If you had never seen a telescope before it would be reasonable to look through the large end. It is wider, offers more light, and it could be assumed its primary purpose was to shrink things. There is a natural tendency to put your goals first, even when your intention is to focus on the customer. So the customer is smaller, remote and subservient to your marketing goals. It’s a happy thought to many a brand marketer that if the customer had its eyeball at the opposite end of your telescope it would see you many times greater than reality.

By some quirk of our human nature (call it ego), we all see our own perspective in magnification and everyone else’s in minimilization. It is not a simple thing to switch the roles around. But the truth  is that we are judged, not from our own perspective, but from that of the customer.

For example: I consulted with a construction company to develop a marketing platform within a key vertical. After research and competitive analysis I presented the the strategy and execution framework. The VP Marketing announced that they had implemented the same strategy 4 years earlier and it had failed in the execution. It wasn’t until my presentation that they realized they had used the wrong end of the telescope.

You can have the right data, the right strategy and manage to completely alienate your target market by thinking that the telescope is pointed in your direction.