Put Down That Shovel.
In almost every discovery call I end up saying the same thing, giving this same sort of reassurance, usually when they’re apologizing for their website or their inconsistent brand or whatever marketing piece they feel guilty about. The thing I say:
You’re the expert in your business. I’m the expert at *this.
(*When I say “this”, dear reader, picture me gesturing towards what’s hidden below the surface—the messy places between your marketing intentions and what lands with your people.)
Their reaction is always the same—this great, heaving exhale like a cartoon kettle letting off steam. As though I just gave them permission to stop carrying something. I think the relief comes from being able to drop the defences and be real with me (and themselves!). And from realizing that someone will take the time to genuinely understand what they do, why it matters, and who needs to hear it, all before trying to communicate any of it.
The guilt around marketing is pervasive in mission-driven work, and it’s worth asking why. You’re struggling because you’re either not a marketing professional, or you are one but you’re also the program director and the grant writer and the person managing a crisis on Tuesday afternoon when the board meeting is Thursday morning. Marketing gets whatever cognitive space remains after you’ve done the work you actually exist to do.
So you end up with half-measures. Templates designed for someone else’s mission—and rarely designed for accessibility. A social media presence that feels like shouting into the void. A website from 2017 that you know is undermining your credibility, but the thought of overhauling it when you can barely keep up with deadlines is paralyzing.
Seymour Chwast said: “If you’re digging a hole in the wrong place, making it deeper doesn’t help.”
I watch organizations dig in the wrong place constantly. They cling to brand identities or websites that no longer reflect who they’ve become because the sunk cost feels too significant to abandon. They wait for some future moment when they’ll have enough capacity to do everything properly, which means they do nothing and watch their relevance erode.
Stay with me on this digging metaphor for a sec. Someone finds you—they’re trying to reach the place where the real work is happening—buuuut they trip over the pile of dirt you’ve been digging up and leave. Your inconsistent design is that pile. They bounce because they can’t figure out what you do or what you want from them, and what is this pile of dirt doing here, anyway? You had their attention at the moment it mattered most, and the mess blocked their path.
You could react to this by doing more—more posting, more templates, more scrambling. I’d like to suggest smaller, more intentional actions. More aligned, less anxiety-making.
Maybe that’s an accessible landing page designed to convert interest into action. Maybe it’s finally letting go of brand assets that no longer serve your positioning. Maybe the scope is smaller than you think.
You already know where the resonance lives in your mission. My work is teasing out how to communicate the message so people can pay attention.
If you’re ready to stop digging in the wrong place, let’s talk about what your next right step actually is.
Your message matters.
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