Trust the Ugly Middle

Why process matters more than panic

Before getting into the heart of this, I want to say thank you. Recently, The Polaris Brief received a Gold Hermes Creative Award, and I am genuinely grateful for that recognition. I do not say that to make too much of it. I say it because this Brief has always been a simple exercise in clarity. One thought at a time. One honest effort to make marketing more understandable for people who do not live inside it all day. So truly, thank you for reading it, sharing it, and giving it a place to live.

It is spring here in Indiana, and about a month ago I started noticing my lawn was not coming back the way it should once the weather warmed up. There were patches everywhere, and underneath the grass surface there was a thick layer of thatch. After a couple of mows, I realized it was a bigger issue than I first thought. So last Tuesday I took the afternoon to dethatch and aerate the yard. It looked like a disaster. The grass thinned out and exposed weeds I did not want to see. The aeration made parts of the yard look like straight mud. Instead of looking healthier, it looked far worse.

But I followed the process anyway.

I overseeded and filled in the patches. I applied a specialty fertilizer. I lightly spread compost over the top. Then a topsoil dressing. Then I watered, again and again and again.

For a while, there was nothing to show for it except a yard that looked like I had made a bad problem worse. Then finally, after more than a week of trusting the process, these tiny hair-thin green sprouts started pushing up through the topsoil. I stood there looking at them thinking, it worked, which is funny because of course it worked. That is what process does. It does not remove time, effort, mess, cost, or uncertainty. It just gives those things direction.

That is the part people forget, especially in marketing. Processes are there for a reason, and results are almost never as quick as you want them to be. They take time. They take effort. They take money, resources, and repetition. And in many cases, they make things look worse before they make them better. That is usually the moment people panic. In marketing, that panic shows up when companies stop too early, change direction too quickly, blame the tactic before they question the timing, or assume nothing is happening simply because the result is not visible yet.

A lot of good work gets abandoned in that ugly middle.

That is why your marketing should always have a process behind it. If you have a company running ads, there should be a process behind keeping those ads fresh, testing the creative, reviewing the performance, refining the message, and adjusting the audience when needed. If you are creating content, there should be a process behind that too. Not just posting when someone remembers, but a real rhythm for topics, publishing, review, repurposing, and improvement. If you are doing social media, there should be a process behind the cadence, the visuals, the calls to action, and the way you judge what is actually working.

The companies that get the most frustrated with marketing are often the ones treating it like an event when it behaves more like cultivation. They want the healthy lawn, but they do not want the dethatching. They want the payoff, but they do not want the waiting. They want visible growth, but they do not want the stage where the work looks thin, exposed, and unsettled. That is where a lot of marketing gets misjudged. Something that is actually in development gets treated like it is failing. Something that needs repetition gets treated like it has already had enough time. Something that requires patience gets pulled apart too early because nobody was prepared for the ugly middle.

This is not an argument for sticking with bad tactics forever. Some campaigns are weak. Some vendors do not know what they are doing. Some strategies deserve to be scrapped. But that is different than abandoning something simply because it is uncomfortable, messy, or not yet visible. A good process is not blind loyalty. It is informed consistency. It gives you a way to judge what is happening without needing emotional reassurance every few days.

What to do with this

Start with the goal, not the tactic. Before you run ads, post content, or hire outside help, define what success actually looks like. More leads, better leads, stronger awareness, more qualified traffic, or shorter sales cycles. If the outcome is not clear, the process will never be either.

Map the steps before you spend the money. Every meaningful marketing effort should have a sequence behind it. If you are running ads, what is the offer, what is the audience, what is the creative, how often is it reviewed, and what determines a change? If you are building content, what is the topic strategy, who is it for, where does it get distributed, and how does one piece lead to the next?

Expect the ugly middle. Good process often exposes problems before it produces results. Weak messaging becomes obvious. Thin creative gets revealed. Gaps in follow-up show up. That does not always mean the work is failing. Sometimes it means the work is finally being honest.

Build in review points, not emotional reactions. Decide in advance when performance gets reviewed and what signals matter. Otherwise every slow week feels like a crisis, and every dip becomes an excuse to abandon the process too early.

Make sure someone can explain the why behind the work. Whether it is your internal team or an outside firm, they should be able to explain what is happening, what comes next, what should be measured, and why patience is required. If nobody can explain the process, then the process probably does not exist.

That is why one of the most important questions a company can ask is not just, “What are we doing?” but, “What is the process behind what we are doing?” If you are running ads, what is the process for testing and refreshing them? If you are creating content, what is the process for deciding what comes next and what gets improved? If you are working with a firm or outside partner, can they clearly explain what happens before results become obvious? Can they explain what might look worse before it looks better? Can they explain the timeline, the signals, and the reasoning behind the work? If not, then there may not be much of a process at all.

That is where trust starts to break down. Because if there is no process, there is no real confidence. There is only hope and invoices. That is not enough.

Those little grass sprouts in my yard are not impressive because they showed up fast. They are impressive because they showed up exactly the way they were supposed to after the right process was followed. That is how good marketing works too. Not instantly. Not magically. But reliably, when the work behind it is real.