. A good consultant will hear out all of the ideas, suggestions, and perspectives, and will build a consensus based on what’s best for your business. If you’re ready, we’re here to help you grow back to work.

After spending a couple of weeks doing some in-depth customer research for a client, the mindset around here has been extremely focused on how we can empower the customer to make sure they’re making the right decision on utilizing that client’s service. While marketing tends to revert back to the old feature/benefit proposition time and again, sometimes we need to step back and think about what it means to be a customer listening to the illustrious verbiage we create to evoke emotion and behavior. There is the famous story about Steve Jobs when he introduced the iPod and everyone in the news and the rest of the tech world were wondering what was so different about the iPod from the MP3 players in the market. Of course, there were the different features and benefits but the one thing that Jobs and Apple did to market it was to simply announce to the world that you could have 1,000 songs in your pocket.

When everyone else was saying “1GB storage on your MP3 player”, telling people about the product, Apple went ahead and made you think you were awesome, having 1000 songs to walk around with. The simplicity is brilliant, really. No oversell, just a fact that made the customer realize that they might just have one-upped “that guy” in the cube next to them that actually new what a gigabyte’s worth of data really meant. Mindset shifts will always be vital in marketing, but mindset suggestions just might make the difference in having the customer make the smart decision.