The Performance Gold Rush Is Over

For years, marketers chased leads as if more always meant better. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: more leads often equals less profit.

Why? Because chasing volume usually drives costs up faster than revenues. At some point, you cross the break-even line. After that, every new lead costs more than it delivers.

This is the trap of over-relying on performance marketing. The initial returns look fantastic, but over time, efficiency decays. You end up squeezing harder for diminishing gains.

What breaks the cycle? Brand.

When you invest in a brand, you change the slope of the curve. Instead of fighting diminishing returns, you lift the entire system. Costs stabilize. Revenues compound. Profitability sustains.

The shift is subtle, and it’s not as “sexy” as a shiny dashboard of lead counts. But it’s smarter. Cult brands like Liquid Death, Patagonia, and Supreme know this and they don’t chase every click. They invest in identity, creativity, and community. That’s what makes every future sale cheaper, every campaign more effective, and every customer more loyal.

The message is clear: the performance gold rush is over. The winners ahead will be the brands that find balance by blending data with creativity, performance with patience, and short-term wins with long-term equity.

Because in the end, it’s not about more leads. It’s about building a brand customers would never leave.

September 7, 2025 by

Why Creative Risk is the Lifeblood of Brand Building

I can’t think of a more special breed of people than creatives.

Every time a creative pitches a bold campaign, challenges the status quo, or takes a big risk, they’re standing exposed in front of thousands of consumers, peers, shareholders, and competitors.

And yet, they keep doing it.

Thank goodness.

Because if there’s one thing we all know, it’s this: playing it safe is the fastest route to irrelevance.

In The Cult Branding Workbook, I call this the Golden Rule of Courage: cult brands are built by leaders and creatives who dare to be different, even when the world is skeptical. Liquid Death turned canned water into a counterculture icon. Glossier reimagined beauty by handing the microphone to its community. Supreme built a global following by embracing scarcity and audacity. None of them played it safe.

That knot in your stomach before you launch something new?
That nagging voice asking, “Have we gone too far?”

Those aren’t warnings. They’re your creative compass pointing true north.

Sure, you could settle for cookie-cutter campaigns and beige messaging. But where’s the magic in that? The most meaningful breakthroughs in branding come from someone raising their hand and saying, “What if?” even when their voice shakes, even when the data isn’t crystal clear, even when failure is a real possibility.

The truth is simple: living small is not only boring, it’s a disservice to the brands we serve and the customers who trust us.

So let’s stop punishing creative risk. Let’s celebrate it. Because behind every brand that earns cult-like loyalty is a creative who dared to push further than the rest.

The question is: what risks will you take this week?

September 5, 2025 by

Decision-Making at the Speed of Code

If you can model a principle, test it against history, and refine it, you’ve just taken your decision-making to another level. Suddenly, emotion stops hijacking the process. Bias gets sidelined. You get clarity.

That’s the beauty of algorithms. They’re nothing more than precise instructions, like words, but in a language computers can execute. If you don’t speak this language, either learn it or keep someone close who does. Because whether you’re running a global enterprise or raising kids, fluency in the language of algorithms is about to rival fluency in English or Mandarin.

Here’s the kicker: the same principle applies in brand building. In The Cult Branding Workbook, we teach leaders to “model” loyalty by understanding Brand Lovers and mapping their needs. That model becomes your algorithm for human connection, a decision framework that removes guesswork, prevents overreaction to fads, and compounds understanding over time.

In short: Algorithms for machines. Brand models for humans. Both protect you from costly, emotional mistakes. Both are languages you can’t afford to ignore.

September 2, 2025 by

Your Culture Is Your Brand Delivery System

Your marketing can promise the moon, but if your people can’t deliver it, the brand breaks. Every CEO I’ve worked with who built a cult brand started by aligning culture with the brand promise.

Salesforce’s Dreamforce is a masterclass; even the volunteers feel like part of the leadership team because they carry the same story.

My recommendations:

  1. Clarify your brand purpose. Every employee should be able to say it without hesitation.
  2. Create internal brand rituals. Monthly story sessions where employees share how they live the brand.
  3. Tie incentives to brand behavior. Reward employees for delivering experiences that embody your values.

When employees live the promise, customers feel it instantly. That’s how you build loyalty from the inside out.

August 31, 2025 by

Lead Both Brands: Your Company’s and Your Own

If you’re in the CEO chair, you’re carrying two brands at once: your corporate brand and your personal one. And they’re inseparable.

What you say, post, or endorse can strengthen trust or shake it overnight. Cult Branding teaches us the principle of Openness, be intentional and consistent with your values across both brands.

Do this:

  1. Align your narratives. Your personal voice should reinforce your corporate promise.
  2. Have a crisis ritual. Be ready with a values-driven, consistent response before you need it.
  3. Build a loyal community now. When you have true Brand Lovers, they’ll defend you before you even speak.

Your personal presence should be an asset that amplifies trust in your company, not a risk that undermines it.

August 29, 2025 by

Get Your C-Suite Telling One Story

The customer doesn’t care about your org chart. They don’t separate the “marketing experience” from the “operations experience.” It’s all the brand experience.

The most effective CEOs I know break down turf wars and get the C-suite aligned around a single narrative.

