MentalGator

Items by Seth Godin

Seth's Blog

• The quickest way to get things done and make change

  Posted: May 17, 2012, 12:33 pm by Seth Godin

  Not the easiest, but the quickest:

  Don't demand authority.

  Eagerly take responsibility.

  Relentlessly give credit.

  

• Digital analogs are no longer sufficient

  Posted: May 16, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  The parking meter was rebooting. I guess we're supposed to walk to the other end of the garage and find one that's working.

  We're seeing digital awareness coming to just about everything. In this case, it was the parking meter near the library. Of course, it's not really a parking meter, it's a centralized fee collection system that saves the town a lot of money. It's easier to collect from, certainly, it doesn't waste the time of meter readers (who get alerted as to what spaces aren't paid for, as opposed to checking them all) plus it doesn't let a new parker enjoy a few minutes of the last person's payment.

  I understand how the incremental sale of this device was easier to maket to the town and to the community. It's just like what we have now, but better.

  The problem, of course, is that it's not as better as it could be. Just about every traditional non-digital solution is bounded by the limits of mechanics. Once we start connecting (and the connection revolution won't rest until it's all connected) then the problem can be reset--we can find the best solution, not a better way to solve it the old way.

  Why do I have to guess how long I'm going to be parking? Why pay a penalty if I underguess, or waste community resources on patrolling for compliance?

  Of course, I don't care much about parking meters. I care a lot about using digital shadows of real world devices because we don't have the imagination to reinvent them.

  In this particular case: why bother have a meter at all? After all, the state knows my license plate, the state has a billing relationship with me, the state can (and does) collect money for my driving behaviors (like EZ Pass). So why not drive into the space and have the space just take care of all the paperwork and billing? No tickets, no meter readers. If you don't want local merchants to park in the good spaces, no need to spend a lot of time searching them out...

  Instinctually, we want to maintain the hunter/prey relationship of the independent citizen who isn't being snooped on. But you know what? You're already being snooped on, ceaselessly. A parking meter isn't your problem.

  Obviously, parking meters aren't the important device here. The connection revolution is going to upend the way we understand the where, who, how much and when of everything around us.

  

• Hard work on the right things

  Posted: May 15, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  I don't think winners beat the competition because they work harder. And it's not even clear that they win because they have more creativity. The secret, I think, is in understanding what matters.

  It's not obvious, and it changes. It changes by culture, by buyer, by product and even by the day of the week. But those that manage to capture the imagination, make sales and grow are doing it by perfecting the things that matter and ignoring the rest.

  Both parts are difficult, particularly when you are surrounded by people who insist on fretting about and working on the stuff that makes no difference at all.

  

• Worldliness

  Posted: May 14, 2012, 12:41 pm by Seth Godin

  Intelligence is the combination of knowing a lot about a little while you also know a little about a lot.

  Deep domain understanding helps you create analyses. Your ability to understand how a particular system (no matter how small) works allows you apply a confident analysis to new systems you encounter. Once you know everything there is to know about nuclear physics, soccer or the praying mantis, it makes it easier to understand new systems.

  At the same time, it's impossible to be smart without also being aware of the wider world. That's because it's the random interactions and the surprising coincidences that help us navigate our daily lives.

  The challenge of the net is that it made the large world a whole lot larger. There are the personal lives of your 1000 closest friends, on display, every day. Here is the news of the world, the whole world, not just what used to fit in the newspaper. And over there is every book ever published, every scientific discovery, every fringe political candidate.

  Suddenly, it's a lot more difficult to know a little about a lot. It's tempting to spend ever more time pursuing that goal. That doesn't mean, I think, that you should give up knowing a lot about a little in order to devote ever more time to the noisy mosaic that's on your doorstep, nor does it mean you ought to give up and dive back into your hole. We've redefined worldly, but being an expert remains just as tough and important as it used to be.

  

• The reason the customer is always right...

  Posted: May 14, 2012, 12:08 pm by Seth Godin

  If you insist that they are wrong, they stop being your customer* (if given half a chance).

  People spend their time and attention and money in places that make them feel valued.

  *There's nothing wrong with asking customers who are wrong to leave. Just be sure you do it on purpose.

  

• Dedicating the merit

  Posted: May 13, 2012, 12:02 pm by Seth Godin

  For an author, one of the nicest parts of the traditional book is the dedication page. The dedication is far more than an acknowledgement to someone who helped you write the book, it's a permanent signpost, a capstone to the work of a year or more.

  Even if the person you've dedicated the book to can't read it, the writer benefits from the knowledge that a connection was made and that a memory was preserved.

