The apocalypse collapse
You have permission to stop doing it the way it's been done. To stop selling with all of the bad habits of the last decade. You can invite your prospects back into their aspirations, their best beliefs about themselves, and all the possibilities that make them Americans.
...and individualistic aspiration is back in fashion.
FWD Edition 109
Oh GOD another election post-mortem! A roadmap for battered Dems, a political corrective for Trump...
Just a moment. Would I do that to you?
This isn't one of those. This is a message for you. Regardless of your policy positions.
This is not an election essay, it's a messaging and positioning one that uses last week's earthquake of an election to help us all understand what's really going on here and what happens next. I'm not here to breakdown policy.
From a business strategy perspective, elections are powerful because they act as the biggest piece of market research available AND deliver a roadmap of the next four years, all in one fell swoop. When it's a change election (as this one was), it's even more clear.
As I'll explain below, the shape of the electorate validated a theory I've had for a while, but didn't have words for until it happened: The conventional wisdom is REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY wrong about marketing and what the public wants and needs. So regardless of your industry, your "voters" (of all political stripes) are giving you giant skywritten cues, so let's listen:
YES, we're moving forward.
Of course, in a polarized America, we'll have dramatic disagreements whether "forward" is the right framing, as well we should. But again... this is not a policy discussion. Everything below is about storytelling. Because in all things, the group with the best story wins. Politicians and businesses have tried to win without compelling, dramatic, and sometimes disruptive narratives for the better part of a decade, that will no longer work.
To understand "forward," you must first understand the status quo that was summarily rejected. I call it the Five-Point Apocalypse:
- Technocratic: Look at the data. Big word. Big word. Big word. Do what smart people with big machines are telling you.
- Futility: The planet is burning so our small little lives don't really matter.
- Decline: You can't advance in life. Those days are over. So plant a garden and start a podcast.
- Desperation: The system is permanently rigged, and you need a big outside source (a business, a government, a hero) to save you.
- Tribalism: People are best understood in characteristic groups (like niche ICPs) that should be targeted, like 8-pt bucks in deer season.
Marketers, politicians, and tastemakers have been pounding these messaging themes for almost a decade. And what we saw across the political spectrum and throughout the demographic map is that people are tired of it.
"There's very little room for hope, but let's at least stave off the end of the world," in retrospect was never a very winning message. Incrementalism and distractionism, spoonfeeding the public with bland content, corporate speak, and near-zero vision of the future has been normal for so long that we forgot what the alternative looks like.
NO, this isn't about Trump.
We now know that Americans across previous political alignments are willing to stomach a lot of Trumpian darkness in exchange for one consistent thing: the aspiration of a "great" future. Pause all your cynicism (as I've had to pause mine) for those little red hats. The idea that there was a broad anti-MAGA majority not only never emerged but went the other direction.
But this is where I would like to carefully help you see this outside the political paradigm. What we see from the polling data is that people's distaste for Trump as a person was and is still very high. But what was squeezed between the cracks of his most incendiary rhetoric and felonies, was a line many Americans were so starving for they were willing to see it smothered in an a very unsavory sauce:
"You're working your ass off. They don't see you. I do. You don't need handouts - you need opportunity."
How that was framed, by many views (including mine) was incredibly problematic and offputting. But that's why I'm so convinced this isn't about an near-octagenarian who likes to sway to YMCA.
This is about a feeling. A feeling your customers desperately want.
MAYBE, stop trying to be so damn reasonable.
The right in this American election understood something about this country's citizens that had almost been forgotten in the last 15 years of digital determinism and apocalyptic thinking: Americans are fueled by aspiration.
Climb that mountain.
Get that promotion.
Build that fortune.
Buy that house.
Get that praise.
We are formed into self-made narratives where our happiness lies in working hard and getting what we feel like we deserve. We are a moralizing people. But only if the story's moral is "You can do it." In the election it came in the form of "those people screwed up our country, but YOU can get it back." But that's just one version of the core power play: aspiration and contrast.
This is why the only marketing that is getting a budget right now is fast-fashion, short-term, expendable happiness sold through Instagram ads and influencers. "You can have six-pack abs, too; just use this soap." This is an asinine, unreasonable proposal, but it's exactly what Americans want to hear, and it drives behavior here.
Americans, by and large, want to believe they are working harder than everyone else, they are more deserving than their neighbors, and their flaws are more peripheral. That's why a candidate like Trump gets away with so much. As many have said, "He's the kind of rich Americans like."
People were willing to squint hard to transform his grubby narcissism into "a guy willing to do what it takes"... a transformation that crossed many gender, race, and socio-economic boundaries.
SERIOUSLY, you can do better than that.
Here's why I find this dark-shaded reality mildly hopeful. If Americans are willing to ignore what they were willing to ignore on November 5th, all for a great story about their own possibility... how much more would they do for you?
YOU with zero felonies.
YOU with no public bankruptcies.
YOU with much more interesting and manageable flaws.
YOU, if you tell a better story.
Incremental, "data-driven" leadership and marketing have been the rule for the last 15 years. It's boring. It's the reason people want to work from home. It's the reason organic growth is nearing death, except in Mega Tech and a few other places. It's the reason everything is pivoting back to hard-selling, AE-driven growth.
The stories told to our team members, customers, and prospects are boring. They carry the same problems as the political messages that failed across the country last week (back to the Five-Point Apocalypse):
- Technocratic: Percentages, decimal points, images of screens, images of screens with screens inside of them, big words. "Life is hard. Outsource to us. We have big computers." Advisors, fintech, and education are particularly at fault here.
- Futile: "The world is on fire and no one can predict the markets, but here's our cool client portal that any other advisor can pay some third party vendor for."
- Decline: Complaining about demographics, selling incremental improvements, offering "feel good vibes" with no tangible benefit. "We can't actually improve your life, but we're really nice, and we care about you."
- Desperation: Paying for leads, gift cards for sales calls, constantly selling the awards they paid and politicked for instead of what actually benefits your customers. Promising the end of the world so you can sell your "AI-powered GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) services." Yuck.
- Tribalism: Niching so hard that you're cosplaying as the puffy vest-wearing advisor to cat owners. Every word on the website is an SEO keyword "Best local plumber with accreditation for plumbing needs--stopped drains, clogged sinks, toilet backup--in the greater Waterloo, IA area including Cedar Falls, IA and Dike, IA."
There is a subtext to every story. Whether politically you like or dislike the text of last week's results, my challenge to all of my readers is to learn to love the subtext, because therein lies the magic (that your competitors will miss).
NOW, be the brand you know you can be.
You have permission to stop doing it the way it's been done. To stop selling with all of the bad habits of the last decade. You can invite your prospects back into their aspirations, their best beliefs about themselves, and all the possibilities that make them Americans.
We're going to be spending the rest of the year here at CultureCraft Editions mapping this shift. In November, we'll cover what has changed in 2024, and then in December, my annual trifecta that I spent all year compiling:
- Five things I got wrong in 2024 in the first week of December
- Unexpected trends (no not those trends) for 2025 in the second week, and
- The Good List, 50 things I loved in 2024 to round out the year.
Make sure you're fully subscribed to get all the holiday goodies.
And of course, if you're ready to look in the mirror and ask, "Are we ready to tell a better story?" There's no better place to start than with your own free Growth Check.
