The brand building secret no one will tell you

Why you have to do interesting things for boring amounts of time

One

I love food shows. There’s something very human, very mortal about cooking, and the stories of our food are the stories of our ancestors. So I watch. I watch and learn.

This week, Netflix released a new one. Called Fresh, Fried, and Crispy, it’s hosted by Daymon Scott Patterson, better known as Daym Drops.

I looked him up and was struck by his story.

So Daym Drops is a well known food reviewer and YouTuber. Before he landed his own Netflix show, he had been host of a long running Travel Channel special.

Now here’s what you need to pay attention to: the timeline.

2009 - Daym Drops starts doing food reviews from his car.

2012 - One of his videos goes viral, is remixed in a hit song.

2013 - He gets his Travel Channel special.

2021 - His Netflix show arrives, streaming to international audiences.

That’s 12 years after he began.

What was happening in between all these years, where something interesting is happening? He was making videos, more and more of them. The process must have been the same for every single one, and some days must have been very boring, as he reviewed yet another restaurant or fast food place.

But he kept doing them, kept making his videos, and here he is. Because though the process is boring, the outcome is not.

Two

James Clear, the bestselling author of the celebrated book Atomic Habits, has said several times that he started writing on his website in November of 2012.

But that’s not strictly true. He had actually started in 2010, and fumbled around the tech for 2 years before building the website where he started writing consistently. He calls those two years the period when he 'incubated his skill set'.

After he began in earnest, though, in 2012, he wrote new articles every Monday and Thursday, for 3 years. Let’s calculate what that means, roughly: 2 articles a week, for 48 weeks. For 3 years.

That’s almost 300 articles.

Did he stop after that, though? No. I stopped at 2015, because that’s when he signed the contract for the book.

He then spent 3 years writing Atomic Habits, and at the same time, kept writing his blog, and added a newsletter.

The book was published in 2018.

And you know what he did after that? He spent 18 months marketing his book on podcasts, book tours, TV, and conference appearances.

Note again the timeline.

And also note that in between all these cool things that were happening, James Clear never stopped doing the most boring part of the job: Writing.

He kept doing it, he kept putting out his articles. Because though the process is boring, the outcome is not.

Three

Whiteboard Fridays, started in 2007, is one of the digital marketing community’s most ubiquitous resources. Started by Rand Fishkin and now continued by others, it’s a treasure trove of digital marketing knowledge.

This is what used to happen in its original incarnation: Fishkin stands in front of a whiteboard that has been filled up with the ideas of that episode, and explains stuff. It was a dramatically successful format and brand, in time recording 20% – 30% higher engagement compared to other content on their blog.

But, and Fishkin has said this multiple times: For the first 2 years of Whiteboard Fridays, no one watched.

But he kept doing them. In the 10 years after Whiteboard Friday started, it was only not uploaded once. Once! That’s 50 posts a year for 10 years.

Once Whiteboard Fridays became a brand, something marketers looked forward to, discussed and got worked up about, it would have been easy to keep producing. But when it wasn’t, for all those years, the hours required to conceptualise, produce, and promote it must have been a massive drag.

But Rand Fishkin kept at it, and that’s why he’s an OG. Because though the process is boring, the outcome is not.

Four

A few months ago, I was talking to a couple of early stage co-founders.

They had just launched their new product, and were already making money. One reason was that they had struck upon using webinars for customer acquisition, and it had started working immediately.

They had done 2 webinars, had landed a few customers, and were in conversation with a few other prospects. All this with a bare-bones team. I was very excited, the only way they could go was up.

The question they asked me was this: Now that they had done webinars, what else should they be doing? They didn’t want to do any more webinars, they said. Should they write whitepapers, should they go do events, maybe even sponsor a few?

I was taken aback. I asked them why they wanted to do that, when their webinars were working so well. The leads were coming, they were closing, growth was exactly where they wanted it to be. So why something new? And even if they wanted to do something new, why did they not want to do more webinars?

Their answer was that they didn’t want to do the same thing over and over again. They wanted to do something more interesting.

And doing webinars again and again is boring, isn’t it?

Five

But that’s what you have to do: The boring stuff. Because, as you must have realised, you only get to do the interesting parts if you keep doing the boring. Over and over and over again.

That’s the secret to brand building no one will tell you. No one will tell you that because it’s difficult, and it’s easy to convince ourselves, and each other, that we are just one ad campaign away from becoming a huge brand.

Think of a brand you love, any brand you love, and think of why you love them. Consistency will come to mind at some point. And then think about where that consistency comes from. Most times, you will realise, it comes from a boring, repetitive process.

And that’s the job, that’s the secret.

Let’s go back to the co-founders above. What should they be doing? More webinars? The answer would be yes, but they shouldn’t stop there. Once they get the process right, they should keep going, for months, maybe a year, until their webinars become something people look forward to, talk about, and share invites for. Because if they have done 2 webinars well, they can do 10. If they can do 10, they can do 40.

And interesting things will start happening. Because though the process is boring, the outcome is not.