The ability to spot questionable research has never been more important. While scientific studies often appear credible on the surface, poorly designed research is far more common than most people realize, and distinguishing solid science from nonsense requires navigating a small learning curve.

The human brain uses predictable mental shortcuts (heuristics) to navigate overwhelming choices. The question isn't whether these psychological mechanisms exist but how we use them ethically and effectively.

Effective marketing works with, rather than against, four dominant natural patterns.

Most of us make decisions weighed down by past investment rather than focused on future possibilities, never asking if I started fresh today, knowing what I know now, would I choose this path? Forget the time you've spent, the money you've invested, or the effort you've put in. Does continuing forward serve you best right now? If not, you should quit.

Yes, quit.

As you hit acquisition targets and generate qualified leads, your enterprise's value stagnates. The culprit probably isn't what you expect. Customers who had enthusiastically signed contracts begin to disengage and walk away without fanfare. This silent attrition destroys B2B enterprise value as acquisition costs spiral upward and competitive advantages compress from years to months. Enter the economics of loyalty.

One of the most valuable things we can do in life is to limit the amount of opinions we have. Why? To start with we consistently overestimate how widely others share our views, beliefs, and behaviors. This false consensus effect drives three problems.

You launch a campaign you love.
Your team loves it.
Your boss loves it.
Then it flops.

Welcome to false consensus land, where marketers believe their ideas resonate with everyone when they connect with no one because they assume their audience thinks like them. The act of projecting your preferences onto strangers allows you to mistake team enthusiasm for market validation. Essentially, this bias tricks you into believing your opinions represent the norm when they don't.

Welcome to the digital high school cafeteria where everyone competes for attention with louder claims, flashier presentations, and more outrageous promises.

Have you joined the performance circus or are you building something serious?

When faced with a deluge of information, many a marketer will fall prey to the data dredging trap, leading to drawing false conclusions from the random patterns that appear. Those patterns can appear remarkably convincing, especially when analyzing multiple variables simultaneously. This "data dredging" effect explains why so many research findings fail to replicate and why misleading correlations flood social media and information outlets

Market sizing blends analytical rigor with strategic judgment. Demand curves defy mathematical functions, data fragments and biases proliferate, and disruptive technologies redraw boundaries overnight. Therefore, responsible practitioners run sensitivity analyses, triangulate top-down and bottom-up approaches, and openly disclose assumptions.

What is most interesting is that we are seeing the shift from making great ads, hoping people remember you later when it's time to buy, to being present in the precise moment someone decides to trust a recommendation, either from an algorithm, a human, or both. When AI recommends Cetaphil on the spot, people buy. Not because they were manipulated, but because they were helped.

When resources tighten, average marketing teams scatter across channels, hoping something sticks. But we know that repeated exposure increases preference, and your audience needs multiple touch points with your message to convert, not single exposures across scattered channels.

Your highest contribution lies beyond your current competencies, but that current state also creates a blind spot that keeps you trapped in what you know instead of exploring what you could become. Ergo, excellence in the wrong areas prevents excellence in the right ones.

You can't force a breakthrough campaign. You can't manufacture genuine brand passion. But you can plant seeds and create the environment where marketing mastery grows. Those seeds might not sprout for months or years. Plant enough seeds and tend the soil consistently, and breakthroughs will bloom.

• Is it testable?
• Can you prove or disprove it?
•If you reversed your hypothesis, would you care about the difference it would make to your overall logic?
• If you shared your hypothesis with any other stakeholder, would it sound naive or obvious?
• Does it point directly to an action or actions that you might take?

There's a difference between marketers who follow trends and those who create them. The gap isn't talent or luck, it's philosophy. The masters I've studied, who built empires from ideas, all shared certain beliefs that guided their decisions. What are some of those beliefs? I can't believe you asked...