I'm now officially trademarking thank-you™. From now on, whenever you use this word, please be sure to send me a royalty check.
If you create content, you need to read this. How to protect your ideas in a world that wants them to be free as in freedom and free as in beer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_Libre#.22Free_as_in_beer.22_vs_.22Free_as_in_speech.22).
Here's a list of my top ten things to consider doing:
- Use gmail to give every person in the organization that can read English an email address.
- Use a free website creating tool or even Squidoo to build a page about your company. Nothing fancy, but list your locations, your people (with addresses) and make it clear you want to hear from people.
- Start an email newsletter using Mad Mimi or Mail Chimp. Give the responsibility for the newsletter's creation and performance to one person and offer them a bonus if they exceed metrics in sign ups and in reducing churn.
- Start a book group for your top executives and every person who answers the phone, designs a product or interacts with customers. Read a great online media book a week and discuss. It'll take you about a year to catch up.
- Offer a small bonus to anyone in the company who starts and runs a blog on any topic. Have them link to your company site, with an explanation that while they work there, they don't speak for you.
- Have the president post her (real) email address in every invoice and other communication the company sends out, asking people to write to her with comments or questions.
- Start a newsletter for your vendors. Email them regular updates about what you're doing, what's selling and what problems are going on internally that they might be able to help you with.
- Do not approve any project that isn't run on Basecamp.
- Get a white board and put it in the break room. On it, have someone update: how many people subscribe to the newsletter, how many people visit the website, how many inbound requests come in by phone, how long it takes customer service to answer an email and how often your brand names are showing up on Twitter every day.
- Don't have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve.
- Refuse to cede the work to consultants. You don't outsource your drill press or your bookkeeping or your product design. If you're going to catch up, you must (all of you) get good at this, and you only accomplish that by doing it.
The problem is no longer budget. The problem is no longer access to tools.
The problem is the will to get good at it.
Great post from Seth Godin for those who have been ignoring the shift in marketing, there is also some excellent suggestions for those of us who've embraced them.
your job is to find someone who is already in the sweet spot you're looking for, or someone who is eager and able to get there.
Especially his views on the music business and how to respond to the changes were particularly interesting.
If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a "sheepwalker" - someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doing you (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don't do very well these days.
- Have an argument. Once you start an argument, not a discussion, you've already lost. Think about it: have you ever changed your mind because someone online started yelling at you? They might get you to shut up, but it's unlikely they've actually changed your opinion.
- Forget the pitfalls of Godwin's law. Any time you mention Hitler or even Communist China or Bill O'Reilly, you've lost.
- Use faulty analogies. If someone is trying to make a point about, say, health care, try to make an analogy to something conceptually unrelated, like the space shuttle program, and you've lost.
- Question motives. The best way to get someone annoyed and then have them ignore you is to bypass any thoughtful discussion of facts and instead question what's in it for the person on the other end. Make assumptions about their motivations and lose their respect.
- Act anonymously. What are the chances that heckled comments from the bleachers will have an impact?
- Threaten to take action in another venue. Insist that this will come back to haunt the other person. Guarantee you will spread the word or stop purchasing.
- Bring up the slippery slope. Actually, the slope isn't that slippery. People don't end up marrying dogs, becoming cannibals or harvesting organs because of changes in organization, technology or law.
- Go to the edges. This is a variant of the slippery slope, in which you bring up extremes at either end of whatever spectrum is being discussed.
So, what works?
Earn a reputation. Have a conversation. Ask questions. Describe possible outcomes of a point of view. Make connections. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Align objectives then describe a better outcome. Show up. Smile.
Seth Godin discus the benefit of the doubt:
The challenge, then, is to earn the benefit of the doubt. How many of your customers, prospects, vendors, regulators and colleagues give you the benefit of the doubt?
Johan Horak
Online Marketing Tips Newsletter Using Social Media Like Twitter.
…….. because they are simply brilliant.
Confused? Well don’t be.
Seth Godin’s audio books, much like his writings, are extremely lucid. I have attended recitals and book-readings in the past but have never experienced something that I did with the audio book – All Marketers are liars. Godin reads as if he is actually talking to you in person. At no point during the audio, do you feel that here is a person whos reading from a prewritten book ; It is almost as if his thoughts are popping into your ears immediately as they are popping into his head –extempore. Such is the power of Godin at holding your attention that you just don’t feel you have been subjected to a 4 hour continuous audio.
What Godin has done through this is raised the bar of expectations to an altogether new level. Other audio books don’t seem to excite me. Going forward, there just can be two alternatives
Godin has got me hooked and I am sure that I am not a one-man clan.
"Leadership is scarce because few people are willing
to go through the discomfort required to lead"
- Seth Godin
(Photos are by John Abbott.)
An Interview With Uber-Marketing Guru Seth Godin
Today is an amazing day! At HungryPeople, we rarely get the chance to speak to our heroes. And today a miracle happened and yes folks, we're having Seth Godin! Considered as one of the world's leading authorities in and on marketing, Seth has continued to amaze the business world with his fascinating and effective ideas that not only captivate the world but set us on FIRE!
In this amazing interview, Seth gives yet his most interesting take on what spreading ideas is all about. YOU should read on.
Take us back to when YOU were starting ChangeThis. What was YOUR original motivation in starting it?
Ideas that spread, win. And the digital age is demonstrating that ideas can spread online fast. So, how could we figure out a way to package and spread important ideas, ideas that mattered, ideas that made things better... as opposed to junky YouTube videos? The answer was to come up with something longer than a blog post, shorter than a book and beautifully laid out.
So far, more than a dozen bestsellers (including books by Malcolm Gladwell and the Freakonomics guys) have appeared in ChangeThis format first. I'm really proud of that.
YOU seem to be starting many of the amazing things on the web: Ideavirus, ChangeThis, Squidoo, etc., where do YOU get all the energy to do this? Why do YOU do this?
Because we ship. That's what people do. We make things happen. The internet makes it easier than ever to ship ideas out the door. How can you sit this one out?
What's the key to being a great marketer?
Tell stories that spread. Make products that are remarkable. Live the story, be consistent, stick it out!
Describe to us an ideal marketing strategy for YOU? Is there such a thing?
I don't think we should spend a lot of time on "ideal" and I don't think you should change who you are in order to be a better marketer. But once you understand what you WANT, figure out how to tell a story about it, one that works and spreads.
Should YOU have a background in Sales to be great at Marketing?
Everyone should have a background in sales as far as I'm concerned.
If YOU were stuck with Malcolm Gladwell for one hour inside an elevator, what can we expect from both of YOU?
That actually happened (well, not an elevator, but backstage). It was fun. He's one of the kindest, smartest guys I know. Our job (if I can put myself in his job category) is to encourage people to rethink what they're sure they know.
Who are YOUR personal heroes? Why?
People like you, and the people reading this. People who ship. People who stand up, speak out, think things through (at least a little). Individuals who understand that they have an opportunity and a responsibility. Great teachers, the ones who will stand up to the forces of mediocrity. And any parent who shows up and does the job.
What are YOU hungry for?
I feel like I'm only getting started in spreading ideas that have a chance of changing the world for the better. I'm hungry for more of that.
What's coming soon from YOU?
In January, something new. Keep your eyes peeled. I'll pre-announce (love that word) on my blog in December.
About Seth Godin
Seth Godin is an author, blogger and public speaker. He has founded many companies, including Yoyodyne and Squidoo.com. So far, his 11 books have been translated into 34 languages. He's probably most proud of the amazing work and breakthrough ideas that people have been provoked into finding as a result of his daily provocations.
