Most of us have tried a fad diet (or two), or at least know of someone who has. What is it about these diets that are so attractive? It probably has something to do with their promise of generating results, and fast. In this day and age of instant everything, if something doesn’t yield results quickly, it’s abandoned and considered unsuccessful. The need for instant outcomes extends from the individual to the corporation, where executives want immediate results.

And how do they achieve immediate results? The usual course of action is to launch a promotional campaign. These campaigns have a limited life, and are designed to boost sales and increase the bottom line—temporarily. Most of the time, promotions achieve their desired objective, just as someone consuming only cabbage soup drops the desired weight in time for their beach holiday. But then what? What happens after the promotion ends and you’re back from your holiday? Are you able to maintain the results? More often than not, the answer is no.

Using short-term fixes like promotions is a form of “marketing myopia.” This term was first introduced in 1960 by Theodore Levitt in a paper published in the Harvard Business Review. According to Levitt, marketing myopia is the short-sightedness of businesses who define themselves too narrowly (by focusing on their products) rather than stepping back and seeing what business they’re really in (by focusing on their customers’ needs).

By being customer-oriented rather than product-oriented, a business avoids the risk of becoming irrelevant and dispensable to its customers. This is why a company like Shell should consider itself to be in the energy industry, rather than the petroleum industry.

So where to begin? It starts with a sound marketing strategy. By thoroughly researching and assessing its industry, a company can find where the strongest need is and fill that gap. This positioning then becomes the backbone of the business and permeates all aspects of its operations through its brand.

It might seem like a no-brainer, but going back to basics is what many businesses need in order to succeed and respond to the highs and lows of the market.

I recently shared my ideas on the concept of confidence accumulation and its importance to cultivating referrals to some of my peers at a TEN luncheon.

We know that referrals are one of the most powerful drivers of business development (marketing giant Nike says that the vast majority of its business is from referrals). We also know that the science behind promoting good referrals involves creating a good experience, and to create a good experience you need to manage your touch points—not all your touch points though, only those that are important to your target market.

But how exactly do positive experiences at relevant touch points translate into referrals? Why is it that 100 good touch points can be ruined by 1 mediocre one?

One way to think about referrals is through the concept of accumulation.

In order for potential clients to decide to do business with you, to actually reach into their pockets and pull out their wallets, they need to feel confident that what they’re going to receive in exchange for their money is of equal value. There needs to be a certain level of confidence on their part, in your product or service. What’s more, that level of required confidence varies depending on the product or service. Common commodities like toothpaste or shampoo have a lower threshold of confidence that must be reached than, say, consulting services or a more significant product like a car or home.

For someone to refer your company, an accumulation of confidence also needs to occur—and perhaps even more so, because a referral reflects back on the person who gave it.

Here’s the connection: each touch point either adds to or detracts from that confidence.

This is why managing each touch point is so crucial, and also why some touch points should be weighted heavier than others. (How do you know which touch points to focus on? Survey your customers.)

For instance, a web-savvy consumer checks out a company’s website (one of his highly valued touch points) before going to the store to purchase something. If the website is terrible, he may not even go into the store because the amount of confidence lost in his interaction with this crucial touch point could be too much to recover.

On the other hand, another consumer might place more value in the appearance and manner of the company’s staff, and not care at all about the website.

The point is, think of your company’s touch points, think about the ones that matter most to your target, and then figure out how to make them confidence builders, not confidence detractors. It’s also important to make sure there aren’t any inconsistencies between your touch points, because inconsistency is one of the most detrimental factors to the accumulation of confidence.

People always think that good customer service is enough to generate referrals. But what does that mean exactly? Responsiveness? Expertise? Look and feel? In fact, someone’s willingness to refer your business is based on an accumulation of confidence over multiple touch points.

Sometimes our best ideas grow from a spontaneous conversation with a friend or colleague. Little nuggets of wisdom often emerge from something as innocuous as a morning chat over a cappuccino (my rationale for frequent coffee shop visits). Grand ideas are often conjured in the middle of a golf game (and forgotten when the beer cart comes around for the third time).

Unfortunately, Time never graces most of us with the opportunity to pursue those great thoughts, and so they get lost in the land of abandoned ideas.

