I might be the only furniture guy with a brain on the bookcase next to my desk. Brain science has changed our understanding of free will, consciousness, memory, motivations and indeed, connections between the mind and the brain.
There is branch of marketing called neuromarketing. Science is attempting to explain why we buy. Books like Buy-ology, Iconoclast, and The Power of Less all take a stab at explaining this emerging field of study.
If you’re interested in how the 3-pounds of soft tissue in your head works, you might want to begin with The Owner’s Manual For The Brain, a fascinating 1007-page technical explanation of why we do the things we do. Or check out this podcast series on the brain which explains how business will be structured, organized and run in the not too distant future.
In a Los Angeles Times article, “Searching for the Why of Buy,” Robert Lee Hotz talks about insights into the human brain made possible by revolutionary new scanning technology. He wrote, “Much of what was traditionally considered the product of logic and deliberation is actually driven by primitive brain systems responsible for emotional responses.” So, what does this mean to you? It means that your customer buys because of emotion, not logic and deliberation.
Consumer behavior studies will never be the same. If you ignore brain research about human behavior, you are risking your future. Your competitors are studying this issue and putting their new knowledge to work daily.
Many in the home furnishings industry are still trying to figure out how to best use the internet to boost the bottom line. To simplify the complex world of online marketing, home furnishings retailers, manufacturers, representatives and suppliers will gather at an Industry-Wide Web Summit on February 8, 2009, in Las Vegas.
The most pressing issues in the home furnishings industry are increasing expenses and decreasing revenues. Being online is the solution to both. We’ve broken online marketing down to its basic fundamentals. After four hours of teaching and an hour of interactive discussion, you will better understand the whole because you’ll understand the parts.
1245 Intro://Las Vegas Room@Harrah’s
1.oo Recipe for Online Content://Rick Doran/ President.CEO@RAMarketing.com
2.oo Simplifying PPC and SEO Marketing://Mark Phelps/President.CEO@PartnerMarketing.biz
3.oo The Power of e-Marketing://David McMahon/Director.E-Commerce@PROFITconsulting.com
4.oo What You Had Better Know About e-Commerce://David Lively/President.CEO@TheLivelyMerchant.com
All segments of the home furnishings industry are invited to learn how to improve their business through online marketing. The agenda is filled with valuable content that guarantees you will not be disappointed in what you hear. Seating is limited. Registration is required for this free event.
“The brain has three natural roadblocks that stand in the way of truly innovative thinking:
1. flawed perception
2. fear of failure
3. the inability to persuade others.”
– Dr. Gregory Berns, neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics at Emory University.
The brains of retail owners and managers are stuffed full of these roadblocks.
Dr. Berns explains how worthless the brain becomes over time. He says, “Did you know that when you see the same thing over and over again, your brain uses less and less energy? Your mind already knows what it’s seeing, so it doesn’t make the effort to process the event again.”
A trusted teacher-adviser taught me to never offer ideas without ways to help implement them.
Unlike other consultants, I choose to take this advice. Don’t let some marketing guru claim to know how it feels to walk in your loafers. Most of them have never risked their own money on much of anything.
The language of the left brain is logical. The educational system in the United States has effectively taught generations of left-brained thinkers.
However, studies have shown that children loose a large percentage of their creativity between ages 5 and 7. Things like storytelling, art, music, drama, and design become second class subjects at this young age.
Leap forward and you’ll find that TV, radio, print, bill boards, yard signs and point-of-purchase messages all sing the same sound in the mind. Sales, discounts, two-for-one, buy-one-get-one and lowest price of the century are lyrics of the left-brained limbic system.
But your consumer is living in her right brain. “Keeping it real” has replaced “being cool.” Authenticity rules the day. The old saying, “Say what you mean, and mean what you say,” applies. People know when your offer is crap!
Your dreams didn’t change Just because business tightened up. It might have changed your focus. Deep down, in places we’re too embarrassed to talk about, the dream goes on.
So go ahead and hunker down. Count pennies. Save scraps. But, remember that imagination, perception, and faith are as fundamental as math, language and spelling.
They are simply the languages of the other side of your brain.
October 1, 2008,— PROFITsystems, Inc., the leading software provider for the retail furniture industry, and The Lively Merchant, a consulting firm offering a variety of business building tools, have formed a new working relationship.The synergy of the products that the two companies offer makes this a win-win situation for retailers.Wayne McMahon, VP of PROFITconsulting and David Lively, owner of the Lively Merchant, are combining their years of experience in business analysis to provide retailers with expertise in specialized areas of their business.
