Heads Up 7 Up (From the archives)

I’m an optimist by nature, and as a result, I find that I tend to overestimate the intelligence of most people. Chances are you do, too, particularly if you’re prone to imposter syndrome. If not, I suggest spending an hour on Instagram or TikTok where, in short order, you’ll feel a lot better about yourself, in addition to accruing a long list of potential Darwin Award winners.?

Now most folks will say that overestimating someone is better than underestimating them. Still, too often in our communications, we assume a basic level of understanding which can cause internal teams, prospective buyers, or even existing clients to get confused, left behind, or….both. Catastrophe!

As such, we’re leading by example and get back to the basics. If you’re suffering from the mid-year/summer brain drain, this is an opportunity to slow down and set aside topics like “sunk cost fallacy” and “retrenchment strategy” in favor of some fundamentals that will set you up to adopt more complex growth strategies in the coming months.

First up, before you ever dive into marketing strategy, determining your marketing budget is a necessary step to ensure your strategy will ramp up your revenue. Rather than assume every firm has a marketing budget template handy, our friends at Growgetter have managed the heavy lifting for you. Read on for an easy-to-understand overview of the basics of budgeting for marketing AND a template that not only maps budget allocation for you but also the expected ROI on your marketing spend. Genius!

Next, a key reason we tend to think other Founders or Exec teams are smarter than us is the myth of overnight success. The Nudge podcast?dismantled that myth and walked through three subtle yet significant psychological tactics you can use to scale your business. If you’re looking for some easy wins,?this blog is for you.?

Lastly, one of my favorite (and easiest) scaling concepts is the importance of?fueling business growth?while ensuring friction doesn’t slow you down. It doesn’t get more basic than this, and yet, when a business doesn’t scale, looking for clear points of friction is often overlooked.?

I’ll leave you with a conversation I once had with a mentor of mine. He said, “The next time you’re feeling unsure about speaking up, remember that someone in a meeting once proposed ‘Snakes on a Plane’ as a movie idea.” Funny quote for sure, but there’s more to it when you dig deeper. Although the movie grossed $62M during its box office run in 2006, it cost $33M to make…. causing the founder of New Line Cinema to deem it a “dud.”?

Key takeaway? Sometimes it’s important to pause and take a big spoonful of common sense (for instance, not falling for a movie pitch about snakes on a plane) in order to move forward. Or, as author and motivational speaker Garrison Wynn said, “Most of us forget the basics and wonder why the specifics don’t work.”

Here’s to getting back to basics!

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All the best!

Kristin Luck

ScaleHouse