“If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
I was the featured speaker at a fireside chat last week. When asked about my feelings on AI, I shared this:
“Jumping off a building is the fastest way to the ground. But that doesn’t make it a smart choice.”
[ Most of the room chuckled / nodded along. I’m sure some of them questioned my humor. It’s an acquired taste, but y’all are still here. 😉 ]
I stand by the statement.
You can get a homepage draft from Claude in about 5 minutes. Squarespace will walk you through an entire site build over a long weekend. There’s an “AI expert” every 3 posts promising to replace your entire marketing team with agents. The AI flyers … just … don’t get me started.
Fast is everywhere. Which means fast on its own is worth approximately …
Nothing.
***
Case in point, we picked up a fancy new job title this year: Cleanup Crew.
Rebuilding a low-res “logo” a client generated on their lunch break.
🫠 They expected to put it on a billboard.
Completely reengineering product packaging from an AI-generated mockup.
🫠 It was a square box rendered as tall rectangles in RGB color.
Untangling the SEO mess created by a rogue agent.
🫠 Never considered the rankings fallout from changing 15 page links.
Every one of these examples is 100% REAL, the consequence smart, capable business owners moving way too fast. And I get it. When a tool promises to instantly resolve something you’ve had on your to-do list for 5+ years (before lunch) — of course you give it a shot.
Can’t blame the tools. They did exactly what they were told, happily jumping off the building. Super speedy.
Problem with that approach … there’s a big ‘ole mess of questions and problems when you hit the ground:
Who really is our ideal client?
What’s this new website actually supposed to do?
How will we know it’s even working?
What happens to the “tech stuff” we already had in place?
Why are we changing all these indexed links?
Where do the contact form submissions go?
Can Google and AI search tools read these pages?
How are we going to make changes?
Can a printer work with this design?
Do we even own any of this?
Unfortunately, the post-operative cleanup always costs more than doing it right the first time. You pay for the fix, your lost time, and the consequence of speed without judgment. Ouch.
***
Full disclosure, since I’m the one with a 30-day website program.
Yes, it’s fast. It’s also the least rushed thing we do, because by build-day-one, the hard part is already done.
That’s Brand Signal: working out exactly who your best clients are, where there’s a missed opportunity, what needs to change to grab it, how we’re going to implement the changes so nothing else breaks, AND what the end result is going to look like.
Then we build an amazing website to support it.
I suppose we’ll keep showing up as the “cleanup crew” when clients need us. Goes with the territory these days.
I’d just rather be your first call than your last resort.
So, if you’re ready to take the elevator instead, check out Brand Signal.
***
Make it a great week! 🙌
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