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I will pay extra to avoid a layover
Fall conference season is here, and my calendar knows it. Between client conferences and industry events, I’m on a flight every other week from September through November. (Full disclosure: there’s one fun “girls trip” sneaking in there. I’m not made of stone.)
I have no real airline loyalty. There are two I like, but neither of them owns me. What actually decides my booking is whether it’s direct. I will pay more for a nonstop. I will fly a low-cost carrier with zero frills, no seat selection, and a tray table the size of a coaster, if it means I don’t have to change planes.
Second on the list: departure and arrival time. No red-eyes at my age unless I’m crossing the Atlantic and have no choice. I don’t recover well from them, and I recover especially badly the morning I’m supposed to speak.
So yes. Layovers and I are not friends.
And then there’s the trip I take every summer to see my parents in rural Romania.
There is no nonstop from Miami. There will never be a nonstop from Miami. The airport closest to my folks has a runway too short to safely land a transatlantic aircraft, and no amount of money I throw at the problem changes the length of that runway. I could win the lottery tomorrow, and I would still be changing planes somewhere in Europe. (Wait. Would a private jet solve that problem? To be further researched if I win the lottery.)
Some constraints aren’t about what you’re willing to pay.
WTF Moment: A website build has its own short runway
Every client wants the nonstop. I understand it completely, because I want it too (fewer meetings – the eternal dream!)
But website projects come with mandatory stops, and here’s the part that surprises people: bigger budgets don’t remove them. They can buy you a nicer aircraft, a bigger crew, more legroom. They cannot buy you a straight shot.
Two reasons.
First, we’re building the destination as we fly toward it. Your new website doesn’t exist yet. We’re not navigating to a city that’s been sitting there for 800 years with fixed coordinates. We’re deciding what it looks like in motion, and every decision changes the next. Your sitemap changes what content you need. Your content changes how the templates get designed. Your location strategy changes the whole architecture. Nobody can plot a full route to a place that isn’t built yet – you can only fly the next leg well and confirm the heading before the following one.
Second, this crew has never flown with you in the co-pilot seat. We’ve done this many times. We have not done this many times with you. Your approval process, your brand’s non-obvious rules, which stakeholder surfaces in week nine with strong opinions, what “clean” means to you specifically – none of that is in our flight manual yet. It takes a few legs before we can read each other’s minds.
Rx: This Week’s Prescription
Stop trying to eliminate the checkpoints. Start making them count.
Get the map before you board. Ask your team to name every checkpoint, what decision gets made at each, and who signs off. A typical build: SEO and sitemap → content → wireframes → UI direction → key template designs → staging review → migration → pre-launch QA. A minimum of eight stops. That’s just as many chances to correct course while it is still in budget.
Cut scope, not checkpoints. When the timeline gets tight, you’ll be tempted to skip a review stage. Skipping one to save two weeks reliably costs you two months on the back end. Launch a strong phase one instead and add the rest after go-live.
Show up for the layover. A checkpoint you approve without reading is a checkpoint you didn’t have. This is the co-pilot part. You’re not asleep in 14C.
Send the same people every time. The single biggest cause of a project stretching several weeks past the deadline is a new stakeholder boarding at stop five with opinions about stop one.
Name your one hard constraint out loud at discovery. Launch date, budget, or the rebrand you’re committed to – tell us on day zero which one is real. We’ll plan the route around it. We can’t find out in month four.
The nonstop isn’t on the schedule. But a well-planned trip with the right stops lands on time, and you arrive knowing exactly where you are.
Warmly,
Madalina “Destination Builder” Iordache
CEO at Bright Pink Agency
Catch me at:
IFA Advocacy Summit – Washington, DC, 9/13-16
IFA Franchise Show – Fort Lauderdale, FL, 9/25-26
Franchise Marketing Live – Denver, CO, 11/2-3
Hello Mastermind Fall Retreat – Denver, CO, 11/4-5
P.S. Not sure what your route should even look like? That’s what our BrightStart is for – an audit and strategy roadmap that maps the whole trip before you commit to a budget, a timeline, or a launch date.
P.P.S. I have to ask: how do you book flights? Direct flight, departure time, points, or price? Tell me what wins, because I suspect I’m the only one who ranks legroom last.
Bright Pink who?
At Bright Pink Agency, we build and maintain high-performing franchise websites. If that’s what you need, let’s chat.
