One of the themes of the SIPA 2016 Conference this week was simplicity. I heard it in Dan Hanover's wonderful events session yesterday when he said that "attendees register with their eyes" so use "short impactful content." He showed us an old registration webpage with lots of copy vs. a new one with dramatic photos and "Ready. Set. Register." centered in big letters. Guess which one did better?

"Companies do not ask customers what they want [enough]," Arno Langbehn, CEO, B. Behr's Verlag GmbH & Co. KG in Hamburg, Germany, told a large SIPA audience two years ago in a wonderful keynote. "'We are not in the coffee business serving people,'" he said, quoting a successful brand. "'We are in the people business serving coffee.' Customers only buy when they see themselves [getting] a benefit from it."