23/07/2026
Something happened in the workshop yesterday that I'm still feeling in my gut.
The room was full of business owners and CEOs - people already running companies, already managing teams, already knowing a thing or two about their business. They came to learn what the role of a marketing manager actually is, so that when the moment comes to hire someone for it, they'll know exactly what to expect from them, and how it's supposed to work.
They walked in carrying a belief most people carry quietly, without ever saying it out loud: that advertising is like throwing a bottle into the ocean. You invest, you publish, and you have no idea who - if anyone - will come back to you.
They walked out with something completely different: the certainty that you can choose your customers.
We started with the fundamentals. Then we went deeper - into what actually makes the difference.
I showed them what it really means to know a customer at a deep level. Not age range. Not gender. Not which city they live in. But - what frustrates them. What they're afraid of. What they've already tried and failed at. And even more than that - what they don't tell anyone. What keeps them up at night. What they - he or she - truly want, deep down.
I gave them a look at the customer profile from one of the most successful campaigns I run. We studied it in depth. And then - I surprised them with ad copy written at a precise psychological level, engineered to produce an exact response. Ads that magnetize exactly the right people. Only the ones who can and will pay the highest price.
"How do you do that?" got a full answer. Precise. Down to the last detail.
We learned the right sequence for building an ad. We broke down real ads, and a script for a video too.
But no one expected what came next.
We did group work - what questions can you ask a customer to uncover exactly this information. And then, when they came back from a short break, I gave them an assignment: call a real customer right now, right there in the workshop, and run the conversation exactly the way we'd just learned.
The reactions were the most moving thing I've seen in a long time.
The owner of a company with 4 branches, who cringed at the thought of talking to customers, came back from the call stunned. The customer he spoke with showered him with compliments - about the service, the product, the salesperson. Until then, all that ever reached him were the hard cases, the complaints no one in the company had managed to resolve. Now he wants to proactively talk to as many customers as possible. Not just wait for the problems to land on his desk.
He learned more from that short conversation than from everything before it.
Now they know: you can choose your customers. The secret is in how you communicate. Taking a genuine interest. And truly, truly caring about them.
Here's what some of the participants wrote:
"What I understood came specifically from Ofer's story about the client who asked Ofer to join him in a sales meeting with two representatives of a huge client - and addressed each of them separately, as a distinct individual. That's the secret to sales success - seeing the other person, and when there's more than one decision-maker in the room, addressing each one separately, to their own pain point, and building full agreement from every side. Until now I always thought about recruiting one person to act as my agent. Yesterday I understood the importance of selling to everyone involved. I have a lot of knowledge and past experience, and I can't wait to put it to work with you, moving toward another business of my own."
"I watch closely how you sell, and the way you work with people and empower them - it's captivating. Giving an experienced CEO, who's used to hearing only complaints, a chance to hear compliments about his own business - that lifts him as a person, and benefits the business."
"My takeaway from today: if I truly know what's bothering my customer, I can provide them a better solution. The customer will be happier with my service, and I'll be able to grow the business and earn more."
"Ofer has this wonderful, non-confrontational way of delivering information - it lands better and generates my own conclusions, not just a lesson I walk away from, but something I can actually act on."
Working with the best in their field also demands a hands-on workshop - one that pushes you to apply the material in real time, and leaves you with the certainty that you can put what you learned into practice at the highest level.
