It's time to end the "crush-and-burn" approach

Hey all!

I've started to send out the email to Funky Marketing email subscribers, and, since I have no option of starting a newsletter here, I'm gonna share emails as articles.

It's Monday again, and a time for another email from your truly.

Nemanja Zivkovic, the CEO of Funky Marketing here, and this is the second of my Monday's emails where I'm sharing with you my thoughts, ideas, strategies, and tactics, as a CEO.

Before I get into today's topic, I wanna say thank you for your responses and messages last week. A lot of you have answered or send me DMs on LinkedIn saying that you liked the email last week and the way it helped you. 

Now, after spending the day helping my friend to plant pears yesterday, even getting burned in the sun, I sprawled out and, tired, rolling the film around my head and thinking..

What could I write to people at this moment that they can use?

Last Monday, I wrote about our yearly strategy and goals, the way we created them, and the way we plan to achieve those goals. 100% practical.

So I've decided to ask on LinkedIn people because I wanna create value with you. I don't write this for myself.

What would you like to read in your email tomorrow, coming from me, if you were on the Funky Marketing email list (maybe you are)? 

Ok, back to today's topic. In the Subject, I said it's time to end the "crush-and-burn" approach.

Crush and burn. 

"We’re gonna go there, crush the party, and make them respect us."

"We’re gonna enter the bank, rob it in under 3 minutes, and leave the happy life on an island forever afterward."

You all know these stories. Unfortunately for the people involved, there are only a few examples when those kinds of stories are successful. 

Millions of people didn’t have that luck.

In marketing and business, we have these kinds of stories too.

A platform comes in like a storm, gets people excited and it disappears in the same manner.

A company comes in, makes money fast, but loses money fast. In the same way.

Those are good examples of bad stories. Stories that could've been written in a different way if people involved had just one thing - consistency.

On the contrary to those examples, there are people and companies that realize a single important thing - the power of consistency.

You can’t build an empire without building a stable foundation.

It depends on what you wanna do, but in B2B it needs to be centered around 3 things - company culture, onboarding, and people.

And to be able to start, you, as a person, as an individual, as a founder, as a CEO, need to set up the foundation. You need to set up an example.

Drift is an example I’m always using. They wanted hypergrowth, founders were dedicated to achieving that, they had the experience, they knew they need to hire A players to grow fast, but overall, they knew what their culture needs to be and they knew that they need to do things that won’t scale.

A few days ago, my dear friend John Ozuysal asked me about my secret formula for being consistent.

And I had to tell him, it’s not a secret. It's been out there for a long time.

2 millennia ago Marcus Aurelius offered an answer in Meditations.

"At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things? Experiencing them?

Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can?

And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?

You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.

When you’re really possessed by what you do, you’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts."

Meditations is the best book ever written, at least that’s how I see it, and it’s the book I’m carrying with me all the time and go back to it regularly.

Mindset plays a huge role in being consistent. To be able to execute on that, set unachievable goals.

To be able to get closer to achieving them, you need to work every single day to become a person that can achieve them.

Having unachievable goals makes smaller, daily goals, look easy, as well as daily problems, and you get to work on achieving them easier. It eliminates worrying about things that aren't dependent on you.

This is something most people struggle with, and one of the roots of them being nervous and anxious.

A thing that helps is if you love your work or not. I love the work - I play the endless game.

It means I don’t play to win, I’m here for the game. Sure I want to win at one point, but I want the game to last as long as possible.

And the last thing you need to know is what kind of person you are. Are you a doer or a lazy person?

I'm the person doing it all or doing nothing. Extremes on both ends. To be honest, it wasn’t easy learning about this and admitting it to myself.

But knowing it, I prefer doing it all.

This is all I got today. 

Feel free to respond. I encourage you to do it.

Also, feel free to share this with anyone having problems with consistency.

Keep it funky until next Monday and my next email.

Nemanja Zivkovic,

CEO of Funky Marketing