Great Marketing Offers Advantageous Bridges Between HERE & THERE.

(NOTE: In 2022, I analogized Marshall Goldsmith’s "What Got You Here Won't Get You There". People might not know/remember/admit how they got HERE if they used cheap stuff &/or misguided/unguided methods. We’re extending this & the extraterrestrial analogy, since people feel forced out of familiar, possibly settled situations.)

“The Secret to Great Marketing Is...”by Cory Treffiletti [https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/413828/the-secret-to-great-marketing-is.html] Cory wrote & expanded things I’ve covered: Marketing should educate, not sell, It must reach them while thinking about situations (aka THERE) where your product can fit.

Forced to Leave HERE Before Fully Studying THERE.

In your retailing story (your HERE), you've developed functional hope for profitably advancing (reaching THERE).

Recruit niche members to participate by describing how you’ll help customers achieve/reach their THERE. As you transition HERE to THERE, how does your progress help customers: 1-Cope in their HERE; 2-Manage disruptions during their transitions; 3-Maximize arriving THERE?

Sensory perceptions/assumptions (”seeing is believing”) should require realistically perceiving factors contributing to successes/failures. How do you help customers determine criteria for creating/preserving benefit combinations? Will their testimonials/case studies demonstrate recognizable conditions & opportunities to inspire niche members to buy advantage offers?

Compelling descriptions should be like sampling almost-ready soup, people’s hunger lingers, but appetite & hope justify waiting. Soups (advantages) are ready when specialist retailers & customers collaborate to customize recipes.

Help niche members observe, then start mentally “owning” advantages with pictures, testimonials & cases. Compelling descriptions convert members' observations/experiences into realizations & preserve inspirations/aspirations.

Guide customers, so they aren't frustrated by concluding desires are out-of-reach. You don’t have to think for customers but ease their cognitive labor by applying insightful facts to their goals. Suggest satisfaction criteria to guide customers’expectations.

Offer Example: ‘(Store) consultations create functional hope & customers feel free to pursue happiness. Please, don’t tolerate frustrations. Too many discounters’ customers buy cheap stuff made for big profits, not customers’ benefits. When desires feel like unrequited love, people might deny or squash feelings, which brings deeper troubles. Let’s review necessities for your goal, so your current & new skills plus top-quality products will create functionality & restore hope.’

After studying causes/effects of unfulfilled desires, customer consultations reveal situational specifics to sufficiently assure customers, so they justify purchases & efforts. Explore differences between desires & motivations to learn how to shape actions.

On your website &/or appended to offers, you can test “About Us” pages/stories including how you develop advantage offers. Customers' life-stories might cross some of your chapters, so you can guide customers’ journeys. Whether rapport springs from being “one of us” or deep empathy, customer integration inspires assurance of fulfillment.

Establish affinity with intermittent "pages" expressing your understanding & desire for deeper comprehension. As it expresses integration opportunities, your story becomes a page-turner as niche members are motivated to obtain & sustain higher values.

Your Story & Advantage Offers Differentiate Your Store.

Comprehensive values warrant Awareness-Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA). Whether consumers enjoy or dread shopping, your empathy brings more value, so shopping is an investment.

Big retail benefits are like paragraphs compared to your advantage offers which should become chapters in customers' lives. Customers want assurance of functionality in lives like theirs & hope of applying insightful facts & skills.

Retailers should lead & equip customers to finish “missions” documented into stories for comparing past/present benefits in others’ stories. Multiple comparisons prompt progress even if people didn’t consider their efforts to be experiments.

Members endure uncertainty about their needs, local conditions & wonder if you’re motivated by profits or empathy. Demonstrate how you integrate customers’ goals with your story/mission, including community-building & customer-empowerment.

As customer integration attracts members seeking your niche-version functional hope, you can invest more in insightful knowledge to increase value. Big retailers get millions, donate hundreds/thousands but are impersonal. Display your priority of individuals’ & community wellbeing.

Though your donations are comparatively smaller, your specialized insightful knowledge adds value to products & money. Financial benefits become advantages via actions money alone can’t execute.

