The Breadcrumb Strategy To Business Building: Eric Markowitz Returns To JUST PRESS RECORD

What if the secret to building something that lasts isn’t about getting bigger, so much as it is about getting deeper?

If you’re building a company or a brand, you need to make sure people can find you. That’s the core idea of this Christina Garnett “breadcrumb” idea I’ve been stuck talking about since she shared it on Just Press Record:

But, past the obvious “if/while you’re building” phase, how do those breadcrumbs compound?

Do you, kind of, put a whole new loaf back together? Is there a baguet metaphor in here somewhere I’m supposed to be figuring out? Who’s Hansel and who’s Gretel here? Is there any murder in this story… All that aside, what I really want to know is, what else are the long-term ramifications of leaving a trail of intentional breadcrumbs everywhere we go?

It’s been a minute, and I’m still finding questions about Christina's breadcrumb metaphor. More than most, because in the case she used in the conversation with Vic Ruggiero, it was all about how Vic’s band can use social media to directly connect with fans, but - he knows this - they’re never going to be a huge act. Huge was never the point. So what happens to all those breadcrumbs over time? Do they just disappear, or do they compound into something bigger, in different settings?

Enter Eric Markowitz. Eric is currently writing a book - Outlast (click the link, follow along) - where he’s aiming to “deconstruct and uncover the hidden principles of endurance, from 1,000-year-old family-run companies to resilient biological systems (ranging from sloths to ants to 5,000-year-old trees).”

I had to know how he’d unpack this breadcrumb metaphor. So I asked him to come back on Just Press Record and think it out with me.

A few insights he added:

Sharing your story, piece by piece, is a form of building something brick by brick. And then, once you’ve got something built and growing,

The shared stories fortify the base, and you do have to keep returning to reinforce those. Which is a big part of what Christina was talking about. You keep the dialogue open, and your clear and obvious obsession means you -

There’s scalability here, up to a point. But, not too far beyond the nature of the one-to-one and one-to-many relationships. Personalization requires a bond. But, once you have that bond, you can keep reinvesting in it, which creates a different type of scale,

And that’s the other side of the door I knew Eric would unlock for me. We are so used to think about growing and scaling to the moon. Eric’s idea isn’t about getting a rocket ship of a few people to mars, it’s about colonizing whole new places, across generations, old and new, via relationships, cultures, and belief systems you’ve generously reinforced in the world.

Breadcrumbs, in this perspective, become both nourishment for today AND a trail that leads back to the relationships that matter most. As he put it,

This is what Christina and Vic Ruggiero were getting at in our moment on Just Press Record. Eric was able to extrapolate it to a whole other level.

Whether you are just getting started or 30 years deep on your venture, what happens if you reconsider how the breadcrumbs you leave don’t just signal your desire to scale, but your ability to build and bridge relationships across generations, so you can grow, scale, and survive, together - alongside your favorite people, who give you a reason to exist in the first place (because that’s what customers are)?

This interview is a real treat for anyone building with culture as a focal point. You’ll better understand how you can be as small and thriving as the Slackers, or as big and motivating as a 400 year old British hat store. I can’t wait for Eric’s book even more now. This is knowledge worth applying.

Don’t miss Christina Garnett meeting Vic Ruggiero for the first time on Just Press Record:

Or, Eric’s original appearance when I introduced him to the wonderful Elie Jacobs:

Bonus Vic/Slackers quote this all reminds me of: