THINK STANDING UP

By: Bart Foreman, Marketing Magician - Because Magic Is Important

This may be the most important advice you will get for 2026.

In 2024 and 2025, the most popular call-to-action (CTA) was being “AGILE,” and we supported that call. Everything was about being agile. Being quick to react. Being quick to pivot. Being quick to act. All good CTAs, but they missed what marketers needed to do at the starting gate – and even before a marketing crisis was brewing. In fact, ask yourself how many possible marketing situations happened or are happing that your team missed. Ask how many sales might have been lost not because you were not agile, but because you were not OBSERVANT. And you probably were not listening because the marketplace noise was too loud.

In today’s complex and noisy landscape, observing, listening and paying attention is critical to keeping up with the changing consumer and buyer landscapes. And that leads to the theme of this blog – THINK STANDING UP. It is quite possible that you might be the only one at the table standing up. That is how you separate yourself from your competitors – by STANDING UP and THINKING. And you have to do both at the same time. It’s not easy.

Understanding the situation is the first challenge and usually the marketing team gets it. I found this very true when scoping out how the new AI-Driven Virtual Receptionist we were creating would perform and how to establish the ground rules for the tech team. That was the easy part. The second challenge was developing the messaging. I probably spoke with twenty professional beauty salon owners and they understood what we want to build and the rationale behind it and all expressed interest in the concept. I selected three to be in the beta test. Messaging was not hard. We thought we nailed it.

And then came the third and most difficult challenge: Building traction. I had a long list of salon owners I cultivated over thirty years. Many owners I personally know. Slam dunk. Not so fast. I was trying to move them away from antiquated voicemail to a friendly avatar that always asked, “How may I help you?” And my outreach fell on deaf ears. No responses to emails, texts, messages, and phone calls. That’s when the reality set in. My messaging was either not hitting a nerve or they just didn’t care. It is probably a combination of both.

Think standing up should be a positive wake-up call. I’m told that it used to take seven touches to get someone to respond to a sales call. Today it’s more like fifteen. Part of my message has been that “Your clients are changing and they expect more.” Now, I realize that the business owner prospects I am trying to reach seem happy in their current cocoons and are not ready to become butterflies. In talking to other marketers, I find that this is the new way of doing business. Prospects either ignore our outreach or they just choose to accept the status quo. That’s why it is critical that marketers like you and me THINK STANDING UP. Watch the trends, the reactions to your pitch, and be ready to pivot. Eventually, you will unlock the secret password. But magic is not always easy.