Here's a short test I'd like you to take. Don't read too far ahead in the post or you'll blow it.

1) Hold in your hands your favorite magazine or newspaper.

2) At a casual pace, flip through each page and skim each article.

3) Sit the magazine or newspaper aside.

Pause for a bit before you read on.

4) Write down on a sheet of paper every single advertisement you can remember.

Odds are you can't remember many. You're not alone.

There are two lessons here: 1) you can't run an ad once or even twice and expect people to notice it and act 2) it's tough getting noticed when the ad isn't part of the story.

Think of the huge amounts of money spent on daily, weekly, and monthly advertising. And you just ignored it. And will again. And again.

We are over stimulated with advertising - seeing, reading, and hearing it everywhere we look and listen. We turn it off. Most is ignored. It's not enough to have a full page add with a great logo and cleaver tagline. You need to offer more.

Sure, you can spend enough money to get noticed, if you have enough money to spend. But you don't. So, you need to work differently. Odds are your product or service needs to be put in the context of a great story. Great stories are hard to ignore and even harder to hold secret. They beg to be told.

Our task is to capture the things we do and the way we do them and turn them into stories that attract customers and excite them. We can't take the chance on being seen. We don't have the time or money for that to happen.