I should be building an ARC ... [🐝U]

🎙️ Wanna listen instead of read? 🎙️
It's me reading this one… stumbles, thunder & all.

It's been raining since last night.

Not your typical spring rain.
The kind that has me thinking I should have been building an arc instead of a barn.

100mm in 2-3 days.
Flood warnings across the entire province.
Each rain barrel collected over 85 gallons in the first 5 hours.

& I've spent most of the week moving dirt mostly by hand.

Not because I wanted to.
Because the low spots on the property …
the ones that pooled badly with the record snowmelt this spring …
are about to get tested in a way I didn't see coming when I bought this place.

I didn't know this was a problem when I moved here.
I knew there were low spots.
I just didn't know how expensive & damaging low spots become when nature decides to stress-test them.

The extremes keep breaking records & every time they do, something that seemed fine at normal levels stops looking fine.

So…
Dirt moving.
Rain barrels overflowing.
Neighbour showing up with his tractor yesterday morning to help shift what the county snowplow piled up at the gate.
A harrow weighted down with cinder blocks to level out the piles.
A roller full of water to pack it all down so it doesn't wash away when the rain really hits.

& in the middle of all of it... the barn floor.

The contractor wasn't wrong. He just left something out.

When the barn went up over the winter, the ground needed work first.

Level the ground and strip out the topsoil.
Before drilling holes for the foundation.

The contractor knew this.
He also said it could be done later.

He was right.

What he left out (conveniently, since it wasn't his problem) is that doing it later …
After the foundation holes were drilled.
After the walls were up.
After everything was already in place.

Later cost me a lot more (in time & money) than doing it first would have.

About halfway through I had one of those moments where you realize:
"Well... this would've been a lot easier 4 months ago."

My hands are so swollen right now I can barely make a fist.
Forget about buttons & zippers on clothes.
Typing this email is definitely an adventure so there’s probably more typos than usual.

At some point I stopped being annoyed with the potential flooding & started being annoyed with myself.

But here's the thing.
That dirt isn't going to waste.
Which is the funny part.
The thing causing me the most grief this week ended up becoming part of the solution.

It's going straight to the low spots where the snowmelt pooled.
1 problem becomes the material to fix another.

That part I didn't plan … it just worked out.
The barn floor part... didn't.

The flooding didn't create the problem

It just removed any chance to pretend it wasn't there.

The low spots were always there.
The barn floor was always going to need doing.

Normal conditions just meant I could keep not looking at it directly.
Record rain meant I couldn't anymore.

& standing there staring at yet another pile of dirt yesterday...
I realized I see this exact thing with clients constantly.

Not the flooding part.
The "conditions revealed what was already there" part.

No one builds a business badly on purpose.
They built the way most people build... solving the problem right in front of them, with the information they had, as fast as they needed to move.

My new clients knew they needed an email list.
So they built one.

Someone said, "you need to be on this platform to solve that problem" so they got on it. Then there was a gap that platform couldn't fill...
so they added another one.
Then another gap.
Another platform.

Nobody sat down & said …
before you add another tool, let's look at how all of this connects.

They were just doing what made sense at the time.

& it worked... until the pressure came.

More subscribers.
More products.
More complexity.
Trying to actually scale something that was built to just survive.

& suddenly the data doesn't talk to each other.
The reporting’s a mess.
& fixing it means going back underneath something that's already been built on top of.

Just like my barn floor.
The gaps were always there.
Growth didn't create them.
It just gave them enough weight to crack under.

This isn't an argument for waiting

Perfection-as-delay is its own trap...
& a much more common one.

This isn't "don't build until everything's right."

Because here's the real problem.
My clients didn't skip the foundation work on purpose.
They didn't know it existed.

They're not marketers.
They're not email specialists.
They were doing the best they could with what they knew & what they'd been told.

Which, honestly, is how most businesses get built.

The contractor knew the floor needed doing first.
Most people building their marketing don't know that.

What thinking it through actually looks like

It's not a 40-page marketing plan.
It's not a perfect funnel before you touch anything.

It's just 3 honest questions before you build the next thing.

For your own business:
→ Where am I right now?
→ Where am I actually trying to get to?
→ Does this next step connect those 2 things... or am I just solving today's problem?

& working with clients... the same questions apply when they come to you with a problem.

Because clients know something isn't working.
They don't always know what.

They come to you with "I need X."
& maybe X does fix the immediate thing.

But the real question is …
how does X affect everything else?

Because nothing happens in isolation.

The barn floor wasn't just a barn floor problem.
It’s a foundation problem.
& a "everything built on top of it is now harder to fix" problem.

The contractor saw the immediate ask.
He didn't look at (or care about) the whole floor.

That's the difference between someone who fixes what they're pointed at
& someone who actually solves the problem.

Your clients are coming to you because they need the second one.
Not perfection.
Not a complete picture before you move.

Just someone willing to step back far enough to ask...
how does this connect to everything else?

Because the difference between a business that compounds & one that keeps stalling...
Usually isn’t effort or brilliant strategy.

It's whether someone looked at the whole floor before the walls went up.

Most small businesses don't discover the weak spots when things are calm.
They discover them when success finally arrives.

Record snow.
Record rain.
More subscribers & moving parts than the system was built to handle.

The conditions change
& suddenly you're inside with a wheelbarrow & shovel.

So before you add the next tool.
Before you add another platform.
Before you patch the thing that's frustrating you right now.

Make sure someone’s looked underneath what you're building.
Because pressure is coming.
Growth is coming.

& eventually every foundation gets tested.
Some by growth.
Some by customers.
Some by 100mm of rain in 3 days.

Ask someone who can see the whole floor.
Not just the part you're standing on.

Make it a great "solid ground" week!
EG

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