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Happy birthday to my sister Jennifer! 🎂🎉

It was Sunday morning and I needed to pick up a few dog supplies.

I’d take my dog, go to the pet store, then take her for a walk downtown.

Problem was, it was 9:20am and the store didn’t open until 10am.

I headed out anyway and parked in a neighborhood a few blocks from the pet store. 

My dog, like many dogs, likes to sniff around, especially in brand new neighborhoods.

So many never-before-smelled scents!


Pictured: My dog Macaroon, a Mini Aussie mix. Follow her on Twitter (@PuppyMacaroon).

We got to walking and before I knew it, 30 minutes went by. Then 40 minutes.

Eventually, I realized: this is the actual walk. The destination.

There’s no longer a need to go on a walk after the pet store.

The detour had become the destination.

In this case, the detour had become just as good as the destination.

I think this can work well in our marketing. Examples:

• The hand-drawn sketch for a social media image can become the image
• The rehearsal for an on-demand webinar can become the webinar
• The outtakes from a video shoot can become the video
• The random collection of notes for an article can become the article (i.e., with some editing)

Truth be told, I don’t have an example of trying this. Do you?

-Dennis.

P.S. I couldn’t make this up: when I reached the pet store (part of a national chain), it had closed! Not that it wasn’t open yet -- the store had closed.