Mental Floss - Maintaining Marketing Mental Hygiene

Old Thinking Is the "Plaque" That Causes Business Decay

By David Miranda

In today's highly competitive marketplace, old thinking can build-up and cause decay in revenue and market share. For this reason, it is vitally important that marketers practice "good mental hygiene" in order to keep their brain cells open to new ideas and methods of doing business.

This requires that marketers "mental floss" on a regular basis to remove that accumulation of dated thinking assuring fresh perspectives and open minds.

Signs that you need to "mentally floss"?

• "I'm the boss and I know better."


• "We're doing just fine, thank you very much."


• "We have no room for that in our budget this year."


• "We'll form a committee to investigate and get back to us."


• "I don't know anyone who [texts, blogs, podcasts, etc.], so why are we discussing this?"


• "Not now, but keep me posted."


• "It's not us. It's our agency."


• "It's not us. It's our client."


• "It's not us. It's the market."

This type of thinking needs to be "mentally flossed" before the decay sets in. When it does, the only cure is "personnel extraction" and new "fillings" in the corporate org chart.

This is painful for the ones extracted and the organization.

Get out the "mental floss".