Progress Prevails, Purpose Derails

I've wanted to write this blog for so long that I almost lost the plot. It was always meant to help me articulate, organise, and master my learnings about marketing, sales, and business. There was never much else to it. If you ask around or do a survey, you might get a mixed reception about how good that idea is.

Yet, the real value of any idea is in its execution. If you do it sustainably, consistently, and correctly, anything can become grand or extraordinary. If it's just a momentary detour on a different path, it could also be a waste.

I realised this while writing the first article on the site titled, "The Vision of Sellcraft." Here's the thing about life: It can only be lived forward, even though the dots only connect while looking backward. Kind of how human beings are feeling animals who rationalise rather than rational beings who also happen to feel emotions.

That might seem like a detour, and you might be wondering, "What the hell is he on about!?"

Fair point. The million-dollar punchline: Do stuff. Get your hands dirty. Work it out on the board, not in your head. There was once a client who wanted to rebrand their interior design business. Back then, I just played along, giving them options for names and logos. 

Now, I would ask them a bunch of questions, like, "What are you trying to achieve with this rebrand?"

An even more enlightened version of me from the future would say, "The brand doesn't matter as much as the work. What are you changing in the way you work? Have you already achieved those changes? If not, don't do it. Is it so different from before that it needs to be communicated? Chances are, it isn't." 

Sounds disappointing coming from a marketer, but hear me out. 

We get so caught up in ideas that we forget: everything happens in the real world. Test your ideas out. Let them refine on the drawing board. Write them down. Work them out. Practice and refine. Spend more time executing than planning and formulating.

I gave myself a headache trying to note down the "brand" of this blog, and I completely missed the point. You can sit around, with tools scattered across the table, to try to predict the way things will go. This is very important for architecture and engineering. 

Many such things are 99% planning and 1% execution. But when you're starting out, you're more likely to waste your time and delay any real progress. Writing 10 blogs about the various topics I've learned about would have given me a thousandfold more clarity than trying to define what I'm trying to achieve.

This is the heart of the issue: It's okay to not have things figured out. In fact, it's imperative to experiment and explore. You will learn and grow so much more by trying to shoot a scene before you make a storyboard. 

Of course, branding matters, just as purpose becomes necessary in the long run. Companies only deal in commodities. Brands create a place in the market. It's the difference between setting a course and drifting rudderless. 

But here's the kicker: You are going to stop anyway. When you sit down with a client and give a pitch, you stop working. When you eat, go home to sleep, or take a shower, you aren't building. 

Judging your direction, seeing the trajectory, and seeing your place in the market- all this requires perspective. To get it, you need to stop, take a step back, and see the big picture. But nothing makes you more anxious than trying to answer what you cannot possibly know.

In conclusion, by all means, have a plan and take advantage of every break to ponder your direction. But give your ideas a chance in practice, not just on paper. Try them on, take them out, let them breathe.

Practice over perfection. Progress over direction. Testing over theories.

Problems persist in thought, so just try it out! Actions offer solutions.

Sweat, blood, and tears over grinding your gears.