Friday Field Notes: 6/20/2025
Happy Friday, folks.
This has been a good week. I hope yours has been, too.
Because of that, I’m taking the afternoon, so let me hit you with some lessons and we go enjoy the finer things in life.
Lessons of the Week:
1. Growth gets easier after subtraction.
Left a comment last night on a post from James Rose.
His post is all about subtraction, which got me remember the book, Subtraction, by Leidy Klotz.
Lots of good tips for trying to remove things before adding more, but a piece that’s super valuable for agencies is rewarding your teams for doing the same.
We often celebrate new ideas, but how often do we praise the team for cutting things?
Encourage the behavior and you might find some cost savings and simplified operations.
Everything I’m trying to get agencies to do comes down to picking ONE audience, ONE problem, and ONE solution.
That’s subtraction at its finest.
2. Revenue solves most problems. Profit solves the right ones.
I’m a firm believer you need strong revenue streams before you start worrying about profit.
However, it’s always helpful to know you can throw money at problems. Need more leads? Run ads. Need more bandwidth? Hire someone.
The important thing to remember is that profit is what pays the personal bills. And those bills can include vacations with your family. A hammock to relax in the backyard. A pet to hang out with.
Profit can enrich your life by solving other problems.
3. Businesses rarely fail from competition - they typically fail from indecision.
Decision-making is by far the most important skills for leaders, yet most suck at it.
We wait until we’re 95% confident a decision will go our way, then we pull the trigger.
Follow Powell’s 40-70 Rule.
Make a decision when you have at least 40% of the information required, but not more than 70%.
Less than 40, you don’t know enough. More than 70, you’ve waited too long.
Initiate movement and then adjust as more information comes in.
But please, just make the decision.
Quote That Slaps:
“If the price of greatness is responsibility, it's no wonder so few people achieve it.” -Anonymous but likely based on a Churchill quote
Content Roll Up:
Have a great weekend!
Comment and share any of your learnings this week!
