Mark Amtower’s Six Habits of Highly Defective People ‘Who Just Don’t Get It’

Mark Amtower, who’s made a career of helping B-to-B catalogers and other direct marketers sell to federal government agencies successfully, was the keynote speaker at a luncheon during last week’s MeritDirect Co-op in White Plains, N.Y., addressing the types of companies and people catalogers ought to steer clear of.

In his presentation, “Six Habits of Highly Defective People ‘Who Just Don’t Get It’,” Amtower humorously, but quite seriously, described these top six in reverse order.

6. A really big company with name recognition, but not built on customer satisfaction or client relationships — instead, built on corporate acquisitions. Such companies “rarely have substance of real market players — people who worked their way up through the trenches,” Amtower said.

Instead, these companies provide second or third tier service. Their marketshare “is ‘rented,’ never owned,” Amtower said. But they don’t “pay” the rent with money. “So sooner or later, you’ll lose that marketshare. You can have time at the top, but it won’t last.”

5. Direct/catalog ad agencies that specialize in no particular market and employ a “one size fits all” approach. Catalog clients that use these (often award-winning) agencies, expect campaigns that’ll lead to overnight domination, Amtower said. “This would be laughable if it weren’t so pitiful,” he noted. “Most big agencies have no clue of market niches, the hot buttons, the lingo or ethical parameters to play in those niches. If you ignore the nuances before you execute the campaign, bad things can happen quickly. It’s bling bling and no substance.”

4. The inflatable resume. Some people write resumes that reflect their fantasy life rather than their history, Amtower said. Inflatable resumes inflate the gullible outsider, someone looking for a surefire way to have success in all things.

Inflatable resumes use extreme hyperbolic assertions. “You’ll believe that if you’re not associated with them right now,” Amtower quipped, “life won’t just pass you by, it’s over.”