Seth Godin's Blog, page 124

Awareness, trust and action

Marketing outreach (ads, PR, sponsorships, etc.) is not about one thing. It's about three things.

Awareness is a simple ping: Oh, she's running for President. Oh, they just opened one in our neighborhood. Oh, they're having a sale.

Trust is far more complicated. Trust comes from experience, from word of mouth, from actions noted. Trust, amazingly, also seems to come from awareness. "As seen on TV" is a perverse way to claim trust, but in fact, when people are more aware of what you do, it often seeps into a sort of trust.

And action is what happens when someone actually goes and votes, or buys something, or shows up, or talks about it. And action is as complex as trust. Action requires overcoming the status quo, action means that someone has dealt with the many fears that come with change and felt that fear and still done something.

Many people reading this are aware that they can buy a new mattress, and might believe it's worth the effort, but don't take action.

Many people reading this are aware that they can buy a tool, get some treatment, visit a foreign land, listen to a new recording... but action is the difficult part.

Action is quite rare. For most people, the story of 'later' is seductive enough that it appears better to wait instead of leaping.

As a marketer, then, part of the challenge is figuring out which of the three elements you need the most help with, and then focus on that...

            

I am not a brand

You are not a brand.

You're a person.

A living, breathing, autonomous individual who doesn't seek to maximize ROI or long-term brand value.

You have choices. You have the ability to change your mind. You can tell the truth, see others for who they are and choose to make a difference.

Selling yourself as a brand sells you too cheap.

(Actually, if a brand is nothing but the promises made and kept and the expectations we have, then yes, I guess you are a brand. The modern kind, the brand where connection matters a lot more than ads or hype.)

            

Apocalypse soon

It's a bug in our operating system, and one that's amplified by the media.

I'm listening to a speech from ten years ago, twenty years ago, forty years ago... "During these tough times... these tenuous times... these uncertain times..." And we hear about the urgency of the day, the bomb shelters, the preppers with their water tanks, the hand wringing about the next threat to civilization.

At the same time that we live in the safest world that mankind has ever experienced. Fewer deaths per capita from all the things that we worry about.

Risky? Sure it is. Every moment for the last million years has been risky. The risk has moved from Og with a rock to the chronic degeneration of our climate, but it's clear that rehearsing and fretting and worrying about the issue of the day hasn't done a thing to actually make it go away. Instead, we amplify the fear, market the fear and spread the fear as a form of solace, of hiding from taking action, of sharing our fear in a vain attempt to ameliorate it.

When we get nostalgic for past eras, for their culture or economy or resources, it's interesting that we never seem to get nostalgic for their fears.

            

The foggy mirror

Most people can't resist a mirror. It makes the wait for an elevator more palatable, and we can't help checking--how do I look?

In many ways, though, this is futile, because we can never know how we look through other people's eyes.

No one else has lived your life, heard all of your jokes, experienced your disappointments, listened to the noise in your head. As a result, no one else sees you (and your actions) quite the way you do.

And, to magnify the disconnect, every single person has their own narrative, so even when two people see you at the same time, they have different interpretations of what just happened, what was just said.

The same goes for brands and organizations. No one has experienced your brand or your product the way you have. They don't know about the compromises and choices that went into it. They don't understand the competitive pressures or the mis-steps either.

Even the best quality mirror tells you very little. It doesn't make a lot of sense to focus on this sort of grooming if you want to understand what customers or friends are going to see. Far better to watch what they do.

(But yes, you do have a little green thing stuck in your teeth).

            

Finding your big magic

Launching today, a new master class from Elizabeth Gilbert.

Liz Gilbert is a gift. Hew new book Big Magic is a generous beam of light, a chance to shake off the ennui and fear that holds us back.

Last month, I was thrilled to be able to work with her on a new short Udemy course. It's launching today. The course runs on Udemy, and if you become part of + Acumen, it's only $29. I'm grateful to her for her energy and insight, and for donating her time.

I think you'll be changed by the time you spend with her as well.

Liz has the extraordinary ability to help us find the genius within, to dig a bit deeper than we thought we could dig.

The single four-minute riff in this course about hobbies and careers is worth the entire cost of the course. As I was standing in the corner of the room, feeling my energy and optimism rise, I realized I was witnessing something special. 

You can get the discount by joining + Acumen.

My leadership course which kicked off the series is still available. Details are here and the discount is here.

Thank you for leaping, and for supporting this mission. So far, the long-form + Acumen courses have already engaged more than a quarter of a million people. This new series of mini-courses has, thanks to you, raised more than $125,000 to pay for the production of even more courses that will help people see a little farther and contribute a little more.  Worth noting that Jo-Ann Tan and Amy Ahearn at Acumen have made huge contributions to making this change a reality. 

Time to leap.

            

Sharpening failure

Losing the election by ten votes or by a million--which is worse?

"Missed it by that much," is a way to amplify how we feel when we don't succeed. So, when we miss the bus by just a few seconds, or finish a math proof just behind the competition--we can beat ourselves up about this for years.

Much rarer, it seems, is the opposite. It's hard to find people still congratulating themselves after winning an election by just a few votes or making a plane by a step or two. Nice that it happened, but we ask what's next, where's the next crisis?

We have a name for someone who expects the worst in the future. Pessimism is a choice. But we don't seem to have a name for someone who describes the past with the same negative cast.