Stressed customers might feel stuck until they perceive functional hope in your advantage offers as bridges between their HERE & desired THERE. So, your ads shouldn’t be only products, prices & contact information.

Consumers have multiple responsibilities & would feel irresponsible to risk resources without functional hope. Many advertisers don’t promise value. In effect, they push business cards & product lists, then claim advertising doesn’t work.

Customer Integrators Help People Explore & Tame Risks.

Extraterrestrial Analogy (Continued): As unconcerned citizens chose excessive pollution, environmentalists studied optional planets. Group-1 had explorers & initial settlers who traveled toward a distant planet after evaluating necessary supplies for a trip.

The flightcrew explored/adjusted routes while settlers reviewed emerging geological & social observations. Settlers prepared for living condition necessities & peace offers for residential cooperation. Studying while approaching, they compared their resilience with new situational resilience criteria. They're resilient in home-planet conditions & short orbits. They must create/customize resilience while experiencing unfamiliar risks & developing preliminary criteria instead of improvising.

With specialized in-depth study, groups can coach members while comparing expectations & evidence.

On Earth, specialist retailers should apply product specifications to customers’ expectations & evidence.

Like Earthlings' testimonials/case studies, if Group-1 reports results, future groups could adjust training methods & choose supplies based on updated expectations. Without adequate expectations, people could be motivated by desperation. Their instant, unplanned actions would disrupt thoughts & decisions. Fighting, fleeing &/or freezing could be appropriate only if planned & timed well.

Each Step/Day Is Another HERE.

They should consider plan adjustments necessitated by differences between each daily HERE & changes to the probability of arriving THERE. Away from home, changes are stranger & seem faster. When Group-2 reached halfway, THERE wasn't there! The star remained but did the planet burn-up or eclipse?

Group-2 reconsidered what's known & unknown. Apparently, Group-1 had appropriate supplies for the distance. Was their ship hit by asteroids? Was it pulled into a blackhole? Did they go beyond halfway & can't communicate?

Did they land early & disappear with the planet & couldn't send the ship back for more groups? Is Group-1 alive? Do THERE occupants intake/output air, liquids & solids like extraterrestrials? Is life-support impossible?

Without direct observation or contact, extraterrestrials won't/can't know if THERE is suitable until arriving. Group-2 can bring a little more supplies & stop about halfway to seek Group-1. If Group-2 goes beyond halfway, more evidence might be available but finishing the trip would be necessary because more than halfway requires more than half of supplies.

Group-2 doesn't know where THERE went. Eventually they may realize THERE is on the other side of the star or hidden in direct light. Could/Should they justify continuing?

Bedeviled Earthlings dread choosing devils they know over devils they don’t. Though unfamiliar options could be mostly positive, some prefer a modicum of familiarity despite probable negatives or they deny what’s wrong.

Coach Lou Holtz: “Don't tell your problems to people: 80% don't care; & the other 20% are glad you have them.”

Retailers might be perceived as personally unconcerned while professionally desiring sales. Customer integration increases niche members’ functional hope when they believe they can maximize benefits because somebody cares enough to help.

Lou Holtz: "I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, & always show people you care". "Life is 10% what happens to you & 90% how you respond to it" Knowing how to respond doesn’t help without compatible resources. People’s functional hope can expire if knowledge, experiences &/or observations are incompatible with available resources.

Coach John Wooden began seasons by teaching players to properly put on socks & tie shoes. Small, foundational detail mastery is essential for success, including preventing blisters & ensuring comfort. He instructed how to smooth sock wrinkles, tighten & double-tie laces.

If players misstep because of foot pain, worse injuries could end career-plans. Lessons might seem unnecessary, unless people aren’t focused on problems enough to evaluate whether causes & effects are consistent. Without some predictability & guidance, prevention is difficult.

Cause & effect evaluations become difficult without consistent preparations/precautions to limit variables. What contributed to higher productivity? Why did (problem) happen/become more severe than before? External factors add/reduce value but without internal consistency, “evaluations” would be guesses.