Here’s how:

  1. Create a Brand Council. Bring every major function into one regular meeting focused on the customer experience.
  2. Speak their language. Show finance how loyalty impacts CAC, HR how it boosts retention, ops how it drives efficiency.
  3. Share credit. Make wins collective, so every leader has a stake in brand health.

When the C-suite is united, the marketplace feels the confidence — and customers respond.

August 26, 2025 by

Make AI About Humans, Not Just Data

AI is everywhere in the CEO conversation. The mistake I see? Treating AI like a cost-cutting tool rather than a connection-deepening tool.

The cult brands don’t bolt technology onto an old culture; they integrate it to make the customer feel known and valued. Top brands used data to understand riding habits, not just inventory needs. That’s how you create loyalty at scale.

Three moves I recommend:

  1. Break down silos. Put marketing, ops, and IT in the same room to design customer experiences together.
  2. Use AI for personalization. Make interactions feel like you’ve been listening all along.
  3. Build digital rituals. Create predictable, shareable moments that customers look forward to, like holidays.

AI is only as valuable as the emotional connection it amplifies.

August 22, 2025 by

Stop Letting the Quarter Dictate Your Brand’s Future

If you’re a CEO, you already know the quarterly game can trap you. I’ve watched too many leaders mortgage their brand’s long-term equity to please the market in the short term. That’s a slow path to irrelevance.

Brands that last, such as Apple and Patagonia, resist that pull. They know the real power is in earning customers for life, not just for this quarter.

Here’s my advice:

  1. Audit the emotional side of your brand. Know exactly what you mean to your most profitable customers.
  2. Identify your Brand Lovers. The top 20% who generate most of your profit and advocacy.
  3. Redesign your KPIs. Track loyalty metrics, including Net Promoter Score and engagement rates, alongside your financials.

If you keep sacrificing loyalty for quick wins, you’re training the market to treat you as a commodity. Shift the focus, and you’ll find your short-term numbers actually get stronger.

August 19, 2025 by

It’s All in the Recovery: Branding Lessons from Billy Joel

“I once asked a truly great chef how he got to be so good. He said, ‘It’s all in the recovery. How you correct your mistakes.’”
—Billy Joel, And So It Goes

There’s a quiet brilliance in that quote from Billy Joel’s new documentary. It’s not about perfection, it’s about resilience. About owning the moment after the moment goes wrong. For great chefs, artists, and yes, great brands, what separates the average from the exceptional is how they respond when things don’t go as planned.

In the Cult Branding Workbook, we discuss the critical difference between brands people like and those they love. That difference often reveals itself in how a brand recovers, how it listens, how it adjusts, and how it honors the relationship with its most loyal customers.

Mistakes Are Human. Recovery Is Emotional

All brands make mistakes. A product flop. A tone-deaf campaign. A change that alienates your best customers. It’s easy to freeze, deflect, or overcorrect in those moments. But Cult Brands lean into the opportunity instead.

Why? Because recovery is one of the most intimate acts a brand can perform. It says, “We see you. We hear you. You matter.”

Netflix has misfired on pricing and programming decisions more than once, but the speed and clarity of its recovery often deepen loyalty. Apple has walked back design changes, not out of fear, but because listening to its core users is part of the brand’s DNA. These aren’t signs of weakness. They’re signals of trust.

The Cult Branding Rule of Contribution

In the Cult Branding framework, recovery aligns with the Golden Rule of Contribution: Cult Brands always give back. Owning a mistake and making it right is a powerful way of giving back to your Brand Lovers. It shows humility. It shows strength. And it builds something that can’t be bought: credibility.

Customers don’t expect perfection. But they remember how you made them feel when things went wrong.

Leadership in the Recovery Moment

As Billy Joel reminds us, recovery is a craft. It takes intention. It takes humility. And it takes leadership.

Ask yourself:

  • When something goes wrong in your customer experience, do you have a system for turning it into a deeper connection?
  • Is your internal team empowered to make things right in real-time?
  • Do you know what “recovery” looks like from your Brand Lover’s perspective?

True brand loyalty isn’t built in the launch moment. It’s built in recovery.

The Art of Being Human

Billy Joel’s story isn’t just a music story; it’s a human story. And Cult Branding is, at its core, a human-centered strategy. Your customers don’t need you to be flawless. They need you to be real. And when you fall short, they need to know you care enough to get it right.

That’s where loyalty lives. So the next time your brand faces a misstep, don’t panic. Recover well. Because, as Billy said, that’s where the magic is.

August 17, 2025 by

3 Strategies for When You Feel Life Has Lost Meaning

Reclaim the Inner Child
Play. Create. Touch the parts of you untouched by judgment. Life becomes dull when you abandon the one who still dreams. Pick up a brush, a journal, a guitar, anything that brings wonder back to your fingertips.

Confront the Shadow
Don’t look away. Turn inward. Face the parts of you you’d rather ignore. The sadness, the boredom, the anger. Invite them in. Let them speak. In the dark lies the key to meaning. You are not whole without your shadow.

Choose Becoming
You are not a fixed self. You are a process. Movement. Potential. Viktor Frankl said meaning is something we make, not something we find. So make it. Choose the next right thing. Help someone. Build something. Love fiercely.

Meaning isn’t given.

It’s forged.

In play. In shadow.

In becoming.

August 15, 2025 by