Do You Make This Mistake in Marketing?

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I was running a killer ad account for a real estate business. Things were going great—we were spending over $1,000/day on Google AdWords, and the Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) was around 5.

That meant for every $1 we spent, we made $5 back!

It was so good, it felt like it should be illegal.

I was on cloud nine, feeling like Icarus soaring toward the sun, basking in my own success.

And like Icarus… I was about to come crashing down.

The Worst Business Mistake

One day, I logged in and saw my Google account was blocked, and the ads were paused. No big deal, right? I figured it was just a glitch, so I went to lunch, not stressing too much.

A few hours later—still blocked. So, I reached out to customer service.

Turns out, even when you’re spending $30k a month, you’re still a “small fish.” Talking to an actual human? Forget about it. So, I submitted ticket after ticket.

After three days, I finally got a response. Someone decided my ads were "potentially misleading."

These were standard real estate ads—nothing sketchy or out of the ordinary. But there I was, tangled up in back-and-forth discussions with support, while ZERO leads were coming in.

Why?

Because I made the dumbest mistake in marketing: I got dependent on one source of leads.

The Worst Number in Business

At first, I blamed Google, Big Tech, the universe—anyone but myself.

Then it hit me: This was all my fault.

I had put all my eggs in one basket, relying on a single source. And in business, one is the worst number.

One key employee. One main client. One lead source.

What happens when that one is gone? You’re dead in the water.

And in business, everything that can go wrong eventually does go wrong.

So I vowed to never let myself get caught in that position again.

Making Your Marketing Hard to Kill

Now, I make it a point to find the “ones” in my business because every “one” is a vulnerability, a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

And the worst part? We convince ourselves that “this one is different.”

Spoiler alert: This one is never different.

In marketing, this means we’re always aiming to get an ad working—then we expand it across as many platforms as possible.

Meta ads working? Great.

Now let’s add YouTube. Google. Offline ads. Direct mail. Cold email. Autoresponders. Affiliate marketing. Referral marketing. And anything else we can think of.

This is the only way to become “Hard to Kill” or “Hard to Cancel.”

Talk soon, Ed