[Cross-posted from LinkedIn, see note.]
<rant>
I can’t tell you the number of times I applied this rule when I ran marketing from $30M to $1B at Business Objects back in the day. It’s 1:00 AM, I’m doing final edits on a press release or launch deck. Sure, I have some crazy creative idea that I’d like to try. But it’s 1:00 AM and the materials need to be ready tomorrow.
When in doubt, be clear.
I’ll be creative another day. Or, I’ll get my shit together earlier next time and leave myself more time to be creative, try something, get feedback, sleep on it, and make a final decision. Creativity needs feedback and time. It’s inherently riskier. But time’s the one thing I don’t have in this scenario.
Or, I’ll be reading something where I’m lost in the minutiae of differentiation. Christ, I can barely understand it. Should I stick with the writer who’s trying to differentiate or should I kick it up a level and just ensure people understand what it is and why they might buy one?
When in doubt, be clear.
I guess I’ll need to leave differentiation to another day. And put more work into writing the shorter letter that crisply explains why my feature is different from the other product’s. But, once again, I don’t have time.
So, when in doubt, be clear.
So many marketers today get axle-wrapped in jargon, buzzwords, and attempts at differentiation that when people hear your schtick, they glaze over. They have no idea what it is or why they’d buy one. But they know it’s AI-native, next-generation, cloud-native, low-code/no-code, a copilot, and now agentic.
But what was it again? I have no idea.
When in doubt, be clear.
</rant>
Note
As part of my evolving social media strategy I now write short, ranty posts on LinkedIn and usually reserve Kellblog for longer, more well thought out — and hopefully better written — posts. But today I wrote a quick rant that I liked enough that I wanted to post it here for posterity (and indexability). If you want to read all my stuff, please also follow me on LinkedIn because some material only goes there. And if you want to hear all my stuff, please listen to SaaS Talk with the Metrics Brothers, my podcast with Ray Rike.