  Here's the thing: you can dedicate just about anything. A project, a meeting, a tweet. You don't have to tell anyone but yourself. This blog post, like all the posts before it, has a dedication page, at least in my head.

  When you start creating for and in honor of those that have made a difference to you, your work changes.

  

• Naming things

  Posted: May 12, 2012, 12:22 pm by Seth Godin

  "Over there, by the fire, is that a stick or a snake?"

  It turns out that humans have been naming things for a long time. If we know that this is a cheetah, or a grapefruit, we can make intelligent decisions on how to deal with it.

  Lately, though, we've been naming more than things. Now we classify ideas and opportunities as well.

  Getting smart about naming is at the heart of marketing. Calling every single person a 'customer', for example, is hardly a nuanced way of engaging with the public. Salespeople are especially nuanced at this, but often make mistakes as well. Car salesman are notorious for misnaming women who walk in (spouse instead of primary decision maker).

  As an investor, are you misnaming the businesses you look at, mistaking a cliff business for a bootstrappable idea? Dozens of book editors misnamed Harry Potter at first glance, labeling it a 'loser from the slush pile' instead of the most profitable book they were ever offered.

  Job interviews are nothing but sessions where we try to put a name on a stranger looking for employment. Is she a superstar in the making or someone we ought to avoid?

  Most of all, are you misnaming opportunities and calling them risks instead?

  When you are isolated or if the world is stable, your need to name new things goes down, and the world might feel safer as a result. Most of us don't live in that world, so our ability to name things becomes critical.

  Just because we're not good at it doesn't mean it's not important.

  

• Free samples

  Posted: May 11, 2012, 12:54 pm by Seth Godin

  It bothers me to watch the hordes at the farmer's market, swooping in to each booth, grabbing a sample and walking away. The thin slices of handmade rye bread, or the perfect strawberries or the little glasses of juice--all of them disappear into the hands of people who have no intention of buying.

  Sure, someone stops and buys now and then, which is why the farmers keep offering the samples. To them, it's merely a cost of doing business, a relatively inexpensive way to keep prospective customers coming. I'm not sure I could do it--the people afraid to look me in the eye, all that slinking around, and most of all, the profits walking out the door, over and over again. Enough thin slices makes a loaf.

  This is vexing, even to someone who merely makes ideas. Watching people sneak endless tastes with no intention of making a purchase--sometimes I gasp at the audacity.

  The distinction in the digital world is profound. In the digital world, the more free samples you give away, the better you do. The miserly mindset that afflicts the merchant watching inventory walk out the door at the market is counterproductive in the digital world. That's because more free samples cost you nothing.

  The scarce resources in the connection revolution are connection, attention and trust, not molecules, atoms or strawberries.

  

• Why ask why?

  Posted: May 10, 2012, 12:06 pm by Seth Godin

  "Why?" is the most important question, not asked nearly enough.

  Hint: "Because I said so," is not a valid answer.

  • Why does it work this way?
  • Why is that our goal?
  • Why did you say no?
  • Why are we treating people differently?
  • Why is this our policy?
  • Why don't we enter this market?
  • Why did you change your mind?
  • Why are we having this meeting?
  • Why not?

  

• How to make money online

  Posted: May 9, 2012, 12:39 pm by Seth Godin

  1. The first step is to stop Googling things like, "how to make money online." Not because you shouldn't want to make money online, but because the stuff you're going to find by doing that is going to help you lose money online. Sort of like asking a casino owner how to make money in Vegas...
  2. Don't pay anyone for simple and proven instructions on how to achieve this goal. In particular, don't pay anyone to teach you how to write or sell manuals or ebooks about how to make money online.
  3. Get rich slow.
  4. Focus on the scarce resource online: attention. If you try to invent a way to take cheap attention and turn it into cash, you will fail. The attention you want isn't cheap, it's difficult to get via SEO and it rarely scales. Instead, figure out how to earn expensive attention.
  5. In addition to attention, focus on trust. Trust is even more scarce than attention.
  6. Don't worry so much about the 'online' part. Instead, figure out how to create value. The online part will take care of itself.
  7. Don't quit your day job. Start evenings and weekends and figure it out with small failures.
  8. Build a public reputation. A good one, and be sure that you deserve it, and that it will hold up to scrutiny.
  9. Obsessively specialize. No niche is too small if it's yours.
  10. Connect the disconnected.
  11. Lead.
  12. Build an online legacy that increases in value daily.
  13. Make money offline. If you can figure out how to create value face to face, it's a lot easier to figure out how to do the same digitally. The web isn't magic, it's merely efficient.
  14. Become the best in the world at something that people value. Easier said than done, worth more than you might think.
  15. Hang out with people who aren't looking for shortcuts. Learn from them.
  16. Fail. Fail often and fail cheaply. This is the very best gift the web has given to people who want to bootstrap their way into a new business.
  17. Make money in the small and then relentlessly scale.
  18. Don't chase yesterday's online fad.
  19. Think big, act with intention and don't get bogged down in personalities. If it's not on your agenda, why are you wasting time on it?
  20. Learn. Ceaselessly. Learn to code, to write persuasively, to understand new technologies, to bring out the best in your team, to find underused resources and to spot patterns.
  21. This is not a zero sum game. The more you add to your community, the bigger your piece gets.