Jay Abraham applied this to testing advertising/business practices.

Distracted people might imperceptibly change productive habits &/or start increasingly disruptive habits.

Without conscious focus, people might not notice interrupted habits & fret about slightly varied results. Cumulative variations can massively disrupt results without people noticing how/when. If inattention/neglect/forgetting bring troubles which people misinterpret or don’t perceive, they might claim success & figure precautions aren’t necessary. Partly from pride, people probably claim sufficient wisdom.

If people accept coaching, they might expect big facts & deep wisdom. It’s easy to reject basics as unworthwhile. Some basics are foundational for projects. If details are disregarded or unlearned, foundations are weak.

Customer integrators use details to create & maintain structures on firm foundations.

Copyright 2026 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.

When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here- https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/

Empowerment Inspires Niche Members’ AIDA.

Niche members might recognize nebulous opportunities/problems without knowledge to compare those with necessary skills & products. Advantage offers build Awareness, Attention, Interest & Desire to justify inquiry/purchasing Actions, so members recognize/seek/use insightful information to fulfill needs/desires.

Answer members’ nascent questions to confirm emerging/fully formed opportunities/problems to convert wonder (Are perceptions accurate?) into Awareness. Unconverted wonder can become stress from Fear-Of-Missing-Out on potential opportunities or anxiety of suffering from problems. Members might be proud of opportunities or dread social criticism because of problems.

Without certainty, members might orbit stores instead of landing/entering. Introduce insightful facts & inventory for building personal sanctuaries via advantage offers written to inspire certainty when members recognize/diagnose opportunities/problems. Troubled people can feel trapped/surrounded by problems without sanctuaries or lost-in-space, with no way back.

Out-of-this-world Analogy: Earthlings assume arriving extraterrestrials’ intentions/interests are peaceful or invasive. Maybe extraterrestrials aren’t committed yet, after arriving accidentally or becoming curious while passing. Preemptive “retaliation” could bring hostilities that wouldn’t otherwise happen.

Though retailers draw money customers might’ve paid to you, many consumers prefer multiple stores' options especially when retailers collaborate. Like one-stop shopping, it's more beneficial to drive to retail areas when consumers & retailers combine offers. Niche members might drive there/your area if multiple stores offer remedies/opportunities.

If retailer teammates aren’t near you, their recommendations & your promotions present your store as a destination for prevention/restoration after losses. (Check Brandenburger & Nalebuff's Co-Opetition)

In 2022, I analogized Marshall Goldsmith’s "What Got You Here Won't Get You There". People might not know/remember/admit how they got HERE if they used cheap stuff &/or misguided/unguided methods.

Niche members’ long-term & interim goals/destinations might feel light-years away until retailer teammates conceive plans members believe. While coaching/consulting with members who are almost THERE. define their HERE & determine how they progressed/regressed. Via anonymized case studies, what can other members learn/use? How will you assure them & guide their progress?

Whether some consumers are naturally suspicious or sales reps/retailers provoked distrust, your responsibilities include studying your niche to avoid/reduce what members perceive as negatives. Some consumers perceive ads as invasive/interruptive & sales attempts as picking pockets.

Sales trainers try easing anxiety by advising trainees to declare prospects as guilty of needing products & wanting to buy. Though tongue-in-cheek, whether aggressive or empathetic, attitudes are expressed via tone-of-voice & nonverbal stances/movements.

Be empathetic without seemingly pushing products/services. Since they feel pressured by needs/desires, help members identify unfulfilled positive causes & define effects members need/desire. When negative causes/diagnoses are unclear, pressure increases. Offer help in clarifying what happened/is happening, then increase certainty for next steps.

Caught Between Rocks & Hard Places

Prospects probably feel caught between needs/rocks & budgets/hard places. Explain why/how offers are soft sanctuaries/exits, so prospects don’t feel crushed.

Sometimes, assumptive techniques are valid if you don’t figure/pretend prospects are committed until you know about their intentions to fulfill needs/desires. If prospects have plans, what will improve odds-of-success?

