Bottom line - your marketing efforts must appeal to more people than you.

Cramming it with industry jargon, set in your favorite typeface, featuring a photo of your niece backed by your favorite shade of teal - only speaks to you. (And you're the one person you don't have to sell.) Making decisions driven by YOUR likes and dislikes doesn't build relationships - it just strokes your ego.

Your communication must fit your audience. Every day you're faced with situations which make it necessary to 'shift' the way you talk. You speak with your 7 year old differently than your buddy during a football game. When Grandma's around, undoubtedly, the 'blue' language is kept to a minimum.

As a business person, you must interact in a way that connects with your audience.

The first step: learn their language. Because if you're not speaking the language, the right message never gets delivered.

Here's why it's hard: as a business person, you have knowledge. Every day you're immersed in this particular knowledge - the ins and outs, the subtlety, the industry-specific words. The more specialized your know-how, the harder it gets to put in layman's terms. People outside of your specialty aren't equipped to speak your language.

When you insist on blathering in industry-speak and dousing your marketing efforts in dull tech-ese, you only build a nice glaze over people's eyes. Certainly Apple could tout the data storage capabilities of the flash memory in their portable media players, but instead they encourage you to get your groove on with the world's most wearable music player. By doing so, they place the product in their customers' lives, not brag on their product designers.

So learn to listen to your customers and potential customers. How do they talk about your products? Be sure to hear not just to what they're saying but the actual WORDS they use. Then craft a message which makes sense to THEM.

The second step: remember it's about the customer. It's not about you. Marketing works to create a relationship with your customer - a relationship that starts by engaging them, peaking their interests, relating to them. So don't insist on using that special shade of teal because it's YOUR favorite color. And don't nix the back-beat music in your radio spot because YOU don't like the style. Your customer is not you. Tailor your message to them, or you could be the only one listening.