  A few years ago I put my book The Bootstrapper's Bible online for free. You can find it here.

  

• Solving the problem isn't the problem

  Posted: May 8, 2012, 12:02 pm by Seth Godin

  The problem is finding a vector that pays for itself as you scale.

  We see a problem and we think we've "solved" it, but if there isn't a scalable go-to-market business approach behind the solution, it's not going to work.

  This is where engineers and other problem solvers so often get stuck. Industries and organizations and systems aren't broken because no one knows how to solve their problem. They're broken because the difficult part is finding a scalable, profitable way to market and sell the solution.

  Take textbooks, for example. The challenge here isn't that you and I can't come up with a far better, cheaper, faster and more fair way to produce and sell and use textbooks. The problem is that the people who have to approve, review and purchase textbooks are difficult to reach, time-consuming to educate and expensive to sell.

  Or consider solar lanterns as a replacement for kerosene. They are safer, cheaper and far healthier. But that's not the problem. The problem is building a marketing and distribution network that permits you to rapidly educate a billion people as to why they want to buy one at a price that would permit you to make them in quantity.

  Sure, you need a solution to the problem. But mostly what you need is a self-funding method to scale your solution, a way of interacting with the market that gains in strength over time so you can start small and get big, solving the problem as you go.

  

• The flipping point

  Posted: May 7, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  When people say, "The tipping point," they often misunderstand the concept in Malcolm's book. They're actually talking about the flipping point.

  The tipping point is the sum total of many individuals buzzing about something. But for an individual to start buzzing, something has to change in that person's mind. Something flips from boredom or ignorance to excitement or anger.

  It starts when the story of a brand or a person or a store or an experience flips in your head and it goes from good to bad, or from ignored to beloved. The flipping point doesn't represent the sum of public conversations, it's the outcome of an activated internal conversation.

  It's easy to wish and hope for your project to tip, for it to magically become the hot thing. But that won't happen if you can't seduce and entrance an individual and then another.

  Before the tipping point, someone has to flip. And then someone else. And then a hundred more someones.

  We resist incremental improvement in our offerings and our stories because it just doesn't seem likely that one good interaction or one tiny alteration can possibly lead to a significant amount of flipping. And we're right—it won't. The flipping point (for an individual) is almost always achieved after a consistent series of almost invisible actions that create a brand new whole.

  And the reason it's so difficult? Because you're operating on faith. You need to invest and apparently overinvest (time and money and effort) until you see the results. And most of your competition (lucky for you) give up long before they reach the point where it pays off.

  

• Avoiding false metrics

  Posted: May 6, 2012, 12:27 pm by Seth Godin

  At the local gym, it's not unusual to see hardcore members contorting themselves to fool the stairmaster machine into giving them good numbers. If you use your arms, you can lift yourself off the machine and trick it into thinking you're working yourself really hard.

  Of course, you end up with cramped shoulders and a lousy workout, but who cares, the machine said you burned 600 calories...

  The same thing happens with authors who put themselves and their readers through the wringer to get a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list (more on this here). Danielle LaPorte built a huge campaign around putting her book on the list, she succeeded in selling a huge number of hardcover copies in a week (far more than most other books) but didn't make the list because of a secret editorial decision that she's not privy to. At the same time, other authors who do a better job of decoding the secrets end up on the list with far fewer sold.

  The point isn't that the list is crooked and unfair (though it is). It measures how good you are at getting on the list, not how many copies of the book your readers buy. The reason to avoid the false metric is that it messes with your shoulders, with the way you approach the work, with the real reason you did the project in the first place.

  A third example: many car brands now go to obsessive lengths to contact recent car buyers and ask them to rate their buying experience on a scale of one to five. They use these rankings to allocate cars to dealers, ostensibly to reward the good dealerships. Of course, the dealers are in on the game, and instead of doing the intended thing--providing a great experience--all they do is work hard to get people to give them a five when a drone in a call center makes the call. Many of them will clearly state to a customer, "If anything has happened today that would prevent you from giving us a five when they call, please tell us right now..."

