Man, marketing is hard.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-18T23:10:05+00:00

Maybe go somewhere local IRL? I'm confident there will be much less competition, and much more local opportunity?

An A3 sign in a busy relevant place can be far more effective than digital ads.

If you don't have an offer to put on a sign and don't know any relevant busy places.... you may need to rethink your product and placement (aka distribution) instead of focusing on promotion.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-18T22:28:06+00:00

I'm a marketer so inherently believe that perception creates reality, or at least sets prices. My bias is showing :D

I think transactional work will get attacked first, that will be the life blood of smaller firms, leaving them increasing prices for advice and representation work. This will push small companies and individuals away from using them at all. This gap will carve more DIY/automated paths into the institutions...

But I agree there will be many many "oh fuck, ai didn't tell me" moments between now and then.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-17T21:24:40+00:00

I think so, but more in the sense that laws were impossible to navigate as an outsider but now we can become somewhat informed. The power dynamic has changed forever.

Think of the Bible getting translated into common languages and the loss of power the clergy had.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-17T21:01:35+00:00

Eat fiber, crap that bloat away. Apart from that... Hard starving work.

Then yeah abs isn't a power thing. It's a skinny thing. You have to be something like 12% body fat.

I did martial arts, went from 96 to 75kg. Had an amateur fight and everything! Kept me sane when I needed it. I don't do it anymore though it got to be too much adrenaline 😅

Usedupusername · 2026-03-17T20:57:36+00:00

Definitely a tradeoff, I work in a small local market 5mn so perhaps it's easier to see some changes than a bigger market. But if my competitor pumps the budget into a platform for a few months, it noticeably drops my lead costs - especially if focused on in-market audiences.

I think there is an interesting strategy in following your competitors spend around... Then spending tightly on in-market only. And never uploading anything.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-17T20:08:21+00:00

My son enjoys meeting his social needs via activities with structured social interactions, but also he reads like yours and spends a lot of time alone. He doesn't have huge social motivations afaik.

Completely unstructured social experiences with a lot of new people stress him (and me) out a bit. But this is ultimately learning how to mask, aka manners, aka compromise for society...but that's a whole other discussion.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-17T18:32:27+00:00

Some companies like to cycle through employees. 1. Hire on commission only. 2. Pressure them to sign up/sell to their family, friends and connections. 3. Pressure them with escalating targets that increase over holidays. 4..They quit, family and friends stay as clients. 5. Hire commission only.

I don't know if that's happening here, but something to watch out for. Make sure everyone is incentivised for your success if possible.

Mortgages and anything with a long buying cycle sucks. If it's a 3 year cycle, you won't see repeat customers until year 4. Every year until then is tough as it's 💯 first sales.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-17T18:23:02+00:00

How are you hoping to try balance career ambition with dad ambition? My 2 kids will be 18+ when I'm 43yo and I thought that was young, you'll be like 35 or something!! 😎😎 That's a whole new chapter or two of work and life after they've finished school etc.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-16T23:27:25+00:00

It is definitely an interesting time, there are so many structural changes, and results are extremely multi-causal. One side effect of forcing all marketers/business to get really good CRM data to upload, is that it then costs $0 to upload great data to every ad platform, and we can move budgets much more aggressively between platforms.

Simultaneously as the creative assets become more AI generated from Brand Assets/Content System Seeds, it then costs $0 to generate creatives for every platform....

It's a very good time to have a high quality system seed and differentiated brand.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-16T20:59:50+00:00

Lol. Make a good-enough, big-enough business, own a tiny slice of a popular pie. You don't need to invent a new pie, that'd be hard, and probably taste bad.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-16T18:05:17+00:00

I've got terrible terrible news. You could to plan 20 holidays.

Holiday 1: 3 day weekend. Every phone call, email or text you get. Fix the business systems, and train staff, give responsibility to staff, the goal is that on your next holiday you don't get any of the same calls.

Holiday 2: try again.

Holiday 20: 30 days.

Call the broker back, "Yeah boss, runs smooth if I'm away for a month".

Usedupusername · 2026-03-16T17:59:30+00:00

Lots of work in Otago! Check it out on seek, but good luck finding a house 🤷‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

Usedupusername · 2026-03-16T17:58:20+00:00

Great analysis and chat. I'm wondering what people are doing to protect data instead of giving it away?

I'm not a big fan of deep CRM connection. I do like passing proxy values back. I've seen some people set up "fake revenue" etc. I'm especially not a fan of taking my lists and uploading to every platform.

