Despite sea change in customer attitudes, companies are still talking down to their clientele. All it takes is a subtle shift in your marketing language to produce noticeable results.There's an old joke about Canadians: How do you get 25 Canadians out of a swimming pool? Tell them to get out of the pool. 
When it comes to sales, those days are over. A shift in customer attitude over the past two decades means that now, more than ever, customers have switched from needing external direction to deciding for themselves whether or not to buy a product. They treat the sales pitch as grist for the mill, which they compare to other offers on the table.