It’s Monday morning. An owner forwards a link to the marketing team. The whole note is one line: “Saw this over the weekend. Let’s try it.”
It’s the eleventh new initiative this year.
And here’s the question nobody in the room can answer. Not, “Did the first 10 work?” A harder one. What had any of them started to build before they were abandoned?
Nobody knows. Because nobody stayed long enough to find out.
Hi, I’m Jeff Payne. You’re listening to The Jeff Payne Show, Episode 92: New Today, Boring Tomorrow.
A marketer I follow posted something this week that was aimed at marketing teams, and I think it belongs on the CEO’s desk instead. The gist: most companies don’t need twenty channels done badly. They need three done well. Pick, dial in, learn, fail, iterate, don’t quit.
Good advice. But I’ve heard “focus” preached for thirty years, and owners still don’t do it. So I don’t think focus is the problem. I think the problem is that most business owners are keeping the books wrong on their own marketing.
I’ve been saying this for years, and it’s never been truer than it is right now: what is new today is boring tomorrow.
That’s not a slogan. That’s a depreciation schedule.
Think about what you’re actually buying when you say “let’s try this new thing.”
You’re buying novelty. And novelty is the only asset in marketing that loses value the day you acquire it. Imagine driving through farm country and spotting a purple cow. You’d pull over. You’d take a picture. Twenty miles later you’ve passed forty of them, and you don’t lift your eyes off the road. Nothing changed about the cow. What changed is that you’d seen enough.
Every new channel, every new tool, every new format works like that. It’s remarkable at mile one. It’s wallpaper by mile twenty. And the whole market is driving the same road, so everybody reaches mile twenty at the same time.
Now compare that to the other kind of asset. Reviews. Citations. A body of published proof. A channel the market has learned to find you in. A name an AI system has seen next to the same answer, in the same context, enough times to trust it. Those don’t depreciate. They appreciate. But here’s the catch, and it’s the whole episode: they only appreciate in the channels you stay in.
So every time you switch, you’re not making a fresh start. You’re doing two things at once. You’re writing off whatever the last channel had quietly accrued; you’re starting a new clock at zero. Twenty channels, zero clocks that ever ran long enough to matter.
That’s why “let’s try this” feels like progress and performs like decline. The owner thinks they’re adding. The ledger says they’re resetting.
And here’s the twist. In a market where every competitor is running twenty channels badly, three channels done deeply is the purple cow. Focus has become the remarkable thing, precisely because distraction is the default. The company that’s still there at mile twenty is the one you notice.
Let me give you a name, because this is what it looks like when the clock is allowed to run.
Daniel Goodwin at Provident 1031. He’s a 1031 exchange specialist. He didn’t chase channels. He chose a few and stayed. He wrote a book, and it hit number one on Amazon in its category. He holds a biweekly byline at Kiplinger, and has for years. Not a guest post. A standing column. He built a Masterclass series and kept it running until it was producing a documented five-to-one return.
Notice what that list has in common. None of it was new last quarter. Every one of those is a channel he was still in at mile twenty, when everyone else had moved on to the next shiny thing. And that’s exactly why the market can find him. The byline isn’t valuable because it’s clever. It’s valuable because it’s been there long enough to be trusted. By readers. By editors. By the AI systems that now decide who gets named when someone asks a question about 1031 exchanges.
He didn’t accumulate twenty experiments. He accumulated authority. Those are not the same thing, and only one of them compounds.
So here’s the move, and it’s not “focus harder.”
Change what you count. Stop asking how many initiatives are running. Start asking how many are old enough to be trusted. Before you forward the next link, look at what the last one had started to build, and ask whether you’re adding to it or resetting it.
Because the owner who’s afraid of missing the next thing almost never asks what they’re abandoning to chase it. And what they’re abandoning is the only part that was going to get more valuable with time.
Three questions for your next leadership meeting.
How many marketing initiatives did you start in the last twelve months?
How many of them are still running?
And of the ones you stopped, what had they begun to build before you walked away?
If nobody at the table can answer the third one, that’s the ethe end of the episode.
I’m Jeff Payne. Thanks for listening. I will see you tomorrow.
It’s Monday morning. An owner forwards a link to the marketing team with a one-line note: “Saw this over the weekend. Let’s try it.” It’s the eleventh new initiative this year.
Here’s the question nobody in the room can answer. Not whether the first ten worked. A harder one: what had any of them started to build before they were abandoned? Nobody knows, because nobody stayed long enough to find out.