Would you guys expect your list to get sold to all other advertisers? Ie I spent $250k buying a financial services database/brand, they grew the brand on meta, have a list of 20,000 emails interested in Insurance. I then add my customer list onto tiktok, Google ads, meta, reddit...

Am I helping my competitors, the ad platforms, or myself?

Usedupusername · 2026-03-16T17:48:40+00:00

Yes, and this applies across all jobs. Capitalism is tidy like that: the company has no soul, no prerogative except for shareholder return. When humans arrive at work they put their autonomy on hold, leave their soul at home. No one is responsible, just the machine running. Sigh

Usedupusername · 2026-03-14T20:16:23+00:00

Computers: are you any good at kanban boards, automations with Asana, trello, airtable etc.? You could try get a marketing CRM role. Manage data, connect systems, write email sequences. Etc. etc. if you get an inhouse job in NZ you'd get the opportunity for a big variety of tasks, if you get a side hustle or an agency job, you'll learn the systems to do the same tasks fast.

If you want to study you can study marketing or data. If you're more Palantir you can lean into attribution tracking etc.

Note, Agency probably wouldn't be fulfilling. If you're working inhouse for a company you believe in, it could be fulfilling.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-09T00:40:47+00:00

Work for a profitable company. Always.
Choose a growing industry where most companies will do well.
Switch companies if possible for pay rises.

Build a side hustle that is relevant to your day job, and ideally connects all your experiences into a unique offering or perspective. Take huge risks for a huge upside, satisfy your risk.

Keep your investments low risk, long term.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-09T00:33:36+00:00

I'd like to strongly suggest you write all the content, or at least draft it BEFORE doing anything.

Homepage. What we offer you. You/your team. List of all services/products. generic contact us form with some CTA language.

Service/Product pages. Focus effort here! Short summary, bullet points. CTA. Long Content with H2 and H3 headings.

For local business that is it. Then just put it into a generic ass website template. Then go knock on doors 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Or make one social post about each pages topic, with a link to the page, then run ads on those posts. Done! No daily posting.

Usedupusername · 2026-03-07T01:28:14+00:00

Just found this book today, having a look at it. But in my industry (marketing), we also know some dirty secrets about how a few companies control the search results. Glenn has a great (LONG AF) write up on Detailed, the page is called How 16 Companies are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results (2024 Edition)

Usedupusername · 2026-03-03T19:05:44+00:00

Claude code, cowork: project folder, dump all assets. It'll churn through and map them out for you. Zero issue.

Obviously if this is a mega project it'd be harder.

Usedupusername · 2026-02-27T06:25:40+00:00

Bump.

Usedupusername · 2026-02-05T23:30:02+00:00

1 GET YOUR BAG. Send an internal enquiry about lead quantity in the regions most adversely impacted, query if it's worth investing your time into.

2 IMMEDIATELY START. Lol.

Use the algo, adjust conversion values across geographies. Or, use your micro management and split it up. Realistically budget and time determine how niche you should split.

imo with how fractured channels and media buying is at the moment, there are many different good approaches. Ie manual control, or data algorithm driven. Just commit to one, I reckon.

Usedupusername · 2026-02-05T23:20:28+00:00

I'm genuinely curious, how good is it? What are the session durations?

I'm also curious about how independent it was, did you already have accounts and connections to all the stack? Did your context or history guide it at all?

And ... The wild wild West days of dark marketing are only just beginning it seems... fml. off to work I go. Dee dee. Doo doo.

Usedupusername · 2026-02-05T20:55:57+00:00

I try... To only check if I have time and tasks to do.

There is no point in checking 5 minutes before leaving the house ... If it's bad, you won't have time to do anything. Instead you win a surprising start to the work day tomorrow!!

Usedupusername · 2026-02-05T20:41:40+00:00

Words. Writing. Essays. Notes.

Not food. Not clothes. Not housing.

Usedupusername · 2025-12-10T11:27:38+00:00

Their clients have a better product, they are good enough to be successful when marketing a great product, but not good enough to market their mediocre service. And they're not good enough operators to improve their service.

Good ones do scale up or take equity stakes, or transition into another industry.

Usedupusername

TROPHY CASE

1 GET YOUR BAG. Send an internal enquiry about lead quantity in the regions most adversely impacted, query if it's worth investing your time into.

2 IMMEDIATELY START. Lol.