Retailers conveniently assume: 1-Location is the ultimate attribute. 2-Consumers are near because of purchase intentions. Members are prospects if aware stores & offers can fulfill goals. Suspects' priorities might be unconnected with nearby stores. When busy people are near, mini-media promotions &/or geo-fencing might raise awareness of your location without immediately nudging replanning/rescheduling.

If advantage offers reach niche members between activities, AIDA can spur purchases/plans by entering available mental-space. Repetition & contextual links can prompt consumers’ Reticular-Activating-System to notice/recall internal/external cues.

Offer Example: ‘Though workplace stresses weigh on you, remember vacation-time is close. (Store) has (products) to add specialness to activities you’ll enjoy & fondly remember. When stress builds, consider how you’ll make memories & enrich your days with a pleasure treasure. When you feel tense, open your treasure.’

Help members give themselves permission. Increase value by presenting justifications/excuses for enjoying products in multiple ways to add valuable variety.

When stress overflows, mental fatigue/fog fills spaces between concerns & memories while crowding-out new considerations. Without clear focuses/resolutions, stresses interweave while complicating prevention & corrective efforts. Consider how you help members sort/isolate factors in life’s changing scenes.

Like preferring high-definition TV, people want focused details for entertainment/learning. High-resolution cameras make pictures/scenes worthwhile for sharing memories. Though details vary in importance, each contributes but exclusions/losses diminish experiences. Imagine hazy scenes blurring into each other, scene changes become indiscernible.

Without special differentiated experiences from high-quality products/kits, people might move mentally/physically but not emotionally between personal “scenes”. As negatives increase, positive emotions become collateral damage. People might feel they drag themselves or are dragged through days as responsibilities bring burdens, not satisfaction. Being fatigued & unfocused, they might not notice mistakes & become more discouraged while redoing tasks.

If teammates/participants aren’t focusing with similar resolutions/clarity, will customers achieve sustainable satisfaction? Do they consider factor interactions/collisions?

Example: Low-resolution cameras would render low-resolution videos despite playback via high-resolution TVs. If there’s one recording chance, effort would be wasted. Would those cameras be bargains? When/How often will playback quality matter enough to justify investing in top-quality? Whichever sensory benefits people seek, total quality deteriorates if inferior inputs undermine combinations.

Whether You Suggest Or Guide, Add More Value Than Competitors.

Do people continually struggle with many issues? Though motivated to avoid worse conditions, what are people's "reasons" for quick, cheap "solutions"? Would critical path tasks be required? Which tasks would be slack time/float?

Impatient people might want to get it over-with. Is that practical for them? Are requirements & agreements understood enough for teammates to create increments independently & combine later? If people stretch excessively while juggling additional stressful factors, task effectiveness & efficiency fade.

Despite stressful distractions, people should incorporate step-by-step awareness to prepare projects. Chunking down can reduce distractions so focusing is effective & efficient. Though your offers should lighten/control stress in preparations, elimination would be impractical because stress is inevitable in complex processes. By interspersing stress & relief/resting (while reviewing lessons), customers habituate & avoid being stressed-out, so fresh perspectives enter.

After traveling multiple light-years, extraterrestrials might claim unlimited abilities can do everything desired/necessary. Testimonial/Case study reality checks can express how people felt successes indicate readiness for problems.

Before promising benefits, compelling descriptions can cover situational severities & how perceived repairs don’t last. Explain why/how you develop new advantage offers to help customers adjust to life changes.

After attempting tasks with their materials, tools, skills & knowledge, frustrated extraterrestrials might leave without requesting guidance. Their exit might be cheered by some & grieved by others who observed & offered help but were rebuffed.

Retailers & extraterrestrials might’ve misinterpreted each other’s intentions, extraterrestrials might’ve figured retailers are profiteers ignoring consumers’ goals. Retailers might misapply expertise without trying first to understand before trying to be understood as Stephen Covey advised.

