---
title: "7 Short Stories Revealing the Thinking Behind Marketing"
description: "This article presents seven fables that illustrate key marketing insights, such as discovering new markets, building customer loyalty through small concessions, understanding consumer psychology, staying competitive, maintaining vigilance against competitors, aligning team efforts, and adapting strategies to changing market conditions."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2014-06-10"
language: "en"
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# 7 Short Stories Revealing the Thinking Behind Marketing

> This article presents seven fables that illustrate key marketing insights, such as discovering new markets, building customer loyalty through small concessions, understanding consumer psychology, staying competitive, maintaining vigilance against competitors, aligning team efforts, and adapting strategies to changing market conditions.

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**Marketing Wisdom Fable Series 1: Two Salesmen**
This is a well-known fable in the marketing world:
Two shoe manufacturing companies each sent a salesman to develop a new market, one named Jackson and the other Banjing.
On the same day, they arrived on an island country in the South Pacific. Upon arrival, they discovered that the locals all went barefoot and did not wear shoes! From the king to the poor, from monks to noble ladies, no one wore shoes.
That evening, Jackson sent a telegram to his headquarters: "My God, people here never wear shoes. Who would buy shoes? I'm going back tomorrow."
Banjing also sent a telegram to his company: "Great! People here don't wear shoes. I've decided to move my family here and stay long-term!" Two years later, everyone here was wearing shoes...

**Marketing Insight:**
Many people often complain about the difficulty of developing new markets. The truth is that new markets are right in front of you; it's just a matter of how you discover them.

**Marketing Wisdom Fable Series 2: Two Minibuses**
There is a bus route near my home, from the alley entrance to the train station. Perhaps because the route is short or there are few passengers along the way, the passenger transport company only arranged two minibuses to run back and forth.
No. 101 was operated by a couple, and No. 102 was also operated by a couple.
Most passengers were boat people, who lived on water for long periods, so when they came to town, they often brought the whole family. The hostess of No. 101 rarely made children buy tickets. Even if a couple brought several children, she would turn a blind eye and only ask the boat people to buy two adult tickets. Some boat people felt embarrassed and insisted on buying tickets for the older children, so she would smile and say to the children, "Next time, bring me a small river clam, okay? This time you ride for free."
The hostess of No. 102 was the opposite: whenever there were children, older ones had to pay full fare, and younger ones had to pay half fare. She always said that the bus was contracted, and she had to pay a certain amount to the transport company each month. If she didn't pay in full one month, she would soon be unable to continue. The boat people understood, and they paid for the tickets accordingly, so there were no conflicts. However, three months later, No. 102 disappeared from the entrance. It was said that it had stopped running. It fulfilled the words of the No. 102 hostess: it soon couldn't continue because very few people took her bus.

**Marketing Insight:**
Loyal customers are cultivated through emotions, and it is also through small concessions that you gain customer loyalty. When we stubbornly enforce our sales policies, how many loyal customers do we let go?

**Marketing Wisdom Fable Series 3: Two Small Shops**
There were two small porridge shops.
The one on the left and the one on the right had similar numbers of customers every day, with people coming and going constantly. However, at the end of the day, the left one always earned a hundred or so yuan more than the right one. This happened every day.
So, I walked into the right porridge shop. The waitress smiled and welcomed me in, filled a bowl of porridge for me, and asked, "Would you like an egg?" I said yes, so she added an egg.
Every customer who came in was asked, "Would you like an egg?" Some said yes, some said no, roughly half and half.
I then walked into the left shop. The waitress also smiled and welcomed me in, filled a bowl of porridge, and asked, "Would you like one egg or two?" I smiled and said, "One."
When another customer came in, the waitress asked again, "One egg or two?" Those who liked eggs would ask for two, and those who didn't would ask for one. Some asked for none, but that was rare. By the end of the day, the left shop sold many more eggs than the right one.

**Marketing Insight:**
Leave room for others, but also strive for the largest possible territory for yourself. Only in this way can you win quietly. Sales is not just about methods; it's more about understanding consumer psychology.

**Marketing Wisdom Fable Series 4: Antelope and Lion**
Every morning, when an African antelope wakes up, it knows it must run faster than the fastest African lion, or it will be eaten. Every morning, when an African lion wakes up, it knows it must run faster than the slowest antelope, or it will starve.
Whether you are a lion or an antelope, when the sun rises, you must start running.

**Marketing Insight:**
Run! In this competitive society, if a company stagnates and indulges in past glory, its ultimate fate will be either being eaten or starving to death.

**Marketing Wisdom Fable Series 5: The White Geese Fall into the Net**
White geese often gathered by the lake, and many of them would choose suitable places to rest there.
The leader of the flock also arranged for a white goose to stand guard at night, and it would cry out to warn if it saw people coming.
The hunters in the lake area were familiar with the habits of the white geese. At night, they deliberately lit torches. The sentry goose would see the fire and cackle, and the hunters would put out the fire. When the flock was startled and flew up, there was no movement, so they would land back in the same place to rest. After repeating this three or four times, the flock thought the sentry was deliberately deceiving them, so they all pecked at it.
At this point, the hunters approached the flock with torches.
The sentry goose, afraid of being pecked, did not dare to cry out. The sleeping flock was caught in one net by the hunters, and not one escaped.

**Marketing Insight:**
Any company will face market tests. When a competitor first probes, the early warning system—the "sentry goose"—plays its role. The company is on high alert, but sees no reaction from the opponent. However, after repeated probes, the company itself gradually relaxes its vigilance, allowing the competitor to win in one strike.

**Marketing Wisdom Fable Series 6: Animals Pulling the Cart**
The pike, shrimp, and swan somehow became good friends. One day, they discovered a cart with lots of delicious food on it, and they wanted to pull the cart off the road. The three of them took on the heavy burden together, straining with all their might, veins bulging, but no matter how they pulled, dragged, or pushed, the cart stayed in place and didn't move an inch.
It turned out that the swan was pulling upward, the shrimp was pulling backward step by step, and the pike was pulling toward the pond. Who was right and who was wrong? Anyway, they all tried their best.

**Marketing Insight:**
A company's marketing team has people with different talents, all with the spirit of dedication to the company. But if the company does not unite their talents to form a cohesive marketing force, then blaming anyone in the end is futile.

**Marketing Wisdom Fable Series 7: Giving Orders to a Tiger**
When a man was an official in Jingzhou, tigers often came out of the mountains to eat people and livestock. The people asked the county magistrate to get rid of the hungry tigers.
This man only issued an order to expel the tigers, and had it carved on a high rock. Coincidentally, the tiger left Jingzhou for some reason, and he proudly thought his order had taken effect.
Soon, he was transferred to another place as an official. The people there were very tough and difficult to govern.
He thought that since the order carved on the rock in Jingzhou could subdue fierce tigers, it could also intimidate the literate people there. So he sent someone to Jingzhou to copy the stone inscription. As a result, not only was the place not well governed, but he also lost his position due to poor governance.

**Marketing Insight:**
Many companies have a history of marketing success, relying on these methods to earn substantial profits. But when a new market appears, the environment changes, consumer psychology changes, and the company's original "successful" methods may lead to failure.
The lesson here is that every company has its own marketing model, but when the market changes, the company should adjust its marketing strategy to adapt to the market, after all, the market is always right.

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