Seth Godin's Blog, page 286

A sad truth about most traditional b2b marketing

"People who don't care, selling products to people who care less."

I was at a conference recently where the senior executives spent the entire day talking about profits, market share and growth... they never once mentioned that the pharmaceuticals they were selling were saving lives, or that changes in the product or its pricing could reduce side effects or the load on the patient and her doctor.

This disconnect is becoming less common, but it still happens. It's okay to be passionate about...

Archetypes at work

What are you, what do you want to be? When you're being your best self at your job, what are you doing? Here's a partial list:

Farmer--repeatedly and patiently optimizing the production of goods for sale, worrying about the weather

Hunter--tracking prey, balancing patience with bursts of energy

Gardener--pruning for beauty, growing enough to sustain yourself

Servant--"yes, sir"

Architect--creating a platform for others to work in or on

Nurse--healing (in any sense) other people

Shadchen--connecting...

Gifts, misunderstood

What's a gift?

I met a big-shot former Fortune 500 company CEO who explained to me that he used to have three secretaries. One for his calendar, one for his usual work, and one who did nothing but send people gifts.

I think when it's sent by a corporation and chosen by a secretary, it's not a gift. It's a present. Or a favor...

A gift certificate from a rich uncle is a present as well, it's not really a gift.

A favor is something we do for someone hoping for an equal or greater favor in return...

Slick

For a long time, the best way to tell if something was professional, high grade and worth a premium was by judging the slickness of the production values.

The Bourne Identity cost more to make than The Toxic Avenger. John Grisham's latest novel was clearly worth more than a self-published typewritten book of poetry. Sergeant Pepper was a more professional album than something from the Skinny Americans, that garage band down the street.

And so, restaurants got slicker, as did business...

Amplifying the lizard brain

Not sure why you would want to reinforce the noise in your head that tells you not to speak up, stand out and do work that matters, but if you do, a surefire way to do it is to focus your attention on every piece of negative feedback in your environment. Or to imagine every possible disaster that could befall you, and to do it repeatedly. Or to carefully study anonymous comments, tweets and online reviews from people who don't like the work you're doing. Or focus on the one paragraph in your ...

Goodbye to the office

Factories used to be arranged in a straight line. That's because there was one steam engine, and it turned a shaft. All the machines were set up along the shaft, with a belt giving each of them power. The office needed to be right next to this building, so management could monitor what was going on.

150 years later, why go to work in an office/plant/factory?

That's where the machines are.

That's where the items I need to work on are.

The boss needs to keep tabs on my productivity.

There...

Benefit event/help wanted in Hyderabad, India

Many of this blog's readers live in India, but I've never been able to do a live event there. Today I'm excited to announce that I'm doing a benefit for Acumen Fund on July 7 in Hyderabad India. All proceeds go to Acumen Fund.

Acumen's Country Director position is possibly the best job

in the world, and if you know the right person in India, I'd consider it

a favor if you would spread the word about the opening. If I can help

call attention to this job search by flying to India and...

"This better work"

... is probably the opposite of, "this might work."

"This better work," is the thinking of safety, of proven, of beyond blame.

"This might work," on the other hand, is the thinking of art, innovation and insight.

If you spend all day working on stuff that better work, you back yourself into a corner, because you'll never have the space or resources to throw some 'might' stuff into the mix. On the other hand, if you spend all your time on stuff that might work, you'll never need to dream up...

Trying to please

Who is your marketing or your product or your effort trying to please?

Every campaign that I've ever seen fail has failed for precisely the same reason: it pleases the wrong person. Think about it... it wouldn't have launched if it hadn't pleased the boss or the client, right? Pleasing the wrong person meant failure.

The same thing is true on a deeper level in your career choice or what you write or what you say or what you sell or how you sell it: if you are working hard to please the wrong...

Hope and the magic lottery

Entrepreneurial hope is essential. It gets us over the hump and through the dip. There's a variety of this hope, though, that's far more damaging than helpful.

This is the hope of the magic lottery ticket.

A fledgling entrepreneur ambushes a venture capitalist who just appeared on a panel. "Excuse me," she says, then launches into a two, then six and eventually twenty minute pitch that will never (sorry, never) lead to the VC saying, "Great, here's a check for $2 million on your terms."

Or the f...