3. “Your first competitor is indifference” - Harry Beckwith.

On paper, the “safe” route often looks like the sensible one. Everyone nods along. Nobody objects. No one feels uncomfortable.

But that lack of response should tell you something.

Out there in the real world, your audience is not waiting patiently to decode your message. They are busy, distracted and overwhelmingly uninterested.

Most people won’t notice you.

And those who do probably won’t care enough to remember you.

That’s the point devotees of the Ehrenberg-Bass school make so powerfully with mental availability: brands grow by being easy to think of, easy to recognise and easy to recall in buying situations.

Which means the real danger isn’t in being disliked. It’s in leaving no trace at all.