24 for '24

Welcome to this year's last edition of Navigating The Fustercluck.

And thanks again for more than 2,000,000 impressions in our very first year.

To celebrate, here are 24 ideas that garnered a lot of interest the last 12 months.

#1 Grow Your Business by Growing Your People

Management doesn't believe in training people because they just leave anyway. Maybe if you gave them a vision and invested in their careers, they'd stick around longer. They wouldn't see their stay as transactional as most agencies do.

#2 Different is Better Than Better

Better is incremental. Different is exponential. Better is nice. Different gets you noticed.

#3 If You Want a Work Family, Join the Mafia

Families are based on unconditional love. You don't fire family. Instead, try building a team or community instead. Trust me, it's an offer you can't refuse.

?#4 Don't Confuse Atmosphere for Culture

Taco Tuesdays and Ping Pong tables are not culture, they're atmosphere. Culture is how we all work together. Top-down command & control? Bottoms up grassroots? Radical candor? Passive-aggressive?

#5 Lincoln Redefined America in 272 Words, Cut Your Decks in Half

Yep, the Gettysburg Address is a mere 272 words. Let's honor Lincoln and cut our decks down at least 50%. 75% would be even better.

#6 Bake it in, Don't Bolt it On

Multicultural, digital, experiential. Mix them all in upfront, not afterwards, unless you're happy creating some sort of Frankenstein.

#7 Jargon Monoxide

Don't clutter your message with acronyms and catchphrases.

And don't get cute or corny using too many lines like the ones listed here.

The fewer you use, the more potent they remain.

#8 The Sun is a Powerful Source of Energy. Every Hour the Sun Washes the Earth with Billions of Kilowatts of Energy. Yet with a Hat & Some Sunscreen You Can Bathe in the Light of the Sun for Hours at a Time with Few Ill Effects.

A Laser is a Weak Source of Energy. A Laser Takes a Few Watts of Energy and Focuses Them in a Coherent Stream of Light. But with a Laser You Can Drill a Hole in a Diamond or Wipe out a Cancer.? -- Al Ries, Focus

#9 Look for Culture Adds as Well as Culture Fits

Hiring nothing but the same kind of people leads to the lameness of sameness. Stagnation. Add some diversity. Ethnically. Philosophically. Geographically...

?#10 Don't Rely on "Me-search"

Marketing Rule #1: Know Your Consumer

Marketing Rule #2: You Are Not Your Consumer

And your teenager doesn't speak for every other teenager.

And anything that was spawned at your kitchen table, may presented as a hypothesis, not an insight or solution. And like every other hypothesis, it needs to be researched, not rubber stamped by you.

#10 People are Thinking Creatures that Feel, Not Feeling Creatures that Think

Emotions drive us. Move us.

And if we don't feel it, we won't believe it. Nor buy it.

#11 Be a Window, Not a Mirror

Play to people's aspirations, not their reality. Or the stereotypes that pass as reality. It's painful. Not to mention disrespectful.

#12 Hire People and Not Resumes

Resumes are just a list of what you probably don't want to do, again. They don't tell the whole story. HR, if you spent more time hiring you'd spend less time firing. Get to know people not a piece of paper. The paper ceiling is too flimsy not to cave in soon.

#13 Data Can Point, But It Can't Touch

You have to strike a balance between emotion and logic. Emotions drive decisions, logic justifies them. Lean too far one way or the other and you lose.

#14 Photogenic Memory

Some people have a photographic memory. They see something once and don’t forget a thing.

Meanwhile, others have a photogenic memory. Everything in their past looks better than it actually was. And it only gets better as we put more distance behind us.

Don’t forget your past. But don’t be enslaved by it either. Be warned. Be inspired. But go forward and keep on keeping on.

#15 If You Wanted to Learn about Lions, Would You Go to the Serengeti or the Zoo?

Ask a focus group if anyone in it has been in one before and you’ll likely have multiple hands go up. These days, it seems that everyone has been in one or is at least familiar with the concept. Participants are no longer blank slates offering raw reactions to consider. Instead, they’ve been transformed into regular marketing gurus wearing their overthink caps. Unfortunately, too many clients let them live out their fantasies, making major decisions based on the opinions of a handful of amateurs caged in a sterile research room. It’s as artificial as a zoo. Have you considered going out into people’s natural settings in the real world to see how they actually live and feel?

#16 Nothing That Comes Before “But” Matters

What comes before “but”?

Empty compliments. Excuses. And soft pedaling.

Eventually, however, you’ll end up having to deal with what comes after?BUT:

You’re great, BUT we have to let you go.

Your presentation gave us a lot to think about, BUT you didn’t win.

BUT bridges the great divide between politeness and truth.

Politeness doesn’t intend to be dishonest, but it can mislead you.

The nice words before "but" are designed to let you down nice and easy.

#17 You Can't Teach Height

In another life, I was the Director of Marketing for the Houston Rockets basketball team. Shortly after joining the team, 7’6” Yao Ming dropped in their laps as the #1 pick of the 2002 draft. He would go on to make the Hall of Fame, but first, he had to take his first step in an amazing journey.

The late, great Carroll Dawson who passed this year was the General Manager who made that pick. After he drafted Yao, I congratulated “CD” on the draft and asked him what was the deciding factor in his decision.

Well Wegs, CD said in his Texas drawl, You can’t teach height.

At 7’6”, he had a point.

Over the years, I’ve extrapolated Mr. Dawson’s wisdom to mean that there are indeed things you simply can’t teach. Things like pride, caring and respect. Take it from a master talent spotter like CD and identify those who have something you can’t teach. They are your superstars and hall of famers in the making.

#18 Fear Makes the Wolf Bigger Than It Is

The longer you avoid your uncertainties, the more your anxieties will grow. If you don’t train yourself to face down your fears and cut them down to size, you’ll end up overwhelmed. Frozen. Stuck. Unable to move or change. Face your fears and keep the wolves at bay.

#19There's Diversity in Diversity

While Mexican-Americans may comprise the largest block of of the country’s Hispanic community, there’s a real danger in overemphasizing their influence. Cubans, Dominicans, Colombians, El Salvadorans, Argentinians… All are making their lives here. And contrary to what we sometimes hear in the field, none of them speak “Mexican.” They all speak their own version of Spanish- a language that unites all of them, but does not fully define any of them.

#20 It Takes a Lot of Milk to Make Cream

It's quality over quantity. But to get to quality ideas, you usually need a lot of ideas first.

#21 We’re Caught in a War Between the Urgent and the Important

Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. There's not enough time to do everything with excellence. So, make sure that the important stuff gets done, and gets done right.

#22 The Brand is the Amusement Park, the Product is the Souvenir

Create an experience. Like Mexican beers of which bartenders add a slice of lime. What a great ritual. A genuine touch.?

#23 Stop Making Sense

Stop Making Sense is a song lyric and the name of the best concert film of all time.

It's also something I say to people whose heads are about to explode because they can't make a client or colleague see the obvious. Remember, we are feeling creatures that think, not thinking creatures that feel. Sometimes, logic will fail us. Shrug your shoulders and move on.

#24 This Too Will Pass. It Might Pass Like a Kidney Stone, But it Will Pass

Hard times. We all know them. We’ve all had them. And we’ll all have them again. When you do, stay active. Stay social. Talk with your family and friends. Talk to professional. Talk with yourself. And know there’s wisdom on the other side of pain.

And that's a wrap on 2024.

Thanks for reading Navigating the Fustercluck.

Please share it.

And here's to learning more together.

Here's to a happy new year.

Here's to 2025.

Here's to the future!

Wegs

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