Buy Now: Creative Marketing that Gets Customers to Respond to You and Your Product

PROLOGUE: The Secret to Our Success

Entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 companies and small companies thinking big come to us every day and say, "Hey, what you did for OxiClean: I want that!" "What you did for the Juiceman Juicer, for the George Foreman Grill, for the Sonicare toothbrush. . . . We want a brand. We want that!"

The next thing they usually say is, "But I don't want a yell-and-sell pitchman like Billy Mays!"

It's funny that everybody who walks through our door makes some pretty universal assumptions about what goes on here. We don't—assume, that is. That's our first rule. Don't assume. Don't assume you know everything about anything. That's the first sign of arrogance and the last sign of learning. Want to stop creativity? Tell people you know everything, and act like it's the absolute fact. Our job is to walk into every situation with innocence, newness, and freshness, and that starts with ignorance. The same ignorance your next unassuming customer has when he or she finds you in the marketplace for the first time.

Together we have sold somewhere north of $2 billion worth of product and launched about 30 brands. We are proven to be some of the world's best salesmen, but it is not because of what we say. It is because we know what to listen to.

Ever had a really good doctor? A really good coach? Or meet a really good salesperson? I bet they all had the same common thread. They ask questions—lots of questions. They listen. They observe. They observe even more. They ask other people ...