THINK ABOUT IT: How to Do More with Less?

Elon Musk employs a 5-step protocol for producing breakthroughs. The second step is to delete a part or process.

How curious. Mr. Musk chooses deletion over addition.

He doesn’t believe there have been sufficient deletions unless parts, steps, or even people are added back at least 10% of the time.

Elon Musk challenges the necessity for everything. If it can’t prove itself, it doesn’t belong.

Yet, we believe what is there and what we or the industry have always been doing is essential. Well, is it?

In practice, we go the other way. Instead of deleting, we add.

Sharing our plans or protocols invites additions. Rarely do people delete what may be unessential. Instead, they add.

They will add elements, steps, and thoughts, even if they are redundant or, worse yet, conflicting.

Rather than questioning the addition, we go along to get along.

We build a house of cards.

However, many of us do not have the time or training to do that which is essential correctly, yet we're addressing more things now.

Things don't contribute to improving the productivity of our work. Instead, they reduce it. Dramatically.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery states, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

We must examine whether some element is essential or additional, non-essential work.

This is not a theoretical issue. It is practical.

When I view clients' positioning strategies, marketing plans, and Creative Briefs, among other documents providing direction, I find they're bloated with non-essential elements.

They lack single-minded, strategically appropriate direction.

They lack focus.

The additional elements, steps, and verbiage obfuscate, confuse, and dilute meaningful intent and direction.

It's no wonder it is difficult and rare to achieve desired outcomes.

THINK ABOUT IT

• When invited to review something, such as a protocol for developing breakthrough advertising, what is your tendency? Delete? Add?
• In what ways might your additions truly impact positive outcomes?
• What elements or steps are non-essential that you’ve been treating as essential?

?MAKE YOUR MARKETING MATTER MORE

• Before beginning any project, such as ad development, review elements, steps, and thoughts (e.g., the Creative Brief) to find and delete anything non-essential to achieving desired outcomes from the object of the work.
• Pressure test and push back any attempts to add elements or steps.
• Ruthlessly and dispassionately delete that which is non-essential.
• Realize and make < = >.
• Read Walter Isaacson’s biography, Elon Musk. Here's Elon's protocol:

1. “Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from “the legal department” or “the safety department.” You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb.
2. Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.
3. Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist.
4. Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, I mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that I later realized should have been deleted.
5. Automate. That comes last. The big mistake in Nevada and at Fremont was that I began by trying to automate every step. We should have waited until all the requirements had been questioned, parts and processes deleted, and the bugs were shaken out.”

If you found this article helpful, please follow me on LinkedIn https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/richarddczerniawski/, where I share my perspectives from 51 years of successful worldwide “brand” marketing experience across many business sectors.

Make your marketing matter even more! Avoid critical marketing errors. Eliminate them. Marketing errors can prevent you from realizing the full potential of your brand. Please read my most recent book, AVOIDING CRITICAL MARKETING ERRORS. Order here: https://www.amazon.com/AVOIDING-CRITICAL-MARKETING-ERRORS-Marketing-ebook/dp/B084YXVWFY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3GK7L6C5ZFK2J&keywords=Avoiding+Critical+Marketing+Errors&qid=1704215761&s=digital-text&sprefix=avoiding+critical+marketing+errors%2Cdigital-text%2C118&sr=1-1. I share many learnings to help you avoid critical marketing errors and suggest specific actions to help you make your marketing matter (even) more.

Peace and best wishes for making your marketing matter (even) more,

Richard D. Czerniawski