In Praise of Unexciting Companies. Really.

Not every business needs to grab headlines: Context Collapse #91!

I work in marketing and advertising and I have a confession:

I love unexciting companies.

What is an unexciting company?

Unexciting companies are companies that sell products and services that don’t necessarily have a big “wow!” factor, but manage to steadily generate revenue and profits. These companies treat employees well, have satisfied customers, have management who do a good job of overseeing operations, and leadership that neither has a cult of personality or ends up making headline for one scandal or another.

A journalist looking at an unexciting company, more often or not, will emit a big, fat “meh.”

I love unexciting companies. You should love unexciting companies too.

Here’s why:

Unexciting companies are much more rare than you’d think.

If you have a company with a good value proposition, good business practices, happy customers, happy employees, managers that successfully run operations, and executives who keep their heads down and focus on their company… you’ve pretty much hit the jackpot.

These are the companies whose customers come back or renew contracts without needing a long sales pitch. These are the companies who thrive on word of mouth, and have less internal chaos because their employees stay with them for years instead of a year. They’re the companies who, when problems come up, resolve them effectively instead of letting the problems rot the company from the inside.

Working in advertising or marketing with these companies is a joy. They might not necessarily have name appeal, meme stocks or celebrity CEOs, but they build businesses that last. And that’s a damn important thing.

Anyway, lots of client work here this week. I’m traveling soon for the first time in more than a year and forgot just how much I miss travel or even just buying an overpriced water at Hudson News. The small joys, people — the small joys.

See you soon.

Neal