Focus Isn’t the Problem
A post by marketer Liz Willits made the rounds on LinkedIn this week, aimed at marketing teams: most companies don’t need twenty channels done badly. They need three done well. Choose, dial in, learn, fail, iterate, don’t quit.
It’s good advice, and it belongs on the CEO’s desk more than the marketing team’s. But “focus” has been preached to business owners for decades, and they still don’t do it. Which suggests focus isn’t actually the problem. The problem is that most owners are keeping the books wrong on their own marketing.A line I’ve used for years has never been more true: what is new today is boring tomorrow. That’s not a slogan. It’s a depreciation schedule.
What is new today is boring tomorrow. That’s not a slogan. It’s a depreciation schedule.
The Asset That Loses Value the Day You Buy It
When an owner says “let’s try this new thing,” what they’re buying is novelty. And novelty is the only asset in marketing that loses value the moment you acquire it.
Seth Godin’s Purple Cow captured the mechanism years ago. Imagine driving through farm country and spotting a purple cow. You’d pull over. You’d take a picture. Twenty miles later you’ve passed forty of them, and you don’t lift your eyes from the road. Nothing changed about the cow. What changed is that you’d seen enough.
Every new channel, tool, and format behaves the same way. Remarkable at mile one, wallpaper by mile twenty. And because the whole market is driving the same road, everyone reaches mile twenty at the same time.
Novelty is the only asset in marketing that loses value the moment you acquire it.
The Asset That Only Grows Where You Stay
Compare that to the other kind of marketing asset: reviews, citations, a body of published proof, a channel the market has learned to find you in, a name an AI system has seen next to the same answer in the same context enough times to trust it.
Those don’t depreciate. They appreciate. But there is a catch, and it is the whole argument: they only appreciate in the channels you stay in.
So every switch does two things at once. It writes off whatever the last channel had quietly accrued and sets a new clock to zero. Twenty channels, zero clocks that ever ran long enough to matter. That’s why “let’s try this” feels like progress and performs like decline. The owner thinks they’re adding. The ledger says they’re resetting.
And here is the twist. In a market where every competitor is running twenty channels badly, three channels done deeply is the purple cow. Focus has become the remarkable thing precisely because distraction is the default. The company still standing at mile twenty is the one you notice.
This is one of the best written, most informative email newsletters I’ve ever read!
Thank you for sharing your expertise, and hope you’re doing well.
Beth Zimmerman
Founder, Executive Director
What It Looks Like When the Clock Runs
Daniel Goodwin at Provident 1031 is a 1031 exchange specialist who didn’t chase channels. He chose a few and stayed. He wrote a book that hit #1 on Amazon in its category. He has held a biweekly byline at Kiplinger for years. Not a guest post; a standing column. He built a Masterclass series and kept it running until it was producing a documented 5-to-1 return.
Notice what that list has in common. None of it was new last quarter. Every item is a channel he was still in at mile twenty, when everyone else had moved on to the next shiny thing. And that is exactly why the market can find him. The byline isn’t valuable because it’s clever. It’s valuable because it’s been there long enough to be trusted by readers, by editors, and by the AI systems that now decide who gets named when someone asks about 1031 exchanges.
He didn’t accumulate twenty experiments. He accumulated authority. Those are not the same thing, and only one of them compounds.
He didn’t accumulate twenty experiments. He accumulated authority. Only one of those compounds.
The Move: Change What You Count
The move isn’t “focus harder.” It’s to change what you count. Stop asking how many initiatives are running. Start asking how many are old enough to be trusted. Before you forward the next link, look at what the last one had started to build, and ask whether you’re adding to it or resetting it.
The owner who’s afraid of missing the next thing almost never asks what they’re abandoning to chase it. And what they’re abandoning is the only part that was going to get more valuable with time.
Stop asking how many initiatives are running. Start asking how many are old enough to be trusted.
ThREE QUESTIONS
How many marketing initiatives did you start in the last twelve months?
How many of them are still running?
Of the ones you stopped, what had they begun to build before you walked away?
If nobody at the table can answer the third one, that’s the point.
Source: Liz Willits — LinkedIn post on shiny object syndrome in marketing teams
Seth Godin, Purple Cow — the purple cow image and the mechanism of fading remarkability
Brian Tracy — the observation that people become addicted to distraction
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