08/04/2026
More content. More campaigns. More ideas. More activity.
It’s easy to assume better marketing starts with doing more.
But during Jade’s recent Learning Spotlight on The Road Less Stupid, one big idea stood out:
You don’t always need to do more smart things. Sometimes, you need to do fewer dumb things.
The book calls the cost of avoidable missteps the “dumb tax”—the time, money, energy, trust, and opportunity lost when we rush, make assumptions, solve the wrong problem, or fail to think through what happens next.
In marketing, dumb tax can look like:
Launching before getting clear on the goal.
Choosing tactics before understanding the audience.
Reacting to one result before looking at the bigger picture.
Creating more when what already exists could work harder.
Not every creative idea or campaign will be a resounding success right out of the gate. Marketing will always involve testing, learning, and adjusting.
But pausing to ask better questions before jumping into action helps ensure we’re testing the right ideas, solving the right problems, and learning from the results.
The book reinforced something we believe to our core: Sometimes the smartest next step isn’t doing more. It’s thinking first and identifying what steps are worth taking.
That’s the kind of thinking we want to bring to every client, campaign, and conversation.
