Crossover Dilutes. Spillover Amplifies. The Marketing Principle That Built a 30-Year Career.

In the late nineties, THIRD DAY was told to soften its edges to reach a bigger audience. Two sentences from John Huie sent us the other direction, and the result sold two million records. The same principle applies to every business I work with.

Growing up in a Christian rock band that achieved early success, I heard the word "crossover" a lot.

Just as THIRD DAY arrived on the scene, DC Talk was getting mainstream radio airplay. Jars of Clay broke through with Flood. Shortly thereafter, Bob Carlisle had what everyone dubbed a crossover hit with Butterfly Kisses. So in the late nineties, some of the same players responsible for those moments came to us, dangling the carrot of a larger audience.

The message was implied, if not directly stated: dial back who you are, and we can broaden the appeal. Soften the edges. Talk about your faith a little less and relationships a little more. A little more Saturday night, a little less Sunday morning.

Two Sentences That Changed Everything

One of our most steadfast champions was John Huie, one of the co-founders of Creative Artists Agency Nashville. He chose that moment to offer two sentences that would shape the rest of our career.

"I don't believe in crossover. I believe in spillover." John Huie

Those words changed the trajectory of everything for THIRD DAY.

When you try to cross over, you are, by definition, trying to become something you are not.

As TobyMac once put it, "I'm not interested in crossing over unless I take the cross over."

So, we took John's advice and, rather than diluting who we were, we dug deeper.

Revealing, Not Concealing

Instead of trying to soften the fact that we were a "Christian band," we made Offerings, a live worship record that propelled the band from selling 300,000 records to over two million and lifted every other record in our catalog, both before and after it.

With Offerings, we weren't trying to be someone else. We were being more ourselves than we had ever been. And because of that, it rang truer with audiences.

More authenticity. More connection. More spillover.

The Better Question

The same temptation shows up in every business I work with.

How do we reach as many people as possible?

Worthy question. Not always the best one.

A better question:

How do we become as authentically who we are as possible?

How do we know our audience more deeply? What problems are they actually facing? How do we serve them better?

Dig into that, and people outside your target demographic, outside your ideal client persona, will feel that authenticity and want to be part of what you're building.

Step to the Edge

This is the advice I give real estate agents looking to broaden their appeal: don't.

Specialize instead.

This is the advice I give musicians: don't soften your edges. Step to the edge.

The only thing that truly breaks through is originality.

So here's the question for your business today:

How can you be more fully who you were meant to be?

How can you better serve the audience that motivated you to start in the first place?

Chasing breadth makes you shallow. Chasing depth makes other people want to dive right in with you.

This idea is at the heart of Market Like a Rockstar, a book to help you stand out, earn trust, and create lifelong fans.

So I have a question for you

Where in your business are you softening your edges to reach more people, when stepping to the edge would serve them better?

This is one of the messages I bring to stages, boardrooms, and leadership teams. If your organization is ready to stop diluting and start digging deeper, that is exactly what my keynotes, workshops, and leadership sessions are built for. Learn more at taianderson.live/keynotes.

Originally published on LinkedIn, June 10, 2026.