It's a dangerous trap, the regular reminders of how we've failed, but how close we've come to winning. It rarely leads us to prepare more, to be more adroit or dedicated. Instead, it's a form of hiding, a way to insulate ourselves from the next, apparently inevitable failure.

The universe is not laughing at us. It doesn't even know we exist. 

Go ahead and celebrate the wins, then get back to work. Same for mourning the losses. All we can do is go forward.

 

            

Conspicuous mediocrity

Luxury goods originated as a way for the wealthy to both show off their resources and possess a scarce, coveted item of better functionality.

Over time, as luxury goods have become more competitive (it's a profitable niche if you can find it) a variation is becoming more common: goods and services that aren't better (in fact, in some cases, not even that good). At some level, they're proud of this inferiority.

The thinking is, "If you have to ask if it's any good, you can't afford it."

And so we have cars, hotels and restaurants that are far more expensive and dramatically inferior to what a smart shopper could have chosen instead. What's for sale isn't performance or reliability. Merely exclusivity.

They offer the customer the satisfaction of looking around the room and saying, "yep, I'm here."

But it's a risky strategy, because sooner or later the frequent breakdowns, the lousy service or the poor design communicate to the well-heeled customer, "this merely makes me look stupid."

No one likes looking stupid.

            

Our software must get better

“That’s good enough, let’s move on”

Lots of things could be better (cars, buildings, candy, etc.) but we understand that the cost of pushing through to the next level is prohibitive. It might be because, as in the case of candy, the mass market just won’t pay for premium ingredients, or, in the case of buildings, the cost of retrofitting the billions of buildings in the world is just too big to fix the stuff that’s already out there.

The building doesn’t fall down, it sort of works, better than good enough, let’s move on.

But software, software is different. Consider:

1. one piece of software can be used by a billion people, no extra cost per person. Unlike candy or anything physical, it doesn’t cost more per user (not a penny more) to have more people use great software instead of settling for good software.

And 

2. fixing software today fixes it for everyone, in the world, going forward (and for connected computers, going backward as well).

Imagine what would happen if this were true for buildings… if the efficiency and style and ambience of every building in the world could be fixed, all at once, in exchange for one investment.

Alas, software tends to be mediocre. There are a few reasons for this:

A. Lock in means that once someone has a success (and the cash flow that comes with it) there’s not much incentive to invest a lot in fixing it (fixing it looks a lot like breaking it, at least at first). Which is why Paypal has had such a miserable user interface for so long. (Do the folks at Paypal know how bad it is? Don't they care?)

B. As software gets more successful, the instinct is to hire more people to work on it (which increases complications and errors dramatically) and to be ever more conservative as well (don’t mess with what’s working).

C. Perhaps the biggest problem: In many markets, especially online, software is free. And free software built by corporations turns us from the user into the product. If you're not paying for it, after all, you must be the bait for the person who is. Which means companies spend time figuring out how to extract value once we're locked in and can't easily switch.

I’ve been developing software on and off since 1984, and empathize with the people who have to make these decisions. But software is too important to be mediocre. 

Compare Roon to iTunes (which has had countless iterations, but never seems to get better, it merely helps Apple sell more of something).

The Roon user experience is fabulous. The only reason they could launch it in the face of a free competitor is that enough people care about music. Which means that software as a service in this area has a shot for a revenue stream that can justify the investment, but even with a demonstrably better product, competing with free, with software installed by default, this is really hard work.

Or compare the heavily promoted (but awful) stamps.com to the elegant but little known alternative, Endicia. It works on the Mac, does tracking, it actually works. Better software, worth it.

Or consider the Address Book built into your Mac, a piece of software that only is used because it's free and hardwired in. It's difficult to import or export data, and it's truly slow. No one, not one person, is happy about how this software helps them work. Without a reasonable business model, though, competing with free is incredibly difficult.

When you can, insist on paying for your software. Our instinct to take the free stuff is often a bad long-term choice—it takes a committed team to keep free software worth the trust we put into it.

Marketing and the economics of an industry don't always lead to the best solution. Sometimes, we need to insist on things getting better.

            

Going the distance

The distance from can to will keeps getting larger.

You can connect, lead, see, speak, create, encourage, challenge and contribute.

Will you?

The confusion kicks in when we become overwhelmed by all the things we can do, but can’t find the time or the courage to actually commit and follow through.

In the face of all that choice, we often confuse can’t and won’t. One lets us off the hook, the other is a vivid reminder of our power to say yes if we choose.

            

Choose your role

In many creative endeavors, we encounter:

The producer, the director, the star and the star's assistant.

The producer initiates. The producer says "yes."

The director (and often, the writer, a different version of directing) determines the plot, makes the decisions, owns the quality of what is produced.

The star is a celebrity, the draw, the one we want a selfie with. The star auditions and the star waits to be picked.

And the star's assistant? He gets coffee, copyedits, and generally gets unglamorous stuff done, but gets the satisfaction of steady work plus the chance to say he works for a star.

A survey of high school students found that they'd rather be a star's assistant than a judge, a senator or a CEO when they grew up. Safety near the spotlight.

I've done all of these jobs (sometimes at the same time, on the same project) and, for the right project, you can choose from any of them as well.

The assistant can't do the work without a star. The star needs to be chosen by the director. And the director needs a producer. But the producer--the producer gets to decide.

It's easy to be seduced into believing that you must wait to be picked, and even easier to worship those that have. It's far more interesting and generous, I think, to find the leverage and the guts you need to produce, to become the impresario, the one who says 'go'.

[13 more minutes on this on video.]