My wife and I currently live in a 5-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom, 3,800 sq ft house. We have two dogs, less than 20 lbs. The house is way too big for us, and we knew that when we bought it and when we moved in, and we feel it every day. We hire cleaners who come once or twice a month to clean rooms and bathrooms that never get used.
AND YET. Downsizing from this house feels counterintuitive.
From an ego-lens, it feels like I’m moving back in life if my next home is any smaller or any worse than my current home. Financially, it feels like I’m moving backward to own a home worth less than my current one.
And yet, logically, having a smaller home that’s easier to manage, and a lower monthly payment, is a sort of financial and life arbitrage that is really valuable. There’s a cultural, almost instinctual compass that tells me (and especially us Americans) that we need to go bigger, upgrade, improve. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with those things, but does it actually serve me?
Or is the counterintuitive move the right move?
This is the truth about brand building, especially as you move up the value chain. Brands aren’t built on playbooks; they’re built on doing things that feel counterintuitive, contrarian, maybe even foolish.
Jesse Cole, founder of the Savannah Bananas, said it really well
"Whatever is normal, do the exact opposite. If you're marketing like everyone else, you're gonna get results like everyone else. Normal gets normal results."
While it’s a nice sound bite, doing this in practice is painful.
It’s going to feel like what I just described about downsizing the house. There’s going to be feelings of risk, sacrifice, friction, and loss.
Jesse Cole intentionally leaves hundreds of millions on the table because they choose not to do advertising for an improved fan experience. They eat credit card processing fees so their fans don't pay a penny more than the advertised price.
They do things that at the moment of the decision feel really odd. People often don't understand and criticize the decisions that make outlier brands outliers.
If none of your brand or marketing causes strife or panic among your board or investors, I’d guess it’s not differentiated enough.
Brand building is painful. Because to be different is painful. But some pain is good pain.
