{"id":31573,"date":"2021-04-08T13:33:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T17:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=31573"},"modified":"2021-04-11T21:44:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T01:44:09","slug":"law-of-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/law-of-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"The Law of Perspective: Focus on the Long-Term"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why is it so important to focus on long-term goals rather than short-term profits in a company? Is there a way to accurately predict what the market trends will be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing<\/a>, <\/em>the Law of Perspective states that you must resist being swayed by short-term benefits and diligently consider the long-term effects of your actions. This means resisting the urge to promote frequent price cuts because your sales may jump in the short term but they will suffer in the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to learn more about the Law of Perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Law of Perspective<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Law of Perspective states that, like many things in life, when it comes to marketing, the short-term effects of an action can be the opposite of the long-term effects. For example, when stores promote price cuts, their sales jump in the short term, but in the long term, they suffer because customers learn to wait for a sale instead of buying items at their regular prices. Smart marketers must resist being swayed by short-term benefits and diligently consider the long-term effects of their actions. <\/strong>Companies benefit more from longevity than from short-lived sales boosts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top beer companies Budweiser, Miller, and Coors endured long-term sales declines after chasing the light beer craze and introducing light versions of their products. Miller High Life had seen its sales grow significantly each year until it introduced Miller Lite. Five years after launching Miller Lite, sales for Miller High Life had nearly tripled\u2014but then sales steadily declined for the following 13 years, falling below where they\u2019d been before launching the light beer. Michelob faced a similar fate, with the sales of all <\/em>of its offerings (including the original as well as the light beer) eventually dropping lower than the sales the original Michelob had brought before the company introduced the light version. That is because the companies lacked long-term perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plan for Unpredictability<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Marketing plans are often based on some assumptions about the future, but there\u2019s an inherent risk of these plans backfiring if competitors do something unexpected, such as introducing a disruptive innovation. No matter how closely you watch the market and how thoroughly you study market research, there\u2019s no way to accurately predict the future<\/a> unless you\u2019re also writing your competitor\u2019s plans.<\/strong> In fact, market research can often lead you in the wrong direction, because it focuses only on what\u2019s worked well in the past<\/em> and has no way of predicting the future<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, you don\u2019t want to walk into the future blindly, or wind up winging it every step of the way, so there are ways to create flexible, more reliable plans: <\/p>\n\n\n\n