  The system of false metrics doesn't create a better buying experience, it creates a threatened customer with pressure to give a five.

  And my last example: The Arbitron radio rating system used to rely on diaries in which it asked radio listeners to write down which station they had listened to during the day. Several consultants came along with a service that they guaranteed would raise the ratings of any station that hired them. The secret? Repeat the station's call letters twice as often. It turned out that more repetition led to better recall, which led to more people writing down the call letters which led to 'better' ratings.

  A useful metric is both accurate (in that it measures what it says it measures) and aligned with your goals. Making your numbers go up (any numbers--your bmi, your blood sugar, your customer service ratings) is pointless if the numbers aren't related to why you went to work this morning.

  

• Mother's day is May 13

  Posted: May 5, 2012, 9:45 pm by Seth Godin

  Mothers with daughters adore this bestselling book by Sarah Kay. It's a little piece of magic.

  I published it because every time I saw the video, it made me cry. But you can't give your mom a video link for Mother's Day, can you?

  Check out these reviews:

  "Give this lovely little book to any parent in your life who is trying to instill the values of self-love, adventurousness and intelligent defiance in their children.

  Give this book to any parent who questions themselves all too often, even when they are one of the best parents you know.

  Give this book to any parent who needs a little reassurance that their love is more than enough."

  "I highly recommend this book for new moms, old moms, one day want to be moms, or to anyone that needs to be reminded that they're loved. "
  
  "I bought six copies of this book, keeping one and giving the remaining five to my mom, my aunt, and some dear friends (and mothers)"
  
  "I found this book and decided to purchase 2 copies: one for my daughter and one for myself. It is wonderful and well worth buying for gifts."
  
  "This is a precious gift to share if you are a daughter or have a daughter of any age."
  
  "Some books should still be in print for years to come and this is one of them. Great gift idea! "

  

• A simple antidote to a corporatized, unfeeling, profit-maximizing world

  Posted: May 5, 2012, 12:05 pm by Seth Godin

  Care.

  Care more than you need to, more often than expected, more completely than the other guy.

  No one reports liking Steve Jobs very much, yet he was as embraced as any businessperson since Walt Disney. Because he cared. He cared deeply about what he was making and how it would be used. Of course, he didn't just care in a general, amorphous, whiny way, he cared and then actually delivered.

  Politicians are held in astonishingly low esteem. Congress in particular is setting record lows, but it's an endemic problem. The reason? They consistently act as if they don't care. They don't care about their peers, certainly, and by their actions, apparently, they don't care about us. Money first.

  Many salespeople face a similar problem--perhaps because for years they've used a shallow version of caring as a marketing technique to boost their commissions. One report by the National Association of Realtors found that more than 90% of all homeowners are never again contacted by their real estate agent after the contracts for the home are signed. Why bother... there's no money in it, just the possibility of complaints. Well, the reason is obvious--you'd come by with cookies and intros to the neighbors if you cared.

  Economists tell us that the reason to care is that it increases customer retention, profitability and brand value. For me, though, that's beside the point (and even counter to the real goal). Caring gives you a compass, a direction to head and most of all, a reason to do the work you do in the first place.

  Care More.

  It's only two words, but it's hard to think of a better mantra for the organization that is smart enough to understand the core underpinning of their business, as well as one in search of a reason for being. No need to get all tied up in subcycles of this leads to this which leads to that so therefore I care... Instead, there's the opportunity to follow the direct and difficult road of someone who truly cares about what's being made and who it is for.

  

• Reconsidering decisions

  Posted: May 4, 2012, 12:28 pm by Seth Godin

  There are two common mistakes here:

  Frequently reconsidering decisions that ought to be left alone. Once you enroll in college, it is both painful and a waste to spend the first five minutes of every morning wondering if you should drop out or not. Once you've established a marketing plan, it doesn't pay to reevaluate it every time your shop is empty. And once you've committed to a partnership, it's silly to reconsider that choice every time you have a disagreement.

  In addition to wasting time, the frequent reconsideration sabotages the effort your subconscious is trying to make in finding ways to make the current plan work. Spending that creative energy wondering about the plan merely subtracts from the passion you could put into making it succeed.

  On the other hand, particularly in organizations, failure to reconsider long-held decisions is just as wasteful. Should you really be in that business? Should this person still be working here? Is that really the best policy?

