An AXIOMS Life Lesson

A telemarketer called me with a pitch. (I don’t remember what it was for.) Whatever it was, I was not interested — and immediately told him so.

He asked, “May I say something?”​

I replied: “No.”

And then he continued talking.​

I said: “You asked me if you could say something. I said ‘no.’ So why are you still talking?”

Now, I understand telemarketers have a job to do. They are working at a mostly undesirable job — for not much money. So most times, I am polite. But . . .

With the volume of calls increasing geometrically over the past few years, my patience is wearing thin.

​By the way, another telemarketer began by telling me: “DON’T HANG UP!”

In a Facebook post, I wrote that I thought “don’t hang up” was a bad opening. Reason: As soon as I hear it — I hang up.

But a FB friend who runs a call center set me straight. He informed me that he had tested“don’t hang up” many times. And it always improved results.

​There’s an important lesson here. Namely, you can’t accurately and reliably evaluate marketing by your subjective judgment. The only way you can know whether something works is to test it.

Your opinion may be wrong. But numbers are much more accurate and reliable.

The British scientist Lord Kelvin said: “When you can measure something, and express it in numbers, then you know something about it.”

And that is why this is, essentially, the First AXIOM of Marketing.