Seth Godin's Blog, page 267

Oxygen for ideas

Matt has a masterful post up about what it means to ship. Until your idea interacts with the market, you're suffocating it. Worth printing out and posting on the watercooler...

The feedback I'm getting from the Shipit journal is that it changes people, makes them uncomfortable and gets things out the door. If you're hiding from the market, it's difficult to do great work.

Seeking market resonance

If you've ever wasted time at a catered affair, you know the water glass trick. Half full glass, wet finger, hold the bottom of the glass and then slide your finger around and around the top of the glass.

As you move your finger, the glass will vibrate. Move it just right (a function of the amount of water and the thickness of the glass) and the glass starts to sing. Do it really well and it sings so loud you might be able to shatter the glass and get into all sorts of trouble.

This is what most marketers seek (not the trouble part, the singing part).

The market awaits your innovation. Things that might make it vibrate and resonate don't work. Then some do. It's not always obvious before you start what the right entry point is, what the right product is, what the right speed is. And knowing that you don't know is the most important place to start.

Honing your music or your presentation or your business plan or your store's inventory are all efforts to resonate. Smart marketers are hyper-alert for what's working, for what's starting to get people to prick  their ears. Just like the glass, you have a touch, you adjust, you listen, you adjust again.

"I don't have any good ideas"

Now I know you're bluffing.

First, everyone has good ideas. Maybe not as fast or as often as others, but are you telling me that in your entire life, you've never had one good idea? Ever?

Second, and way more telling, what happens if I give you a good idea. Here. Take it. Now what? You have it, right?

Now you need to find a second reason for not making things happen. "I don't have enough time." "I can't get the resources." "I'm not sure, really sure, guaranteed, that this is a good idea." "My boss won't let me."

And so the lizard brain speaks up, and so the cycle continues, and so the Resistance wins.

There are more good ideas, right here, right now, for free, than ever before. More opportunities to connect and lead and make a difference and an impact and a living. Fewer guarantees, sure, but more ideas.

It's your choice about whether or not you do anything with them, but please don't tell me you don't have any good ideas.

Problems and constraints

Gravity is a constraint. If you're a designing an airplane, it would be a lot easier without gravity as a concern, but hey, it's not going away.

A problem is solvable. A constraint must be lived with.

For years, Apple viewed retail distribution as a constraint. They had to live with cranky independent computer stores, or big box mass merchants that didn't display or sell their products well.

Using the internet and then their own stores, they eventually realized that this was actually a problem that could be solved, and it changed everything for them.

On the other hand, there are countless entrepreneurs who believe they can solve problems relating to funding or technology that are out of reach given their scale or background. They'd be better off if they accepted them as constraints and designed around them.

The art is in telling them apart.

Do more vs. do better

The easiest form of management is to encourage or demand that people do more. The other translation of this phrase is to go faster.

The most important and difficult form of management (verging on leadership) is to encourage people to do better.

Better is trickier than more because people have trouble visualizing themselves doing better. It requires education and coaching and patience to create a team of people who are better.

Alienating the 2%

When a popular rock group comes to town, some of their fans won't get great tickets. Not enough room in the front row. Now they're annoyed. 2% of them are angry enough to speak up or badmouth or write an angry letter.

When Disney changes a policy and offers a great new feature or benefit to the most dedicated fans, 2% of them won't be able to use it... timing or transport or resources or whatever. They're angry and they let the brand know it.

Do the math. Every time Apple delights 10,000 people, they hear from 200 angry customers, people who don't like the change or the opportunity or the risk it represents.

If you have fans or followers or customers, no matter what you do, you'll annoy or disappoint two percent of them. And you'll probably hear a lot more from the unhappy 2% than from the delighted 98.

It seems as though there are only two ways to deal with this: Stop innovating, just stagnate. Or go ahead and delight the vast majority.

Sure, you can try to minimize the cost of change, and you might even get the number to 1%. But if you try to delight everyone, all the time, you'll just make yourself crazy. Or become boring.

Childish vs. childlike

Childlike makes a great scientist.

Childish produces tantrums.

Childlike brings fresh eyes to marketing opportunities.

Childish rarely shows up as promised.

Childlike is fearless and powerful and willing to fail.

Childish is annoying.

Childlike inquires with a pure heart.

Childish is merely ignored.

Laziness

I think laziness has changed.

It used to be about avoiding physical labor. The lazy person could nap or have a cup of tea while others got hot and sweaty and exhausted. Part of the reason society frowns on the lazy is that this behavior means more work for the rest of us.

When it came time to carry the canoe over the portage, I was always hard to find. The effort and the pain gave me two good reasons to be lazy.

But the new laziness has nothing to do with physical labor and everything to do with fear. If you're not going to make those sales calls or invent that innovation or push that insight, you're not avoiding it because you need physical rest. You're hiding out because you're afraid of expending emotional labor.

This is great news, because it's much easier to become brave about extending yourself than it is to become strong enough to haul an eighty pound canoe.

Helping the rejection committee

Liz quotes a friend who sold expensive business to business products in Texas, "It's not a no until they call security!" This salesperson has no intention whatsoever of helping the folks who reject her do the rejecting.

I'm not sure you have to go that far, but I know that many marketers work hard on behalf of the rejection committee. We sabotage our college applications or email pitches or websites, predicting in advance that we're not going to make it, not good enough, not worthy. So we set out to save them the trouble of having to think hard about the no.

If someone wants to say no, let them. But no need to help them get to no before they get the chance. Let them do their job.

 

How can you do it?!

JK asks,

"It's like, how does anyone start their own business? How is it even possible? How do they deal with the crippling fear and harsh economic realities?"

Some people believe that if you have a good job, you shouldn't start your own gig, because it's foolish to give up a job you can't easily replace.

And some people believe that if you don't have a great job, it's foolish to waste time (and the money you can ill afford to lose) starting something when you'd be a lot better off getting a great job or going to school until you do.

And both groups are missing the point.

The people who successfully start independent businesses (franchises, I think are a different thing) do it because we have no real choice in the matter. The voice in our heads won't shut up until we discover if we're right, if we can do it, if we can make something happen. This is an art, our art, and to leave it bottled up is a crime.

I guess the real question, JK, is, "How can you not do it?"