You can't see the water you swim in.

When you live inside something every day, whether it's a product, an industry, a process, or a company culture, you stop being able to see it the way an outsider does. Immersion is total. The water becomes invisible.

​Alyssa Nolte has spent her career in consumer psychology and buyer behavior research. In Episode 261 of CX Passport, The One With Curious to Committed, she makes a point that SHOULD be simple...but often isn't.

Most companies call this research. They do it once a quarter, present the findings in a deck, and go back to swimming in their water. Alyssa is describing something different. A posture. A habit. The deliberate, ongoing practice of putting yourself in rooms where nobody shares your assumptions.

She sought out someone doing digital marketing for blue collar roles in Australia, a conversation with no obvious overlap to her business. But the distance from her world is exactly what made it useful. Different pressures, different constraints, different customer relationships. The connections she made weren't handed to her. She had to reach for them.

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A break before we continue...

Some of you know me from CX Passport. Some of you may not know there’s another storytelling world in my life.

That world recently turned into a book co-authored with my wife, Clancy.

​Buy the book and you get three free bonuses:

• Empty Nest Bingo Card
• Video series: Empty Nesting - Living The First Month
• Live webinar in September

​If you already bought the book, the bonuses are yours too. Head to https://www.theloudquiet.com for all of it.

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Now back to the newsletter...

This applies inside companies too. The gap between what marketing promises, what sales delivers, and what the customer actually experiences often isn't cynicism or incompetence. It's immersion. Each team optimizes for their own metrics and genuinely cannot see what the customer sees moving across all of it.

Exposure is the fix. Uncomfortable, seemingly irrelevant, outside-your-industry exposure. Coaches of high school dance teams. Podcast guests from completely different sectors. People who have never once thought about your product and never will.

That's where the real signal lives.

Put those tray tables up and buckle those seat belts. Let's go!

-Rick

P.S. If you know someone who might benefit from this week’s newsletter, please feel free to forward this to them. Or they can sign up here.

What’s on tap this week?…

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Host - Rick Denton Rick believes the best meals are served outside and require a passport

The One With Curious to Committed - Alyssa Nolte E261 Listen on any Pod app

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