Clients Know Best?

After 30 years in marketing, I am still amazed at some of the things I hear from business owners:

• “I have a concern. You know nothing about my products. How can you possibly market them?”
• “Marketing. Advertising. What’s the difference?”
• “You want me to pay what for that slogan? It’s only four words.”
• “I need to make the phone ring today. Let’s do an ad.”
• “Radio? It doesn’t work. I ran a spot for a whole two weeks one time and got nothing, nothing I tell ya.”
• “We’ve been in business for 50 years. Everybody knows who we are.”
• “PR? We don’t need no stinkin’ PR.”
• “Why should I pay you to produce a radio spot? The station does all mine for free!”
• “My TV rep handles all my advertising.”
• “Let me run that logo idea past my wife.”
• “Let me run that logo idea past a few of my employees.”
• “Cable? You bet. I run on the Weather Channel exclusively.”
• “I have a vision...”
• “My radio rep writes all my copy. He’s a genius.”
• “I was a marketing major in college.”
• “I was a graphic design major in college.”
• “I went to college.”
• “Demographics? Hell, I’m a Republican.”
• “My new sign? Designed it myself.”
• “Customer retention? Free coffee in the waiting room always works for us.”
• “My nephew did our website. Pretty good, huh?”
• “Sure, I've got a marketing plan... Wrote it up in 1982...”