Extraterrestrials might consider residency or trade/transactions but want information before committing. It means being realistic enough to accept limitations of observing & experiencing. Though beings might recall their total knowledge, they should acknowledge perspectives are incomplete & incoming “facts” are altered by biases plus concurrent observations & experiences.

They Shouldn’t Carry Cognitive Loads Simultaneously.

Earthlings might wonder about shared “facts” & reasons stubborn people reject clarifications about changes. After resting from traveling, extraterrestrials could inquire/seek clarification after learning/sharing symbology/vocabulary.

Retailers might hesitantly answer product-use questions while pushing customers to buy. Some retailers refuse to test compelling descriptions/methods but complain about fickle consumers. Would their voluntary information suffice for you to customize offers?

How will you explain reasons for requesting personal details. You might state, ‘Thanks for your information. To help you, I’ll ask questions other retailers don’t ask. That could be why their customers get some benefits without achieving full advantages. When you’re comfortable with questions, you might need to research answers. Since you’ve started early, you can delay slightly but please understand I must research local changes & planned product specifications to order things you need. Each delay could bring setbacks.’

Extraterrestrials might respond/react according to experiences on other planets. Big retailers might try “efficiently” lumping extraterrestrials in with Earthlings. Each group has different needs/desires & generic offers might somewhat appeal to/be tolerated by some, who aren’t motivated by compelling descriptions. Differentiate offers by differentiating mediocre & superior benefits in fulfilling/preserving goal achievements in customers’ lives.

Consumers might mentally orbit & evaluate your store before landing/inquiring. Cognitive labor costs time & energy as members seek questions & answers. Claims like ‘Best (product) for (purpose)’ could be a justified answer if members know the applicable question. Instead of assuming you’ll profit when members hope for functionality, explain how you build functional hope with questions & answers.

Offer Example: ‘When you want/need (benefit) in (circumstances), you should know why some options are better for you. Do you want to rush ahead without considering (facts)? Or do you want (benefits) to be long-term? At (Store), let’s explore appropriate questions for your life & not settle for generic answers. Be like wise swimmers evaluating water quality & depth before diving. Let’s review precautions to maximize preparations. At (Store), let’s be sure, you’re sure because confidence reduces mistakes & stresses.’

Copyright 2026 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.

Your business's profit potential depends on how much value your market niche perceives in what you offer. They won't perceive any value unless they have a reason to think about it. It's why you need effective marketing. https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/

Stressors Invade Between People & Information You’ve Provided.

Help customers be response-able as Stephen Covey advised, so they avoid reactivity (freeze/flight/fight). Covey emphasized importance of a space/gap of freedom for choosing responses.

Distracted & fatigued people are forgetful (temporarily uninformed), feel stuck & forced into action. They default to reactions. Stress pushes awareness & knowledge aside. Whether people received your offers &/or invested in your advantages, proximate stressors invade spaces/gaps between stimulus & response/reaction.

Expect Perfection & Imperfection.

Help with response-ability via preparations for potential opportunities & remedies, so customers have more time & energy for what’s unexpected. Response-able people learn to skillfully use products to increase functionality. Functional hope decreases stress. Help customers avoid being overwhelmed/shattered by ongoing occurrences & new problems.

Without preparations, people freeze/check-out & stop productive thoughts & actions. Any emerging thoughts/hopes would pertain to finding certainty. When circumstantial certainty seems impossible, people may flee to seek certainty elsewhere.

People fight when finding (possibly misperceiving) causes to remove/resist. People claim totally certainty despite complexities. Nobody has 100% perception.

Confidence isn't always synonymous with certainty. Certain people might expect smooth, straight roads, but panic when discovering their routes are wrong. Confident people figure tested options will work when adjusted for changes.

As circumstantial factors multiply, focus becomes harder. Customer integrators advertise reality checks in imperfect settings plus invitations to full situational consultations/group sessions. Examples: ‘(Problem-A) is increasing, which remedies have you tried? Which succeeded? Without practical cures, (Problem-B) varies with weather. How are you preparing for inevitable mold & high-humidity? Let’s adjust plans with (products/processes).’

