Seth Godin's Blog, page 275

The forever recession

There are two recessions going on.

One is gradually ending. This is the cyclical recession, we have them all the time, they come and they go. Not fun, but not permanent.

The other one, I fear, is here forever. This is the recession of the industrial age, the receding wave of bounty that workers and businesses got as a result of rising productivity but imperfect market communication.

In short: if you're local, we need to buy from you. If you work in town, we need to hire you. If you can do...

Questions or answers

You can add value in two ways:

You can know the answers.

You can offer the questions.

Relentlessly asking the right questions is a long term career, mostly because no one ever knows the right answer on a regular basis.

Are you responsible for what you market?

Let's assert that marketing works.

The money and time and effort we put into marketing goods and services actually works. It gets people to change their minds. It cajoles some people into buying and using and voting for things that they otherwise wouldn't have chosen. (If it doesn't work, save your money).

If it works, then, are you responsible for what happens after that?

If you market cigarettes aggressively, are you responsible for people dying of lung cancer?

I think there are two...

The power of buttons and being normal

Taxi drivers in New York were worried about adding credit cards to their cabs. The fee (5% of so) would cost them too much, they said.

It turns out that tips are up, way up. They're actually making far more money now.

Why? Because most of the machines offer a shortcut for the tip: $2, $3 or $4.

You can decide to be a cheapskate and hit the $2 button. Except...

Except that if you had paid cash, you probably would have tipped 75 cents for that $4.25 ride. It takes a few more clicks to type...

Turning the tables on critical trolls

How to deal with the colleague/board member/voter who is quick to criticize whatever you're proposing?

It can't work/it's been done before/it's never been done before/you can't do it/we don't have the time/money/skills...

So easy to be right when everyone else is wrong, so easy to be confident when someone else is putting themselves on the line.

I start with this: do we agree that there's a problem? An opportunity?

Do we agree that we need to take action, that something needs to be done...

Beyond crowdsourcing

Crowd accelerated innovation is the latest TED talk. It's from TED boss Chris Anderson.

The idea is one of those big ones, a simple one that will stick with you for a long time... Online video radically changes the reach and speed of the improvement cycle. Things like dance, snowboarding and TED talks keep getting better, and faster, because artists see the best and improve on it. Even more than that, it requires you to top what's out there, or you'll be ignored.

The same thing has been...

Rehearsing is for cowards

Jackson Browne gave us that advice. He would rather have you explore.

Exploring helps you figure out what you can do the next time you present or perform or interact. Rehearsing, on the hand, means figuring out exactly what you're going to do so you can protect against the downside, the unpredictable and the embarrassing.

I'm not dismissing study, learning, experimenting or getting great at what you do. In fact, I'm arguing in favor of this sort of hard work. No, I'm talking about the...

What shape is your funnel?

Put random folks in at the top and loyal customers come out at the bottom...

A billboard leads people to a website, which gets some people to subscribe via email which drives some folks to respond to a promotion which leads a few to come back for the stuff that isn't onsale, which leads to someone who can't live without you.

That's the obvious path of outbound marketing. Most people you pour into the funnel hop out long before they become loyal customers.

The thing is, some funnels are...

Self-delusion and self-loathing

Two shores of the same river, either can get you into a lot of trouble.

Self-delusion is lying to yourself about how good you are. You might think you're a world class designer or actor or chef or administrator or problem solver, but you might be merely well-intentioned, hard-working and pretty good. Which is fine, but pretty good is hardly remarkable. Telling yourself the truth about what you've got to market is the first step to marketing with success.

and...

Self-loathing is lying to...

The myth of preparation

There are three stages of preparation. (For a speech, a product, an interview, a sporting event...)

The first I'll call the beginner stage. This is where you make huge progress as a result of incremental effort.

The second is the novice stage. This is the stage in which incremental effort leads to not so much visible increase in quality.

And the third is the expert stage. Here's where races are won, conversations are started and sales are made. A huge amount of effort, off limits to...