Lively specializes in generational transfer consulting, which PROFITsystems and The Lively Merchant are making available to their clients. McMahon stated, “Many owners of businesses in the home furnishings industry are second and third generation.Being able to offer a clear plan on transitioning the business to the next generation is vital to the continued success of these businesses.”McMahon continued, “Providing a path to this transition will be a huge benefit to our clients.”
The two companies will also be joining efforts in developing marketing campaigns for retailers.PROFITsystems’ e-Marketing is designed to offer retailers an organized way to utilize their client base for specified marketing efforts and The Lively Merchant has a unique copyrighted 47 point how-to manual for big event sales.These will be offered as an exclusive mix that will highlight the best of both programs.Lively said, “Advertising and marketing are evolving at an incredible pace.Many business owners are busy keeping up with the retail furniture industry and just do not have the time to keep up on all of the new avenues available in the advertising and marketing arenas. Our two companies have a unique opportunity to do the work that is necessary to bring the newest and most successful campaigns to the retailer.”
PROFITsystems and The Lively Merchant will remain independent companies although future projects will be developed to capitalize on the strengths of each.For additional information on The Lively Merchant or PROFITsystems please visit their individual websites: www.thelivelymerchant.com or www.profitsystems.com.
“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” Thomas Jefferson
After listening to President Bush and then a dozen channels of political pundits and Wall Street hacks I went searching for some sage generational advice. It seems Thomas Jefferson was clearly foreseeing the problems of today!
Which generation do you think he might have been talking to? I have an opinion. Email me if you would like to know. The answer will be two short words.
Greed-is-good Yuppies and Bible-believing conservatives each handle training the same way.
This morning I was thinking about personality type as it relates to training. Of course, wondering always leads me to generational questions.
Remember we are living and working in an unprecedented four generational time. Never in earth’s history have four generations worked together – before right now!
Feedback from training might sound like this:
WWII Generation says, “I learned it the hard way, and you should, too.”
Baby Boomers say, “If you train people too much, they’ll leave.”
Generation X says, “The more they learn, the longer they’ll stay.”
Millennials say, “Always be learning, it’s a way of life.
Dreams and myths are constellations of archetypal images.
What then is an archetype? Jung said we have a“preconscious psychic disposition that enables a (man) to react in a human manner.” Archetypes may emerge into consciousness in piles of variations. There are a very few archetypes (about which exist at the unconscious level, but there are an infinite variety of specific images which point back to these few patterns.
Jung found the archetypal patterns and images in every culture and in every time period of human history. They behaved according to the same laws in all cases.We humans do not have separate, personal unconscious minds. The mind is rooted in the unconscious just as a Hickory tree is rooted in the ground. When we have the courage to seek the source to which our mind, will, and emotion belongs, we begin to discover even more universal patterns.
The reality is concealed in the darkness of mystery.
For the first half of our life, passages are fairly easily marked. We go to school, get a job, find a mate, raise a family and contribute to our community.
But a strange thing happens on the way to the finish line. The built in “life detector” begins to ask why are we here, and what is this all for. Questions begin to form. We wonder about retirement-from what, to what? How will we cope with maintaining health in an aging body? We question our ability to mentor younger people, begin to experience the loss of loved ones, and face the eventual certainty of our own mortality.
Big questions, huh?
Passageways, not aging, are on my mind.
Retailers are presented with rites of passage daily. How do I get the sales staff to move? How do I get more cash in the bank account? How do I get rid of excess inventory? These are all questions that require movement from where you are to where you want to be (or at least a step in the right direction).
Your rites of passage will take you over thresholds and through gates. A threshold is something we cross, a place we tread, turn, twist, and flail. Thresholds often mentally move us to the brink of something. A gate, on the other hand, is a passageway into sacred ground, or holy land, or a place of protection, testing, and/or spiritual depth.
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Hypotheses
Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise; risking more than others think is safe; dreaming more than others think is practical and expecting more than others think is possible.
I might be the only furniture guy with a brain on the bookcase next to my desk. Brain science has changed our understanding of free will, consciousness, memory, motivations and indeed, connections between the mind and the brain.
Many in the home furnishings industry are still trying to figure out how to best use the internet to boost the bottom line. To simplify the complex world of online marketing, home furnishings retailers, manufacturers, representatives and suppliers will gather at an Industry-Wide Web Summit on February 8, 2009, in Las Vegas.
The brain has three natural roadblocks that stand in the way of truly innovative thinking:
The language of the left brain is logical. The educational system in the United States has effectively taught generations of left-brained thinkers.
Greed-is-good Yuppies and Bible-believing conservatives each handle training the same way. 
which exist at the unconscious level, but there are an infinite variety of specific images which point back to these few patterns.
For the first half of our life, passages are fairly easily marked. We go to school, get a job, find a mate, raise a family and contribute to our community.
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