All You Need is a Good Idea!: How to Create Marketing Messages that Actually Get Results

Chapter 13. TRUST YOUR TUMMY—BUT DON'T FALL IN LOVE

It is never a good idea to break the rules until you actually know the rules. There will, however, be a moment when the time is right. It arises when you have been sticking very closely to your strategy, doing all the right things. Unexpectedly, but to your delight and amazement, a good idea literally pops up inside your head. You instantaneously know how to thoroughly develop the idea, how to utilize the whole carcass, how to obtain a little respectable PR from it. Except it is so far off the strategy you have developed that you are tempted to just toss it away. Except there is something about it; something smart and persuasive and distinctive and unexpected and, well, just so damn superior to your other ideas that immediately, instead of tossing it, you actually circle it, make it bold, and use a larger and different font so you can see it more clearly on your list to make certain you never lose it. That's an idea worth keeping and using and the heck with the rules. No one knows what you want to accomplish more than you do, and when it seems right, then it probably is.

William Goldman has written many books—Boys and Girls Together is a favorite of mine—and screenplays for movies such as The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. One of his most quoted movie industry insights is "Nobody knows anything." Who am I—or anyone—to disagree and tell you to inflexibly always stick to your strategy?

Forget the logic, the ...