The cost of silence in marketing is too high

There’s a line I don’t cross anymore: shrinking myself to keep the peace. I used to do it constantly — in corporate meetings, briefs and strategy sessions where we all knew the plan was theater but nodded anyway. It wasn’t just self-protection. It was complicity.

The longer I stayed quiet, the more it cost me — energy, integrity, respect for myself and the work. Because what we often call strategy in marketing is just silence, dressed up as insight.

A vague north star no one follows. Funnels that no real human moves through. Brand voice guidelines powered by zero real understanding that erase actual personality. It looks clean. It feels dead.

For too long, I told myself that was just how it worked. But now I know better.

The cost of compliance

Silence isn’t neutral. It’s expensive. We lose something every time we bypass clarity for alignment, say nothing so the deck can get approved and prioritize performance over principle.

Our creativity shrinks. Our standards are lower. And marketing becomes noise instead of meaning. I’m not interested in playing that game anymore. I’m not here to burn it all down.

But I am here to stop pretending it’s fine, because the cost of silence is far too high.

The work reflects the shift

If you’ve followed my work — through consulting, teaching or my role with the Marketing Accountability Council (MAC) — you’ve seen the shift.

I’m not writing for engagement anymore. Not packaging insights for personal brand optimization. Not polishing the truth until it’s smooth enough to scroll past. I’m writing to be understood. More importantly, I’m writing to understand myself.

That’s what MAC stands for, too. It’s not a marketing trend club. It’s a community of strategists and operators who are done performing alignment and ready to build systems that work — for consumers, teams and the long term. Establishing MAC wasn’t a networking move. It was a clarity move.

Dig deeper: Escaping the marketing circus: How empathy can realign brands, audiences and results

Tools don’t make the message, but they can help you hear it

I’ve spent 12 drafts on a single paragraph. Not because I’m indecisive, but because I’m committed to saying what’s true. That’s the work.

Yes, I use AI — not as a crutch, but as a mirror. A tool that helps me cut through the clutter and confront what I’m trying to say. Used well, AI doesn’t flatten the message. It distills it. It accelerates what I was already trying to do: cut the fluff, drop the performance, write what I won’t regret.

LinkedIn is where we perform, Substack is where we think

LinkedIn is a stage. You show up, say the smart thing, hope the right people like it, move on. It’s fine, but it’s loud.

Substack is different. It’s not a feed. It’s a trail of thought. A slow, layered body of work that doesn’t expire in 48 hours. It’s where I stop selling and start explaining. Where I build arguments, not just impressions.

The people who matter — the ones who hire, collaborate, challenge — don’t evaluate you based on frequency. They ask: “Are you saying something worth sitting with?” That kind of work doesn’t live in hooks. It lives in layers.

Awareness isn’t the goal, evaluation is

We are trained to chase visibility. To post to stay top of mind. To hope someone important sees us. But hope isn’t a strategy. You don’t need everyone to know you exist. You need the right people to know you’re the one who sees the problem. That only happens when you:

• Say what others avoid.
• Drop the polite abstractions.
• Build a case, not just a vibe.

The new networking

Some of the best relationships I’ve built this year didn’t come from pitch decks or cold outreach. They started with presence. Someone read something I wrote. It hit. We talked.

No funnel. No drip sequence. No “just circling back.” Just resonance. Clarity. A real human signal in a sea of branded noise.

And from that? New work. New partnerships. New momentum. That’s what networking looks like now. Not reach. Recognition.

Dig deeper: Why marketers are leaving and what it takes to stay

This is a turning point — and I’m owning it

This isn’t a rebrand. It’s a realignment. From now on, I:

• Write with more intention.
• Build tools that don’t manipulate.
• Choose clarity over consensus.
• Say the hard thing, even when it costs me.

Because the truth is the only thing that still holds weight.

If you’re feeling this too…

You’re not wrong. You’re not behind. You’re not too idealistic. You’re just operating in a system that rewards polish over principles.

We didn’t teach people how to swim. We built a pool of shifting currents, flashing distractions and false exits. Then we blamed them for drowning. 

We called it a customer journey and measured engagement, but what we really built was a maze. The consumer isn’t confused; they’re exhausted.

And if we keep pretending this is strategy, we’ll lose the one thing we still have: trust.

Dig deeper: How to move beyond performative segmentation and embrace authenticity

Join the Marketing Accountability Council

I wanted to be in a room where honesty isn’t rare — it’s a requirement. Where customer-first means more than a KPI, and smart, strategic people are rebuilding — not optimizing dysfunction.

MAC isn’t performance. It’s practice. It’s where we name what’s broken, fix what we can and design better defaults — together. Stop scrolling if that sounds like the kind of work you’re ready for. Join us.

If this resonates with you, you don’t need to like or comment. But maybe you should stop waiting for someone else to say it first.

• From shrinking to showing up.
• From silence to strategy.
• From awareness to accountability.

I’ll be here — writing what matters—saying what’s hard. Because I finally understand what’s at stake if I don’t. And I’m done pretending it’s fine.