We’re too full of our own ego.

We’re talking about ourselves, when the buyer is trying to solve something that has nothing to do with us yet.

Most times, the answer to the buyer's specific problem actually exists. But it gets buried under corporate speak and generic positioning because of a fear that getting too specific narrows the market.

Everyone is saying the same thing because everyone is afraid of saying something that might turn someone away.

The Cognitive Marketer

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Underpricing based on mistaking "customer acquisition" for "business growth" might be the most common strategic error in business.

When we set a price, we're not picking a numbers of the air. We’re not simply adding up costs per unit, slapping a percentage on top, and calling it a day.

We’re doing far more than that.

We're choosing our positioning. We’re defining what type of game we play, the buyers we’ll attract, and which competitors we’ll face.

To an accountant, economist, or a business owner, price is simply a number.

But to a buyer, price is a feeling.

The Cognitive Marketer

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The use of AI tools in marketing opens up possibilities that we couldn't have imagined a few years ago. But it's also allowed us to produce lazy, sloppy, junk that reflects badly on how buyers view our brand.

Rather than use AI to make us and our brands "better" (whatever that means) we're focusing on its use to make us faster, even if our standards of quality take a nosedive as a result.

Poorly-produced AI-generated images are the clipart of the 2020s (don't know what "clipart" is? Ask your parents).

What we're doing is teaching people to recognize the corners we choose to cut. Every obviously AI-generated piece of content contributes to pattern recognition for our audience. After enough exposure, they don't need to consciously spot the signs. They can feel it, in the same way they learned to feel that a generic, overused stock image isn't trustworthy.

The Cognitive Marketer

Brought to you by KEXINO - https://kexino.com/

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The problems we faced when we were building our business are very different to the problems we face as we continue to grow the business.

When a business gets to a certain size, a wave of complacency sets in. We con ourselves into thinking that we're worked out how this "business" thing works, and how to keep the plates spinning to keep generating revenue, pay the bills, and keep the lights on.

What got us here, won't get us there.

This is often where a combination of "doing what worked before", combined with a touch of blind panic and a sudden interest in religion, gets its way.

We try harder and harder to do what worked before, even though it's clear that it's not working. But since we don't have any new cards up our sleeves (and are too scared to try them anyway) we carry on looking in places we've already looked.

The Cognitive Marketer

Brought to you by KEXINO - https://kexino.com/

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Margherita pizza exists because it offends no-one. It’s the choice you make when you don't know what everyone wants.

Pineapple pizza, on the other hand, is polarizing. People either love it or hate it. Which is why it works as positioning - the people who love it really love it.

When we try to appeal to everyone, we create messaging that could apply to anyone. We put out content that avoids taking any position that might be controversial. In short, we become a collection of platitudes.

But buyers don't choose platitudes.

Our commercial opportunity exists in the margins, not the middle. It exists in being specific about who we serve and how we serve them. Not in a niche-for-the-sake-of-niche way, but in a way that makes our point of view clear.

Pineapple on a pizza? No way. But it's not made for someone like me. It's made for someone else. And that's OK.

The Cognitive Marketer

Brought to you by KEXINO - https://kexino.com/

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We're wasting time and budget chasing people who won't buy from us today, instead of looking at people who may buy from us tomorrow.

Future buyers are forming opinions right now about which brands seem familiar, credible, and worth remembering for the future.

When they eventually need whatever we're selling, they'll begin with the brands they know and have already heard of. They'll start with whatever names already sit in their head because that's how brains work.

Yes, we can call it "brand building" in whatever vague way that's come to mean today. But at the end of the day It's about having us pop-up in someone's memory before that person needs to make a buying decision.

The Cognitive Marketer

Brought to you by KEXINO - https://kexino.com/

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Too many business owners suffer from loss aversion. They tend to avoid a possible less, by sticking with the status quo - what’s worked in the past that got them to where they are.

However, that also means they’re risking possible gain, by trying something new.

Markets continue to do what they’re going to do, and won’t put things on hold for us while we try to catch up.

Because if we won't disrupt what we've built, someone else will do it for us.

The Cognitive Marketer

Brought to you by KEXINO - https://kexino.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kexino

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BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/kexino.com

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We're optimizing for subjective appeal rather than commercial effectiveness.

Of course design, UX/UI, etc are all important. But they're not the *most* important.

Buyers don't buy from us just because our website looks pretty.

The main reason why a page converts is because of the copy. Yet we're apparently OK to spend thousands on frameworks, design engines, and brand guidelines while considering copywriting as though an afterthought.

We're optimizing for looking professional instead of being interesting. While "professional" gets us in the door, it's "interesting" that actually converts.

Yet we keep confusing the two.

The Cognitive Marketer

Brought to you by KEXINO - https://kexino.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kexino

Instagram: https://instagram.com/wearekexino

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Kexino

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@wearekexino

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/kexino.com

Gee Ranasinha public speaking website: https://gee-speaks.com