🐱 Psychological Business Thriller from Siberia.

Many still think that February 2025 = February 2026. And having a budget reinforces the illusion with iron confidence that this is exactly the case...

Yesterday I was told the story of Thomas, an entrepreneur from Novosibirsk, who decided to invest a lot of money in direct advertising, using a 2025 strategy. And not just a lot, but 3 times more than usual 😱

Thomas is not a naive fool, he has been in business for a long time, with turnover around 200 million rubles per year, reads RBC and even American trend analysis.

But the pile of money in hand plus a secret trump card went to the Siberian entrepreneur's head, and he set his marketer the task of tripling turnover in a month by investing money in a year-old strategy.

The logic is simple and understandable. If strategy X worked once, it will work again, and an increased budget is a guarantee of success.

The marketer (also a tracker) warned Thomas about the following risks:
* 50% of the employees who worked last February have been laid off, and new ones have not yet been hired.
* The funnel is not ready, and even if it works, the sales department won't handle the flow of leads.
* It would be much wiser to invest this money in strategy and building a system that will yield results longer and more stably.
* Algorithms have changed, the market has changed, the consumer has changed...
* We have a declining market trend; we need to invest in other processes—optimization, system, training.

Thomas was prepared for the tracker's resistance and pulled out his trump card—a fresh market analysis from the American agency McKinsey—the most respected infogypsy consulting in the world.

But our tracker also had a trump card—the right questions. And he asked them...

1. Who read the analysis—you or your director?
- The director.

2. Director, what exactly inspired you in this article?
- I don't know, I just ran it through AI and it gave me recommendations based on it.

3. Why do you think American analysis is applicable in the conditions of the Russian Federation and Novosibirsk in particular?
- Who are you to doubt the authority of McKinsey?!

"OKAY," thought the marketer, tired of fighting heresy and trying to reason with the deranged Thomas and his Director of Development. And he did as asked...

In the end, they got the coveted x3. But not of sales, but of expenses, closing February worse than the worst period in the last year.

The marketer, of course, was fired for failing to accomplish the task of performing a miracle... in a tight timeframe... with eyes closed... with sober reasoning turned off...

The And