Seth Godin's Blog, page 22

Where are the Linchpin jobs?

[We’re launching a new free project today. Read on for the details…]

Industry offered a deal to the worker:

Here’s a job. We’ll pay you as little as we can get away with while still being able to fill the job. We’ll make sure it’s easy to find people for this job, because we don’t want you to have much in the way of power or influence. We’ll use software to read the resumes, and we’ll do it in huge batches.

In return, you’ll work as little as you can get away with. That’s the only sane way to respond to the role of being a cog. If the system is going to squeeze you, no need to volunteer.

It’s hard to over-estimate the impact that this deal has had. The whole idea of mass advertising for mass jobs. The compliance-based school and resume system. The apparent power of the big companies to dictate the culture of work…

But, over time, the economy has changed. Now, the most cog-like jobs are done by machines. Now, cog-like work doesn’t create nearly as much value as truly human work. Now, if the opportunity is right, the pay is fair and the cause is a good one, it’s possible to create a culture where people choose to contribute as much as they can, not as little as they can.

This requires a shift.

Two shifts, actually.

The first shift is for the employer. It means not only paying more compensation to capture the attention and focus of the people who are willing and able to do Linchpin work, it also means investing in a culture that supports that sort of work. Compliance isn’t as important as contribution. But it’s frightening, because turnover costs more when you’re dependent on people who bring special magic to work.

The second shift is on the employee. It means caring enough to walk away from a cog job. It means being brave enough to make assertions and to lead. It means telling the truth about your background and your future. And it means keeping your end of the bargain, even when the work feels scary.

Here’s our experiment:

A weekly email newsletter with one or two jobs a week in it. That’s all.

Even if you’re not looking for a Linchpin job, you probably have peers who are. After all, that’s the sort of person you are–you know how to spread good ideas. So feel free to forward the email to people when you think it might be a good fit.

When we started working on this project, we reached out to a few possible employers to get us started. We specified that it had to be a special job for a special kind of work, and we insisted that the employer make a personal video, one that described what the job entailed.

I knew we were on to something when one said, “oh, it’s not worth the effort, we just posted the job on a job board and got five people who were good enough.”

That’s precisely the jobs we don’t want to post.

If you’re interested in checking out our first job and signing up for the newsletter, here’s the link.

We’ll never sell you anything or rent or share your information. The newsletter is sponsored by the altMBA. Over time, we hope that our subscribers will also be our best source for the jobs we list.

Inspired by my book Linchpin.

            

Perfect processes

The first 250 copies of my new book were shipped to bookstores with some of the pages upside down.

How does this happen? It’s a 500-year-old technology… What does it mean to do work in a shop where your clients are pitched on perfect and you are expected to provide it?

Some thoughts to consider:

If you traffic in perfect, it pays to turn your perfect into a system, not simply wing it. In the last fifty years, thanks to Deming and Crosby and others, we’ve gotten significantly better at creating perfect outputs that don’t rely on heroism and luck. Design a better system, you’ll get better outputs.
If those you compete against also promise perfect, perfect is no longer sufficient. That’s one reason why it’s so difficult to be a book printer. Since perfect = all the same, then why not buy the cheapest version of perfect?
I’m grateful every day for the nearly invisible perfect things that I count on. My car starts every single time. The water in my tap doesn’t make me sick, ever. The thing in the jar is the same thing that was in the jar the last time I bought it… but, and I feel spoiled to say this, I take the perfect for granted. I’m way more interested, and spend far more time and money on the imperfect things, the things that might not work, the ideas and services and products that dance around the edges. If you’re going to offer something that’s imperfect, by all means, make it as good as you possibly can, but embrace the fact that you’re not selling perfect. You’re selling interesting. You’re selling possibility. You’re selling connection.

PS if you got one of the 250 books, my publisher is delighted to replace it and include a bonus. Or you could sell it on eBay, who knows, maybe it’s a collectible.

            

Seeing what’s right in front you

When the people we serve present themselves, when they offer us their attention and their trust, we need to work to see two things:

Who they are. What do they fear, what do they believe, what do they need?
Who they can become. Which doors can we open, how can we support them, what will they leave behind?


            

Situational spending

Consider:

You’re on the plane, headed home after a conference. The flight attendant says, “This flight is oversold, and we’re paying people $300 to take the flight that leaves in an hour.” Do you stay in your seat?

You’re at the gate, different city, different flight. The gate agent says, “for $300 more, I can put you on a flight that leaves an hour earlier.” Do you pay the money?

You’re at the car dealer, about to buy a $50,000 car. The salesperson asks if you want the $300 rustproofing. Do you buy it?

What’s the difference between a bank that pays you just a little bit less interest (costing you $300 a year in lost income) and one that slaps on a $300 charge because you didn’t check a box on a form?

Money is a story.

            

All the good words are taken

A friend is getting ready to publish a video. She worked hard on it, for months and months, and she wants it to be seen by the right people.

The traditional SEO strategy is to be sure to title it and describe it with magic words that will help her get ‘found.’ And so, words like ‘visualize’, ‘learn’ or even ‘transform’ are high on the list, because, after all, that’s what a lot of people search for. (‘LOL cats’ is high on the list as well, but irrelevant to the topic at hand).