To me, this is a tragedy because some of my greatest ideas have sprung from those times that I took a step outside the day-to-day chaos to think about things from a different perspective. (The idea for Incite came to Ted and me in a theoretical discussion about business during a hike around a lake.)

What’s more, there’s something to be said about the excitement of a great discussion. There’s an energy that flows when colleagues share ideas and have the freedom to discuss them openly—it’s truly an inspiring experience.

Lately, I’ve noticed that some of the moments I value the most are those time-outs for high-level thinking, those moments that I experienced the excitement of fellow (great) minds sharing ideas. I value those moments because each time I feel like I come out equipped with the power to navigate the world of business.

Out of a desire to set more time aside to think and share ideas with colleagues, out of a desire to experience that excitement as people discuss strategies to navigate the scene, a group of leaders in the Edmonton marketing industry recently got together to form TEN.

TEN is a group of marketing industry professionals who will meet ten times annually, and each of the ten members will present on a topic of choice to generate discussion and ideas. The goal is that TEN will be used as a strategic tool to stay ahead of the curve on marketing trends and ideas. By formally setting aside time, members will give themselves the chance to connect with other industry leaders as they navigate business issues and opportunities.

TEN recently had its first idea-sharing session, and it was a great success. One of our goals is to create a series of short blogs or articles about an idea that comes out of the group’s discussions, so that fewer ideas are lost in the shuffle of day-to-day business.

Groups like TEN are a great opportunity for people within or across industries to take time out to connect and have a look at business from a different perspective. It’s something most of us would like to do more often, and setting up a formal group for regular gatherings is the perfect way to make sure that happens.

Have you ever bought something and, after using it for a few months, realized just how glad you were that you made the decision to buy it? Some things you just have to use for a while before you realize that you can’t live without it.

My friend was shopping for a car last year, and he invited me along. Now, he’s a busy guy; he’s work busy and home busy (with the kid’s soccer practices and dance classes). We went to a few dealerships together and, after a little while, we got distracted by the flashier models. Sports cars were making a comeback, and he was dazzled by the ones we saw on the lots. “Maybe I should get one of these? I think I can make it work,” he’d say. We weren’t looking for something that fit his lifestyle anymore and, after a little while, we snapped out of it, finally realizing that his fantasy dream did not fit his goal. What he was looking for was not a sports car, but a minivan. You can’t fit a family of five in a sports car no matter how hard you try! Almost grudgingly, he bought a top-of-the-line minivan. Now, after having only driven it for six months, he admitted to me that it was one of the best decisions he ever made.

Adopting a new company name or logo is like buying a car. Once you find a new identity that potentially matches with your organization’s needs, you need to “break-in” that new brand for a little while. You need to work it into your company’s everyday business, from how you answer the phones to the signage in your office, to the way your business card is designed. Giving yourself time to break in a new identity is the only way to eventually feel comfortable with it. It’s only after you start seeing all the different elements come together and letting it settle, will you feel that it’s the right way to go.

Are you getting a little tired of your current ads? Think they need a little more oomph, a new layout, or a colour change? Does your logo make you feel indifferent? You might think it’s time to make a change. Refresh things a little bit. Liven things up again. Or, you might want to stop and put yourself in your clients’ shoes.

Just because you’re bored doesn’t mean your audience is.

I’m frequently asked how often creative needs to be updated. “We’re running 30-second commercials on radio station X for the next eight weeks. How often should we change our ad?” “We’ve been running the same campaign in this magazine for six months. Don’t you think we should change it up a little?”

Creative—whether it’s a logo, ad, website, or e-newsletter—does not have a predetermined shelf life. Your creative needs updating if your target audience has changed, if the characteristics of your target audience have changed, or if your message has changed. The question really is: Are you conveying your key messages to your target audience?

Your current creative may be very effective. You’ve heard your commercials on the radio for eight weeks but that doesn’t mean your customer has. And, just because you’ve been looking at your print campaign for six months doesn’t mean your potential client has. I bet the Campbell’s Soup marketing team is tired of red labels, but blue soup cans probably won’t make me load up the next time I go to the grocery store.

Change your creative when it’s no longer effective—not when you’re tired of it.