Where's The Freakin' Romance?

Where’s The Freakin’ Romance

So, picture this: I’m looking out at the lake, sun bouncing off the water like a strobe light at a disco, and this thought hits me—where is the romance in our business? Seriously, the fire, the passion, the juice!?

Let me tell you about a client. This guy—amazing dude—went through a life-altering experience and flipped his agency upside down. He tossed out the old playbook and started from scratch, driven by pure gratitude and love for his target industry. He’s got this incredible message that resonates like a power ballad when he’s in the room… but the second it hits the web? Sterile. Professional. Bland. He turned his fiery passion into… well, a LinkedIn post that sounds like it came from one of Elon Musk’s fake robots dressed in a three-piece suit.

Why?

Because we, as marketers, are so obsessed with appearing “competent” that we polish and refine until all the love is gone. We’re over here, professionalizing our passion until it looks like a corporate slideshow with Helvetica fonts.

The Romance of Marketing

Look, marketing isn’t just about knowing your way around Facebook Ads Manager or Google Analytics. Sure, those tools are essential, but where’s the love? The joy? The sheer ecstasy of translating a brand’s value into human language that moves people to act?

Marketing is art meets science, not just science. We’re here to be evangelists, not accountants. Sure, report the ROAS and impressions—but don’t forget that those numbers are the byproduct of something deeply human. Something that starts with passion and, dare I say it, romance.

Bite the Juicy Fruit

Imagine this for a minute… marketing as a ripe peach. It’s messy. It’s sticky. Juice runs down your chin, and it’s glorious. That’s the level of intensity we need to bring to our craft. When you embrace the romance, you unlock creativity, empathy, and a sense of mission that turns mundane campaigns into something extraordinary.

So, as you plan for 2025, ask yourself are you giving your clients and their audiences spreadsheets, or are you giving them the kind of storytelling that makes them lean in and feel?

Marketing with Heart

Here’s the secret sauce – your clients don’t just want results… they want a partner who’s in it with them. Someone who shows up with passion and belief in the value of their brand and who knows the transformative power of marketing. That fire in your belly? That’s the secret weapon.

• For your clients: Passion turns their wildest business dreams into reality.

• For your audience: Romance bridges the gap between what they need and what your clients offer.

• For your team: A love for the craft inspires them to go beyond task lists and deliver brilliance.

Permission to Be Romantic

As this year winds down and we brace for 2025, here’s my ask – give yourself the gift of passion. Embrace the romance of what we do. Bring the juice, the fire, and the humanity back into your actions.

Because at the end of the day, what we do is magical. It’s the art of connecting one group of passionate people to another in a way that changes lives—and if that’s not romantic, then I don’t know what is.

Wanna Watch Me Rant About This?

Agency & Marketing News

Marketers Foregoing The RFP: I know that this will break the hearts of all agency owners everywhere, but there is so movement AWAY from the RFP BS that works for exactly no one other than a giant procurement department. Via Ad Age (paywalled - sorry - don’t know how to let you in), brands like Feastables (the Mr. Beast brand) and Heineken (the skunky beer brand) have been soliciting ideas from agencies on LinkedIn to help find new creatives and ideas. Hell yeah! RFP stands for Really F’ing Pathetic way to choose an agency, IMHO.

Pizza Hut Adds AI As A Topping: You can’t even get a slice these days without AI being all up in your grill… Via the WSJ, Yum Brands - the proud purveyors of frankly terrible food through their brands Pizza Hut, KFC & Taco Bell have started using AI-powered personalization in their emails and text messages. They are seeing double digit growth in engagement. Key Takeaway? Don’t run for the border away from AI - the marketing results seem to be finger-lickin’ good.

Want To Spice Things Up?

Y’all know I’ve been hawkin’ my GEN+ coaching program that is geared to help smaller agencies generate more content to help them create clearer messaging, better in market visibility and some real impact in what kind of impression and understanding prospects have of you BEFORE they talk to you. That program is terrific and we will be starting another cohort in January (seriously - it can totally change the way you approach marketing your agency).

Anyhow, I told my non-agency friend about that program - and he asked if we could just help him build his personal brand.

So we are. We are starting a 100% DFY Founder Marketing program. It’s going to stay small - probably no more than 10 folks at a time - because I think you really need to understand the person, their company, their market & their special sauce REALLY well - and that’s just plain hard. If you are interested in someone talking to you for 90 minutes on camera & pulling out awesome value videos from your magnificent brain, and turning that content into LinkedIn video, text and carousel posts, FB/Instagram posts, blogs, and maybe a TikTok video or two, completely DFY, book a call with me ASAP. We have room for 3 people before the end of the year. (So, for 90 minutes a month, you get somewhere between 50-75 pieces of content to post across multiple channels).

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