What to do when things don't go quite to plan with Ayo Abbas
The Built Environment Marketing Show hosted by Ayo Abbas, strategic marketing consultant from Abbas Marketing.
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Today's episode is all about what actually happens when things go sideways midway through marketing execution? In this episode, I get honest about two moments where marketing didn't go to plan — a content cliché bingo card for a campaign that was derailed by Wi-Fi not working and a bid submission that never arrived thanks to an incident......
Both carry real lessons about margins of error, adaptability, and how constraints often spark the best creative thinking. If you've ever had to pivot fast and figure it out on the fly, this one's for you.
Resources
Content Cliche Bingo Interactive App
About the show
The Built Environment Marketing Show is hosted by marketing consultant and content creator Ayo Abbas from Abbas Marketing. It is a show that is unashamedly about marketing for architects and engineers, as well as bringing forward voices that we don't always get to hear.
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Transcript
Ayo Abbas 00:00
Ayo, hello, and welcome to the latest episode of The Built Environment Marketing Show, hosted by me, Ayo Abbas, from Abbas Marketing. I am a strategic marketing consultant and speaker and trainer, and I adore working with built environment firms who really want to make an impact, and I guess compete in a much smarter way. Today I had an idea, actually, when I was at UKREiiF, and actually when I just got back, and I wanted to draw on some of the kind of conversations and experiences I've had talking with various people who I know about marketing. When it doesn't go quite to plan, it's not something that we talk about that often, but how do you think we learn a lot from failure or things that make you think on your feet? So this episode is going to be talking about that. So I'm a firm believer that no matter how much you plan, there's always something that can go astray, right? Something can go away astray, and we spend so much time and energy talking about plans and campaigns, and what we're going to do, and how it's going to work out, but actually, when it comes to implementation, and you start putting stuff in action, there's so much stuff that can go sideways, so I wanted to kind of, I guess, share a kind of look at kind of what actually what you can actually do when things don't quite go to plan. So today I'm going to share about an idea that I took to UKREiiF, which was anytime I go to a conference and I'm spending a sizable chunk of time there, I always think about how can I promote myself, my work, and, and what I do, and I always try and come up with some kind of idea. Last year I did a listen, loved, learned, and lost, like little mini videos, and this year I was like, what am I going to do? So, anyway, so I literally had a light bulb moment just before UKREiiF last month, and my idea was actually a lot of the content you see is kind of cliche, like we're world class, we're innovative, but all of this stuff, and I'm always like, oh, we always see the same stuff, we're award winning, it's like, so what, who, how, who gave the award, was it your mum? So what I wanted to do was find out a way that I could kind of stand out, and I thought, oh, I've been talking a lot about cliches and all the stuff we see in the industry, so I had a light bulb moment just before this Saturday, before UKREiiF content cliche bingo. So, anyway, so obviously when I have an idea, I can generally execute it quite quickly, so I decided to build a plan, build a card, use Claude, use Canva, come up with some phrases, and design a kind of little kind of card that I could hand out in person when I was at UK Reef. All good, all great. And yes, I do stuff last minute, but you know, it was a really good idea, so I thought, all right, let's implement it really quickly. So I used Canva, created it on that Saturday morning, you know, got it all kind of in a place I was really happy, and I thought, right, I looked at printers, found someone who could print it on the Monday when I was on the train on the way up to Leeds, and yeah, it's all good, all great. Anyway, of course, my idea didn't stop there. Next morning, I thought, hmm, I wonder, can I actually do this as a kind of interactive bingo card that I could have on my phone, because all the content had been done for the print version. I thought, actually, I could also do an interactive version using I'm slightly in love with lovable. You can do lots of kind of interactive games, apps, all that kind of stuff, all by using kind of normal, general, general kind of prompting. So it's an AI tool, I absolutely love it. So, anyway, I thought, "Oh, I could do that. So, Sunday morning, I decided to go unlovable.
Ayo Abbas 03:47
Started to kind of build my online version of the content cliche bingo card, could brand it in my colors, could add extra elements, like, you know, you click on my LinkedIn link, you can add a competition whereby people can take pictures of what they're seeing and add it and email me, so I built in all these kind of amazing interactive elements that you just couldn't do in a print card, so it worked really well. Loved it, shared it with some of my marketing friends, and everyone was like, this is absolutely amazing. And what was nice was that you could also use, like, WhatsApp to share it with people you know, and all that kind of stuff, so it could basically create our own viral moment quite easily. So, anyway, Monday I headed up to Leeds, and I swung by the printers, picked up my lovely print version, absolutely great, no problems. And then we got to Tuesday, which was the first day of UK Reef, and anyone who went along, they had some serious, serious Wi-Fi connectivity issues on that first day, which actually meant that most of their own systems didn't work. It wasn't just us as attendees, it was actually their systems as well. So, they couldn't log people in, people couldn't see their apps, they couldn't see where they had meetings, so it was like tons and tons of stuff that was just wasn't working, and. And it just meant that I couldn't share my bingo card, which was such a shame, because it was such a good idea, and I, it just kind of had me that feeling of, you know, when I was outside the venue, and I, in the evenings, I was showing it to people, and people loved it, and were sharing it with other people, and but the thing is, actually, in the event itself, because the Wi-Fi wasn't working, it couldn't go to plan, and I think when you have an idea, so on that Saturday and Sunday, when I was building it, my idea was actually the interactive one was probably the one that would really fly, but then there's not much you can do, you can't control what happens, there are things that happen in life and in the world, and no matter how good a plan is or an idea is, you've always got to kind of think on a hoof, and I guess look for the bright side. I did kind of share the app with other people in the evenings at events, and people really did like it, and I did have some people come up to me and talk about it, which was great, but I guess it didn't get the traction that I would have liked, but then I guess that was outside my control, so I think, yeah, and then now I'm thinking about it. It's like, well, I can do a podcast episode talking about it, I can, you know, write a blog, and I think there's different ways. So it wasn't necessarily the idea and the execution that I wanted, but there's a lot of stuff I can still do if it, the concept and the idea were really sound, so I can adapt the theme and use it for other stuff. So, I think even though it didn't go to plan, but it's not a wasted idea, it's not a wasted effort, because there's lots of ways I can now take it forward, apply it to different things. I might do a sustainability card, green washing card, and other things I can do with it.