And the same thing goes for websites. The traditional advice is to make sure that your keywords reflect what the mass of searches that might be interested in you would line up with.

So, name your plumbing company, “Emergency cheap plumbing”…

Here’s the problem: You’re not going to win that search.

You’re not even going to come in 1000th place.

For most of the magic words that nascent marketers seek to do well on, there are millions and millions of matches in the search engines. And many of the folks on top are bending more rules and working harder on this trick than you’re likely to be able to match.

The alternative?

Own your word.

If you search for ‘purple cow’ or ‘seth godin’ or ‘seth’s blog’ you’re way more likely to find me than if you search for something generic.

That’s intuitive. But it’s not obvious because it flies in the face of what we hope the search engines will do for us, which is to expose us to people who didn’t know we existed.

Accepting that this is unlikely opens the door to a better strategy.

After all, they’re not called ‘browsing engines.’

The hard part is showing up in the right way, in the right places, for enough time that people decide to seek you or your word out in the first place. The hard part is in doing the deliberate, slow work of earning permission, building a tiny circle, the smallest viable audience. Over time, the tribe embraces you, the word (your word) becomes the shortcut to get more of what you offer.

And so, if you’re Acumen, Afya or BuildOn, that’s your word. Or Fuller, Kiva or LongNow.  A word that someone who seeks you will use to get to you.

FEO–Find Engine Optimization. Because it’s more reliable to seek to be found by people who were looking for you all along.

            

Better enough

It’s entirely possible that you’re better. Better by some axis you’ve invented, fallen in love with and decided is the most important thing to be better at.

But if people aren’t choosing you, talking about you, asking you for more… it’s either because you picked the wrong axis, or because you’re not better enough.

Not better enough to be worth the fear and hassle and stress of switching for.

Better’s not up to us. It’s up to those we seek to serve.

            

1,000 little steps

There’s nothing in the dentist’s office that was there fifty years ago. Every device, every compound, every technique has been changed.

Bit by bit. Involving thousands of people and organizations. Improvements large and small (mostly small), in every corner.

And every one of those improvements was met with resistance. Every change was fought, tooth (!) and nail. Every one had critics and skeptics and hold outs.

That’s how the world changes. By drips. Persistent, generous, tiny drips.

            

“But he paid extra”

We come up with lots of reasons to work with jerks.

We take an investment from a jerk investor instead of a kind one.

We accept a job from a bully instead of someone who will nurture and challenge us with worthwhile work.

And we take on a customer who denigrates our team and our work instead of embracing the good ones…

The most common reason is that they pay us more. A better valuation, a better hourly rate.

That’s not a good enough reason. We pay for it many more times than we get paid for it.

            

Three kinds of corporate mediocrity

Uncaring mediocrity, in which employees have given up trying to make things better


Focused mediocrity, in which the organization is intentionally average


Accidental mediocrity, in which people don’t even realize that they’re not delivering excellence

Uncaring mediocrity is the most common form, and it often accompanies scale. It’s the accidental outcome that comes from trying to emulate an organization that’s focused on its mediocrity.

The mechanization and industrialization of cottage industries (like hotels, restaurants and healthcare) has led to a convenient homogenization for many. It means you can travel around the world and find better than decent accommodations and safe food, all at a fair price.

But it also means that most of the people working in these entities are treated like interchangeable cogs. They have no say at all about how things are done (or at least feel that way) and so they’ve emotionally checked out. It’s easier that way.

The products and services revert to the mean, sucking the humanity out of not just the people who work there, but from the interactions the customers have as well.

If you have a lousy meal at a real restaurant, the owner could hear from you and, it’s likely, not only fix it, but get back to you. Have a lousy experience with a Host, a Taco Bell, or a JW Marriott, though, and the odds are that the individual who reads your review has never even visited the place you’re talking about, and certainly doesn’t care enough to do anything about it.

One of the promises of the worldwide behemoth corporation was that reliability and quality was assured. The downside is that the chances that an internal insurgent can make things better go down.

As we see so many organizations seek to emulate the scale, influence and profits of the Fortune 100, it’s worth remembering that uncaring mediocrity shouldn’t be a north star.

Focused mediocrity is different. It’s intentional. It’s the act of chasing the banal, so that the largest possible number of people will be satisfied enough not to complain. This is the sieve of deliverability and the sword of mass.

The third kind of mediocrity happens when someone is uninformed. When they’re too busy or too lazy to pay attention to the taste of those they seek to serve or they don’t care enough to deliver it with quality and humanity.

At least have the guts to be mediocre on purpose.

            

“People like us” — an update on This is Marketing

My new book launched about two weeks ago. Thanks to you, it went to #1 on the Wall Street Journal business bestseller list, made the New York Times list and best of all, has led to an ever-growing series of conversations about the ideas inside. The collectible multiplies that by eight.

One of the best reasons to create a print book is that it becomes a direct way to establish what people like us are talking about. And a third of our sales are in the audio edition, which is a fascinating insight into how people are consuming ideas now.

Thank you to every single person who contributed, who shared, who took a leap. I appreciate it. Can’t wait to see what you do with the ideas inside.