This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See

by Seth Godin

Perfect closes the door. It asserts that we’re done, that this is the best we can do. Worse, perfect forbids us to try. To seek perfection and not reach it is a failure.

Better opens the door. Better challenges us to see what’s there and begs us to imagine how we could improve on that. Better invites us in and gives us a chance to seek dramatic improvement on behalf of those we seek to serve.

Good enough leads to engagement. Engagement leads to trust. Trust gives us a chance to see (if we choose to look).

If you spend time and money (with skill) you can tell a story that spreads, that influences people, that changes actions.

I think it’s evil to persuade kids to start smoking, to cynically manipulate the electoral or political process, to lie to people in ways that cause disastrous side effects. I think it’s evil to sell an ineffective potion when an effective medicine is available. I think it’s evil to come up with new ways to make smoking acceptable so you can make a few more bucks.

It’s immoral to rob someone’s house and burn it to the ground, but is it immoral to market them into foreclosure? Well, if marketing works, if it’s worth the time and money we spend on it, then I don’t think it matters a bit if you’re “just doing your job.” It’s still wrong.

Marketing has more reach, with more speed, than it has ever had before. With less money, you can have more impact than anyone could have imagined just ten years ago. The question, one I hope you’ll ask yourself, is What are you going to do with that impact?

There’s a difference between being good at what you do, being good at making a thing, and being good at marketing. We need your craft, without a doubt. But we need your change even more.

you are charging. If you are seeking to raise money for a charity, someone who donates a hundred or a thousand or a million dollars is only going to do it if they get more value than it costs them to donate. If you’re selling a widget for a thousand dollars, the only people who buy it will buy it because they believe it’s worth more than a thousand dollars.

They’re as true as we want them to be. And if you tell yourself a story enough times, you will make it true.

It is the marketing we do for ourselves, to ourselves, by ourselves, the story we tell ourselves, that can change everything. It’s what’s going to enable you to create value, to be missed if you were gone.