Death by HiPPO

It's true:

Vital business and marketing decisions are all too often driven by HiPPOs...

No, not slow-moving mammals of dubious personal hygiene.

I'm talking about the Highest Paid Person's Opinion (HiPPO)...

'Opinion' being the key word. See...

It doesn't matter if YOU love your website, email campaigns, sales letters...

...or hate 'em, frankly.

Because your market is totally impervious to your opinion.

The people who make up your market do not respond to what YOU like.

They respond to what THEY like! And...

We are often very poor judges of what they will like.

Sometimes this is because we have 'the curse of expertise...'

In other words, because we know what is important about our specialist topic, we expect our market to understand that too...

But of course this is wrong-headed. After all...

If they knew your topic as well as you...

...they wouldn't NEED you in the first place, would they?

The fundamental difference in perspective between you (the expert) and your prospect (the non-expert) means you are almost guaranteed to put the wrong messages into the market.

So death by HiPPO is a real danger.

How do you avoid it?

With humility.

With an acceptance that every piece of marketing you put out into the world is really a HiPPO-thesis...

...your best guess as to what will work.

Your market may prove your HiPPOthesis right.

Or - just as likely - your market may prove your HiPPOthesis wrong.

Either of which is fine.

Provided you take it into account and adjust course accordingly.