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You made it to the end of this month-long week. Congratulations!

I hope that you’re doing well and that it’s not TOO SOON TO TELL whether you’re drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, or making solid progress on that bucket of Halloween candy you’ve already told the small humans in your house is “missing.”

We knew this week would be tough, and we solidly geared up for it. Even as someone who looks forward to Mondays, I couldn't help but feel myself bubbling with a dose of SUNDAY DREAD last weekend, nervous for the mayhem I was walking into.

How do you respond when you’re feeling stressed and anxious? What do you do to cope?

Creating a routine is what helps me. One that is focused on building in ease and simplicity for the rest of the week. I meal-prep so I won’t have to think about it later. I write out a daily schedule that feels attainable and locked in. [Have I mentioned I’m an ISTJ?] I commit to wearing chunky sweaters and leggings and avoiding pants. I do everything possible to keep it calm by keeping it simple.

The simplicity is key, and it's an approach I think holds real business merit too.

I'm often the fun-sponge in the marketing room. The one attracting groans and rolled eyes when I ask to strip away elements. To cut words, to undesign the ad, to calm down the video, to ask if more is really better or if more is just more and a little bit of chaos.

It’s easy for us as marketers to get trapped into thinking we have to continually increase the complexity of what we’re doing. Make it BIGGER, add NEW layers, do EXTRA things, KEEP consumer interest.

And yet, it's simplicity that wins. KISS.

The simpler your solution, the more I trust you know what you’re talking about. Not hiding behind jargon and run-on sentences and fake complexity.

The simpler your product, the more I trust the mastery of your focus. The fewer options, the less time I waste in analysis paralysis, the more likely I am to buy and revisit.

[I’ve always loved the simplicity of the In N Out menu…and their french fries.]

The simpler your website and your marketing, the easier it is for me, the customer, to find what I need and to understand your ability to solve my problem (vs., well, getting confused about where to go or even look).

When used well, complexity in advertising can be engaging and sexy. I'm constantly amazed by my team, more creative than I could hope to be, able to accomplish things my mind would never see. Other times, that simplistic banner ad, the one where the messaging and imagery is juuuuust right and doesn't feel a need to show off, hits me like a cup of hot chocolate in my belly.

Simple wins but simple is scary.

Simple is scary because there's nowhere to hide. Simple means committing to something, removing unnecessary elements, and leaving enough space for your ugly bits to hang out where people can see them. It’s comforting to duck behind bells and whistles and a laundry list of new offerings that we hope people interpret not as insecurity, but as authority. To rattle off a 50 word explanation when five words would suffice.

Yet, as Occam’s razor would tell you, it is pointless to do with more what is done with less.

If it all feels like too much, if you're spending too much time rewording and making it fit, remove the extra layers. 

Step back and ask yourself:

Is the work you’re doing making things better? Or are you simply making them shinier and bigger? Like a website redesign that adds MORE features and fancy doodads…but slows down the website, weakens SEO with bloated tech, and doesn’t actually build upon what users want. 

Are you spinning your wheels to write an 80-page 2021 marketing strategy that hides with jargony explanations rather than 10 clean pages that clearly identify your market, problems and solutions? 

If adding more doesn't make it better, don't add it.

The worth of something isn't measured in the sheer output, but in the value you create.

Sometimes more really is better. More Kit Kats and Almond Joys in that Halloween bucket. 

Other times, gorging yourself on more is the most effective way to ruin a good thing.

I hope you have a refreshing weekend. Keep it simple. You deserve it.

• Building successful customer experiences. McKinsey published a stellar piece of content on the three building blocks of successful customer-experience transformations. The title could be, uh, simpler, but the read is worthy.
• (Email) rules to live by. Stop sounding like a people-pleasing baby in email. Thanks to @FlirtingKappi for sharing this.

• Speaking of email... if you've been thinking of adding "email automation" to your 2021 marketing wishlist, this is a nice primer on what it is and why to use it. 
• Acknowledging that we must do better: I was proud to be part of the Albany Business Review's story on how the pandemic is disproportionally affecting women, threatening to wipe out decades of economic progress. My son also enjoyed seeing himself in the paper. 
• A guilty pleasure: I spent last weekend hiding out and binge-watching The Queen's Gambit. It's so good, and so are these behind-the-scenes facts you probably didn't know but should. Warning: it's a BuzzFeed article.
• A hat-tip and a thank you to my buddy Jeff Williamson who shared this Stouffers tweet with me. If you read our last newsletter on sending noods, you know why this made me chuckle. Canoodling sounds so much more fun.  

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