At the start of 2025, we faced a question: should we pack in our business and get [gasp] proper jobs? Our old brand felt like rotten decking – layers of horrible surprises with no clear foundation.
But instead of quitting, we found an octopus, embraced distinctiveness over differentiation, and built something we're actually excited about.
In this year-in-review, we trace a tangled thread from near-shutdown to genuine transformation, exploring what worked (uncertainty bubbles, relationship-driven growth, really good sandwiches) and what didn't (cold outreach, content marketing as a silver bullet, biscuits). Along the way, we workshop potential themes for 2026: bubbles, relationships, or possibly giant fluffy hats.
Including but not limited to:
- Why Byron Sharp's evidence-based marketing vindicated our octopus obsession (distinctiveness > differentiation)
- The brutal realisation: thought leadership doesn't automatically convert to clients ... so what does?
- "The only thing worse than having a struggling business is having a successful business that you hate running"
- How our iterative approach to website messaging revealed insights no "big bang rebrand" could surface
- "Uncertainty bubbles" - presenting external certainty while protecting internal space for emergence
- Why we'll never do much cold outreach, even though it works for others, and what we're doing instead
- The hot seat moment that changed Tom's career: when someone just picked up the phone instead of planning
This one's for anyone building something that doesn't quite fit the playbook, wondering whether there's a way to grow without becoming someone you don't recognise.
Links and references:
- Byron Sharp (marketing researcher, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute)
- Dolly Parton: "Figure out who you are and then do it on purpose"
- Adrian Tchaikovsky (author, Children of Ruin - source of crown & reach octopus metaphor)
- Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (evidence-based marketing research)
- Distinctiveness vs differentiation (branding principle)
- Uncertainty bubbles (concept from Tom's Deel masterclass)
- Safe-to-fail probes (complexity/Cynefin principle)
- 4U Framework: Unpack, Undergo and Unfold Uncertainty
- Granularity, disintermediation and iteration (our hidden facilitation principles)
- Innovation Tactics (Tom's Pip Decks card deck - 50+ methods) https://collabs.shop/yxzsjg
- Decking metaphor episode (our previous year-in-review)
What's your theme for the year? Did anything in this episode trigger a thought for you? tentacles@crownandreach.com
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