Every Earth Day, Home Depot runs a special one-day-only promotion. Last year, they gave out a million compact fluorescent light bulbs. This year, they had buy-one-get-one-free vegetables & herbs. 

From a professional standpoint, we marketers need to remember that what seems like a hot, on-trend idea to us may be considerably further down on the needs heirarchy for some of our key consumers. How can we support other purchase drivers while presenting our main message? 

From an personal perspective, we can become more effective when we set our own agendas aside for a moment to think about what matters to the person we're trying to work with. 

It's not difficult to do this, but it requires a conscious effort. People leave cues about what's important to them: just look at what they do. Listen to what they say. Then merge their motivations with yours. 

My neighbor Rich is a master at this. He approached me last Fall about splitting the costs to remove some pines between our yards. Rich's goal was to get rid of a few scrubby-looking trees that might eventually fall onto his home, but he also recognized that from my perspective, they weren't particularly bothersome & wouldn't seem like an imminent threat. 

Rich knew I'd to along with his plan as a good neighbor, but he wanted me to 'win' as well. "You know," he ended casually, "when we get those pine trees out of there, that extra sun is going to make your rose garden even prettier." Seeing things from rose-colored glasses, Rich moved me from benign ambivalence to complete & total buy-in.