Examine Conditions. Compare Expectations with Resources. Set Responses & Goals.

Encourage niche members’ check-ins about controlling causes & limiting effects. Continuous improvements can reserve resources, but people forfeit preparatory resources by stopping projects to escape imperfections. Differentiate by offering lifestyle upgrades & preservation instead of imitating product-pushing competitors.

While barriers/walls block disadvantages, people might retain preliminary advantages but limit expansion. While delaying projects, people might retain previously advantageous products which deteriorate & limit technique effectiveness/efficiency. So, people shouldn’t mentally wall-off updated products/techniques. For realistic freedom, people must base expenses & efforts in/on value.

Seek Manufacturers’ Guidance on Product Specifications to Combine with Local Authorities’/Influencers’ Insightful Knowledge.

Without time & energy for cognitive labor, people might choose false economies of tolerating results from cheap products while using superior techniques. People might feel frustration/pain when hitting limits yet trying harder can be worse. With step-by-step plans, resources are allocated so high/low limits are arranged/expected.

Analogy: When inadequate products don't fulfill expectations, people might misinterpret ideal experience "recipes" & maximize/minimize heat & ingredients. Help customers discern options for maximizing experiential quality & quantity. Low-budget plans might support many mediocre experiences.

Differentiate your store with guidance for selecting high-quality events. Though indebted consumers feel stuck, freedom may be out-of-reach without credit for investing in top-quality. When cheap products’ meager “benefits” decline, unexpected/undetected reemerging problems may worsen.

Guide customers’ cognitive labor, so they can freely relax between projects.

Unmaintained Freedom Won’t Last.

Constant freedom maintenance is like securely gripping essentials, until hands become tired. People drop or juggle items (remedies/opportunities) after attempting excessive grasping. People are free to try constantly holding but aren’t stress-free while continuously dropping/juggling. Without relief, more juggling becomes necessary.

What can you & fellow retailers (teammates) do about what/when/how &/or why members juggle tasks/stresses?

Without guidance, effective/efficient coping/defense mechanisms eventually can become dysfunctional as problems change. Example: Hoarders might feel some relief while accumulating stuff, but don’t have space/money for new discoveries. Hoarders might be stressed when forced to reduce new &/or old acquisitions.

People might widen personal freedom by doing/owning many things. Some might focus on maximizing fewer experiences for deeper freedom.

Specialist retailers can make remedies/opportunities special compared to diverse experiences. Analogy: Cooks have limited spices/condiments. By skimping to spread those among many meals, cooks would diminish experiences compared to reserving ingredients for few meals. Would they prefer: continuous mediocre meals or bland meals with interspersed feasts?

Members might eliminate or hit fewer barriers if better moves/options were available.

Would walls keep better environments out-of-reach? In effect, people might need to climb over/go through gates to occupy other environments or bring resources in. Would those resources/loads be compatible (fit through gates/between walls or be practical to haul over barriers)?

People should consider which internal/external threats could overwhelm walls then damage/diminish assets. What indicates which purchases will repair/maintain walls?

When customers want barriers, consultations define desired/undesired results, so benefits are planned accordingly.

Steps can go toward benefits &/or away from- unrepaired/stable damage; currently increasing harm; &/or emerging/potential losses. People could mistakenly rely on walls that block some problems without establishing sufficient security against others. Are specialized or generalized resources necessary/adequate for specialized walls?

If distant walls are/become disadvantageous, should members stay away or closely seek gates? Since people inevitably encounter/hit walls/obstacles, which preparations are practical & how many? Changes seem inevitable, so how long should members wait to closely check whether conditions are finalized?

Though walls won’t prevent all problems, people might limit vulnerabilities. Since customers must limit tasks according to urgence/importance, what do you recommend for remedying/preventing troubles? How do you & retail teammates help customers maintain progress while preventing/decreasing losses? If you don’t decrease vulnerabilities, why would people feel confident to start new projects?

