Marketing experts pound this message into their client's heads - from small businesses like dental practices or web sites to big corporations.

They say "One of the most effective ways to market any product is to answer the question 'What's in it for me?'" They are not referring to the person marketing the product or service, but to what are the client or customer's wants or needs.

Bernard Baruch put it another way "Find out what people want and give it to them". This was his answer to the question "What has been most important to your success?"

Omer Reed uses the following quote "Speak to the obvious, ask a question". Mary Osborne says "Stay in the Question".

Art Combs said "All learning involves the discovery of personal meaning". For learning to occur the teacher must find out what is personally relevant to the student.

We dentists are pretty dense when it comes to this. We explain things to death and use the same assumptions and tired old explanations over and over again.

Get out of your rut and comfort zone and think of the above questions and statements before making the same assumption and launching into another tired old explanation when you are answering patients questions or making case presentations.

Same thing applies to your marketing efforts.