The 6 Words That Ruin Everything

Your life, your happiness, your business, your sanity, all ruined by six words. 

“We’ve always done it that way.”

Or…

“I’ve always done it that way.”
“It’s always been done that way.”

I hate those phrases because the fact that something used to work doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way to do it now. But more importantly, the world in which it used to work may not, and likely does not, exist anymore.

The pitfalls of absolutism aside, these phrases increasingly set us up for failure. And I say “increasingly” because, as I’ve said many times (probably a few too many times) before, the superpower of modern web tech, particularly AI, is speed.

That matters because with every passing day, we are further from the way “things used to be” than we ever were before.

Traditions are for Christmas, not for planning your life or business

Before anyone thinks I’m saying we need to get rid of cherished traditions of our heritage, take a deep breath. I love a good family tradition as much as the next guy. But just like we need to put AI in its place, we also need to put tradition in its place.

Nothing is lost when my family defaults to having meatball subs for dinner after church every year on Christmas Eve.

I’m aware of the lost opportunity to be trampled to death in a Walmart parking lot when we choose to go get our Christmas tree on Black Friday each year instead of going shopping. I’m OK with that trade-off.

Keeping traditions is a fine thing.

But sometimes we may be passing up an opportunity for something new or better when we hold to a tradition.

But if we’re aware of the opportunity, we can decide whether holding to the tradition is more valuable than pursuing the new opportunity.

Better Options May Exist

These phrases are frustrating because they are commonly a sign of organizational stubbornness: a warning to the new folks in the organization not to upset the apple cart because change is seen as undesirable.

We won’t spend too much time here because the argument is pretty standard: the fear of, or unwillingness to change intuitively leads to lost opportunities for better options. If we’re not willing to try something new, we miss the opportunity for something better than we’ve had in the past.

That doesn’t mean every new idea is good. It doesn't mean every old process is bad. It doesn’t mean that change automatically equals progress.

It means the “old way” should have to continue earning its place.

That World Doesn’t Exist Anymore

“It’s always been done that way” is dangerous because if we expect the same results from the same tactics we will all too often fall short of those expectations. The world we were in when we first started doing those things is no longer the world we live in.

This is the thought that has been keeping me up at night lately:

“Is it even possible to deliver the performance we used to deliver for clients today?”

Too often, the answer is no.

Doing the things we used to do just because that’s how we’ve always done them can lead to failure because the systems no longer work the way they did when we started using those tactics.

I’ve worked in marketing for more than 15 years. Many of the digital marketing tools we used back then still exist, but the ecosystem around them is completely different.

Blogs still exist. Social media still exists. Search ads, display ads, paid social, email, landing pages, analytics, automation, all of it still exists.

But none of it exists in the same environment.

The internet is too large (and still growing… and now filled with AI slop) for content to compete the way it used to. The competition for attention is more intense. The platforms are more crowded. The “costs” are higher. The margins are thinner. The algorithms are more complex and less predictable.

Meanwhile, the platforms we rely on for reaching our users and target audience have increasingly prioritized shareholder profits over user experience or advertiser success and efficiency. (For a funny and yet simultaneously depressing read about this topic, check out Corey Doctorow’s book Enshittification. I just listened to the audiobook on Spotify and highly recommend it.)

The result is that everything is more expensive and less effective than it used to be.

So what can we do?

Don’t give up.

Whether inside an organization or in the face of overwhelmingly powerful technology platforms, “we’ve always done it that way” infuriates your most passionate people because it feels defeatist. It conveys a sense of “don’t bother trying because we’ll never change.”

Pick your battles wisely, and remember that this is one of the fights worth picking every time.

Get creative.

There is rarely only one way to do something. There is almost never one way to do something that works for everyone.

Success requires trying a wide variety of things, and not necessarily one after another. For example, reaching your target audience may actually require a number of approaches working simultaneously. Be willing to take a bit of a mixed-bad approach.

Don’t get too locked in.

In my post a couple weeks ago, I briefly alluded to the sunk cost fallacy. This is the concept that people will continue down a path to their own detriment because they feel like they have invested too much in that approach to turn back or turn away. “We’ve always done it that way” is a clear distillation of sunk cost fallacy.

Adapt.

Some tactics will have to be thrown out as relics of the past. Others will simply need to adjust to the times. All will require a recalibration of expectations.

Because the “old way” is only useful if it still works.