Offer Example: ‘With multiple problems, how do you know which vulnerabilities are worse? (Store) referrals & consultations reveal which local retailers offer products & guidance about potential priorities. Let’s evaluate what should & shouldn’t happen, set your budget & plan your project.’

Issue Denial Seems Easier Than Problem Prevention/Remedies.

As walls become taller, previously noticed/currently unseen opportunities/threats become harder to define. Opportunities could change & become permanently lost or undesirable. Invasive threats disrupt opportunity expansions &/or make conditions unmanageable. How much does wall building/maintenance consume resources for/from other efforts?

Analogy: When niche experiences indicate multiple members’ conditions include the same/similar wall, cooperative testing can compare products & approaches (combinations) to quickly find safe, effective & efficient ladders & techniques.

Team project management makes specialized contributions to add value for each member. Individuals’ efforts might decrease step-by-step quality because awkward/nonspecialized concentration would consume more time & energy.

Troublesome wall quantities depend partly on people’s destinations & resource locations. Which walls are worse? What makes walls easier to surmount? Thick, tall walls seem formidable. How much does mastery require: practice, coaching, knowledge, skills & tools? Are resources available seasonally?

People might not start if they’d probably finish late. If late finishes become certain, what can be saved/salvaged to avoid wastage? How much lead-time should members have for starting/finishing preparations that fit goals & conditions?

Is This All There Is? Why So Many Leaders Hit a Wall in Their 50s (and What to Do About It) By Marcel Schwantes, https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/high-achieving-leaders-executives-ceos-midlife/91264936

Schwantes wrote, “You built the dream. Now what? Success wasn’t supposed to feel this empty.” While walls block disadvantages, do resources get through? Without replenishment, diminished advantages remain with less power. Help members determine why opportunities/remedies feel empty. After buying & using cheap products, what’s still missing?

In effect, people invest in risk-reduction & lack necessities for exploring/preserving/empowering advantages. Previous advantages become like Schwantes wrote when “decisions look right … but don’t feel right”.

Moral rightness can be constant. Purposeful rightness can expire. If purposes remain, monitor necessities & obstacles to evaluate whether plans, methods & resources are still compatible (with minimal friction/conflict). Interaction friction can increase damage & prevent benefits.

Before, during & after plan implementation, define circumstantial friction & determine causes, effects & symptoms. Definitions/diagnoses enable/empower repairs, recoveries & preventions compatible with advancements.

What creates/brings abilities? What empowers abilities? Answers depend on: goals/timelines; obstacles/restrictions; updated/outdated products/techniques.

Are obstacles/restrictions built-in by others or do people self-inflict these? Are self-inflicted walls familiar enough for self-help? How clued-in/clueless are sufferers? Do they realize/admit suffering? Do they know or reject reasons?

Unfortunately, you can help only in customers’ sphere-of-control (between walls). While helping customers tame issues, authoritative actions demonstrate you use insightful facts.

Customers’ relief can nudge trust upward as they realize your diagnoses reveal/remove obstacles blocking opportunities. Mental blocks are common. People perceive potential problems, theorize definitions, wonder if their knowledge/skills/tools are enough.

Shaky attempts weigh on tenuous confidence. People need confidence in successful project completion, converting benefit combinations into maintainable advantages, establishing new goals & plans for further progress. Customer integrators review/renew lives by conquering local challenges/disruptions to remove/reduce walls.

When people encounter/expect walls, advantage offers incentivize members by guiding preparations plus step-by-step progress. Challenges motivate some, but many have challenge overloads. Aspirational advantages might seem out-of-reach without short-/mid-/long-term incentives to encourage consumers.

Low-morale resides when multiplying discouragements are hard to pursue/conquer. Resources are split during that pursuit, so happiness is delayed. If people energetically avoid/ignore looming walls, darkness remains while seemingly blocking inspirational light & shading enlightenment.

Enlightened implementations require concentration & confidently choosing. Without confidence, distracted people burn energy while wondering about better options. While losing resources & progress, low-morale drains energy faster, so any results are celebrated, even if not long-term benefits.

Copyright 2026 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.

When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here- https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/