Ayo Abbas 06:39
So, I think you know, nothing's ever wasted, and you can learn a lot from stuff, so when it doesn't quite go to plan, there's still stuff you can do, which actually made me think about where else have I experienced something that didn't go to plan, and the it was quite a long time ago now, but when I was working in house for a large consultancy firm, I was working on a bid response document, and it was a bid where we'd actually, I think, we helped to actually write the PQQ, and we were the incumbent, the client loved us, so basically we were in pole position to win this thing, but I think sometimes that can also make you a bit complacent, and the director I was working with, I just remember, kept tinkering, tinkering away, little little amends, all that kind of stuff. On the last day, I'm going to keep saying on the last day, because that's the most important part. So we kept refining, we kept refining, kept refining, so it was nothing that would make a big difference. The actual, the grunt work was completely done, it was ready to go the night before, but tinkering away still a bit, and I guess we left it to the last minute to actually submit it, and it had to be submitted in person in London. So we booked a courier to get the physical document to the client's office in time, and actually this was at a time when it wasn't just digital submissions, it was like you had to give them the printed copies in their hand, they had to have it signed for it, and actually the courier picked up the documents on time, did all the stuff, but there was an unforeseen incident, the courier was actually involved in an accident, don't worry, they were absolutely fine, but it did mean that the bid never actually arrived, and because it didn't arrive at the client's office, it meant we were disqualified, that contract was gone, and the reason actually had nothing to do with the quality of our proposal, it was purely about, I guess, an incident we hadn't foreseen, but it was also about us leaving it to the very, very last minute, and I think for us it was like something that you could really learn from, and I think we were actually ready to go the night before, really, and we were just tinkering around the edges, I think sometimes if you have time you might think, oh, maybe I'll just change this and just change that, but sometimes it's actually more important to get the thing out of the door, so that you actually had more time and more leeway, and more gave yourself more room for in case something occurred. We had given ourselves no margin of error, and I think that was kind of one of the big learnings for me was doing submissions after that. It was always like, actually, what can we submit before the deadline, even a couple of days before, and start the upload process, and I know, especially now in this digital world, when you have like award submissions and things, I think it's always not leaving it to the last minute, because those platforms fall over, you might have something wrong with your computer, something else happens, and you're suddenly like, oh, that panic, and I think, especially when it's like bids have to be in on time. If they're not in on time, you're out of the race. And I think that whole thing of like chipping away at something great, but actually giving yourself some time, so like let's see what we can upload early, let's you know try and beat this, let's let's not leave it to the last minute. And I think for those types of things that was a massive learning. For me, that's for sure. I think the thread through this is around, you know, marketing doesn't always go to plan.
Ayo Abbas 10:10
Wi-Fi fails, courier accidents, portals fall over at the worst possible moment, and sometimes your best idea lands in a completely different way to how you imagined, and that's absolutely fine, but I guess for me, what I've noticed over the past kind of 25 years, and what I see the best marketeers doing, is that we are problem solvers at heart, and when something doesn't work, we don't just stop and go, oh no, we've got to kind of sit there and look, you know, what else can we do, how else can we use this? How can we still maximize this? How can we still get something out of this, and I guess that's a kind of grit and determination, which is something that I always find admirable in marketers. We're flexible, we're adaptable, and we have to just keep going. And I guess, as well, I remember once I did a talk about kind of the constraints in marketing and how that actually fuels creativity, and I do think that kind of constraints, and that kind of when things are a lot tighter, and there's lots more rules, it's like actually that's when some of the best creative and the best ideas comes to mind. I mean, this podcast episode would never have happened if actually that UKREiiF Wi-Fi had worked, because I'd have been like, oh my fine, I'd be pushing out content on that right now. So, I think you know, creativity can find different ways of pushing through barriers, and that's something that we've all got to kind of learn and be open to as well, you know. And then it kind of means, like, you can do more with less, and you can have the best ideas when you've got less time, you've got less budget, you've got less resource, and they still there, and they still thrive, and they still work. So, I think giving yourself time to think, giving yourself time to have ideas, because something will always go wrong, and sometimes you just gotta be open and go, that wasn't my plan, but you know what, here we go. This is my new plan, and off we go. So, yeah, that is the conclusion for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and yeah, I'd love to hear more about when things haven't quite gone to plan for you. Feel free to reach out to me on email, which ayo@abbasmarketing.com or even just comment in the kind of LinkedIn posts that I'll be putting out about this episode. Would love to hear. Thanks so much for listening to the Built Environment Marketing Show. If you've liked what you've heard, please do share it with others on social media, as it helps me to spread the word. Thanks so much.
