Kindling 41: You can’t skip practice

Recently, a client cancelled a marketing initiative we had been working on for a while. We had discussed the strategy in detail, done a few rounds of design, and finished building out the new functionality on their website. But we decided to cancel just before we hit the go button.

Obviously, both the client and I were disappointed. Nobody likes to shelve good work. Shelved work doesn’t end up earning the client any money, and it doesn’t end up in anybody’s portfolio.

But shelving the project was the right call. This was a year-long initiative. The client would have to put the initial campaign on repeat for at least a year to get the results they wanted. They had a clear path to making it work for the first month. But after that, it wasn’t clear who in the organization was going to have time to take on the work. 

Consistency is hard to sustain. When the bill comes due, you pay it with trust. Trust is far harder to earn than money. Earning trust requires showing up. You don’t get to skip days and stay in the game. We’re talking about practice.. Practice is the game, and if your brand doesn’t show up, every single time, and practice in public, you’re going to lose.

I saw a different brand fail the consistency test earlier this week when I received their newsletter in my email. Typically, this brand emails me every week, and always on the same day of the week. But this email came on the wrong day, and I realized after receiving it that it was the first email I’d had from them in over a month.

I normally read this brand’s newsletters pretty carefully. This time, I just deleted it.

If a project requires consistency in output, and you can’t prioritize it and make it predictable, it will ironically cost you customers. Every missed newsletter erodes a bit of trust in your brand. 

Starting something like a newsletter is easy. Keeping it up is the hard, important work of building trust.

Things worth sharing

1. Ethan Marcotte, who coined the term responsive web design, has redesigned his personal site. I always enjoy his work.
2. The world’s number one site about shoelaces is the resource about tying foot knots you didn’t know you needed, preserved in a website that is both frequently updated and frozen in time.
3. Microsoft is working hard to pivot on the Xbox brand. After a decade and a half of poor decision making, they’re making some hard choices now. They have a new CEO, revised branding (XBOX instead of Xbox, and I will not write it in all caps), a revised strategy on Game Pass and exclusive games, and they’ve slashed the price of Game Pass, their core service offering. In Steve Jobs style, they’re being unusually public about the challenges they face. That makes for great commentary. Keep an eye on this space. The squandering of the Xbox brand has been frankly unbelievable since its highs in the late 2000s, and it’s interesting to learn from their mistakes and observe their damage control.

A question to ponder

If you were to start from scratch with your brand, what would you do differently? And why won’t you do that now?

Until next week,

Nathan

P.S. Would you like to set Google Chrome as your default browser, or would you prefer centuries of untold pain and torment?

What you should do next…

1. For more insights like this, subscribe to the weekly Kindling newsletter.
2. To see people walk the talk, explore my case studies.
3. Schedule a free call to review your brand and website. Get a one hour consultation where we discuss your brand, your current marketing problems, and potential next steps. If you’re not ready to work with me, I won’t even attempt to sell you.