This I Know, By Terry O’Reilly

This is a book chosen by me to use in a marketing course. Terry O’Reilly, a prominent voice on CBC with his marketing show “As It Happens,” was the first and only name that popped into my head when I needed a marketing book to select as reading material.

My experience reading through his fourth book felt to me like a stroke of luck getting to sit with him for coffee, spewing words of wisdom for hours. His first-hand experience and storytelling divide life and business lessons right down the middle. this will certainly not be my last terry oreilly book. the following are my favorite lessons/stories that stuck with me to use as general rules of thumb in the future.

“Trust me”

As soon as someone tries to sell themselves to you by saying “trust me,” you instantly have your guard up. Instead, tell sroties involving you and your company relating to trust. ingnighting those feeling without ever having to say those words out loud gives your buyer more autonomy in choosing you. “Trust is meant to be felt not stated”.

Commitees are not creative

the politics of large groups smothers individuals voices and lacks the freetome to be creative, O’Rielly beleives two or thee smart people with the same goal is all you need. big groups will carry an idea far and execute accordingly, “their just not good at coming up with one”.

“Unless you have big ambitions, you’ll have small outcomes”

Most money spent on avertisments are wasted by being lost in the middle, to be the top 5% that garners attention, you must be ambitious to step outside of conformity to avoid incremental gains at best. “The biggest risk is compacency”.

“Marketing rules are meant to be broken”

There are whole books writen on conventional thinking when it comes to advertisments. O’Reilly’s view on the matter is once you know the rules, breaking them can lead to memorable marketing. An example of this in practice discussed in a marketing class of mine was the outlandish owl maskot for Duolingo, breaking most rules thought to be guidlines to avoid alienating your audience has picked up enough traction where it is recognised alll over social media.