  Jay Levinson used to say that you should keep your ad campaign even after your best customers, your wife and your partner get bored with it. Change it when the accountant says it's time. And Zig Ziglar likes to talk about the pilot on his way from New York to Dallas. Wind blows the plane off course after a few minutes. The right thing to do is adjust the course and head on. The wrong thing to do is head back to New York and start over (or to reconsider flying to Dallas at all).

  

• Multiplying or dividing?

  Posted: May 3, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  If you have a list of 1000 subscribers or 5,000 fans or 10,000 supporters, you have a choice to make.

  You can create stories and options and benefits that naturally spread from this group to their friends, and your core group can multiply, with 5,000 growing to 10,000 and then 100,000.

  Or you can put the group through a sales funnel, weed out the free riders and monetize the rest. A 5% conversion rate means you just turned 5,000 interested people into 250 paying customers.

  Multiplying scales. Dividing helps you make this quarter's numbers.

  

• Is catastrophizing effective?

  Posted: May 2, 2012, 12:40 pm by Seth Godin

  Often, our instinct is to make the current bump in the road far more urgent than it actually is. It focuses our attention and rallies those around us to take immediate and deliberate action.

  After all, if this is the big one, of course we should drop everything and deal with it.

  Missing from this equation is the cost of dropping everything. The short-term herk and jerk that is delivered by an organization that responds to those that amplify problems into catastrophes inevitably leads to poor performance in the long run.

  Employees who do this ought to be counseled to cut it out. It's not what we hired you to do. Bosses who catastrophize are often hesitant to admit it, though, and if you work for one, it's going to continually hurt your ability to do your best work.

  And non-profits who catastrophize to meet their next funding goal inevitably sabotage the very work they set it out to do in the first place, all because it's an easy way to raise some extra money.

  

• Volatility and value

  Posted: May 1, 2012, 12:44 pm by Seth Godin

  The fine art market continues to generate headline-making sales. This year, paintings by Warhol and Munch are expected to sell for more than $50 million each.

  What makes a painting famous enough to sell for that much money?

  

  Consider the Mona Lisa. The reason that it's the most famous (and arguably the most valuable) painting in the world is that it was stolen in 1911. (Even Pablo Picasso was questioned as a possible suspect). For two years, it was a media sensation--precisely when newspapers were coming into their own. For two years it was front page news. As the world media-ized itself, we needed an icon to stand for "famous painting" and the Mona Lisa was it.

  Media cycles have gotten shorter and shorter since then, and ironically, it was Andy himself who predicted that one day we'd all be famous for fifteen minutes. The thing is, being famous for fifteen minutes isn't sufficient to make your painting worth $80 million.

  Andy never had his own tv show, wouldn't have had the most viral video on YouTube and wasn't focused on the fast pump of fame. It turns out that get big fast (and then fade) doesn't build a reputation that pays.

  Media volatility makes more people and more ideas famous for ever shorter periods of time. What the fine art market shows us, though, is that real value isn't created by this volatile fame. Consistently showing up on the radar of the right audience is more highly prized than reaching the masses, once then done. This works for every career, even if you've never touched a brush.

  

• What's the right size? The quantum mechanics of growth...

  Posted: April 30, 2012, 12:26 pm by Seth Godin

  How come there are no ants as big as Buicks (except in the movies)? Why not have a college with a million students (or ten)?

  The physics and economics of a business determine whether it's the right size or not, whether it ought to get bigger or smaller. Starbucks, for example, was not the right size when it had 11 stores. That's too many stores for just one senior manager to handle, but not enough stores for centralized purchasing and marketing and organization. The cash flow from an eleven-store chain just doesn't easily connect to the staff requirements necessary to make it efficient.

  A web company might do really well with thirty people and a few million dollars in revenue. To get to a thousand people (big enough for an IPO, say), it will need to transform both the product and the way it's sold. And in between the size it is now (which is working) and the size necessary for the public offering, there's a dead zone. This is a leap, not a stroll.

  When I was growing my first successful business, I kept saying that one day I'd hire enough people that the people I was hiring could manage themselves. I went from having four direct reports to eleven before I realized that I wasn't going to be able to make the leap in scale that was going to be necessary to reach a comfortable size.

  The same rule applies to independent musicians and comedians. At the solo level, you might be very happy making a living gigging at certain kinds of venues and being supported by a given audience. On the other hand, to support a manager, a band and a label, you can't just add a few more fans. You need different venues, different gigs, different revenue streams. If you can't (or don't want to) get to that new level, the new team isn't going to help, and it might destroy everything you've built.

  It's worth charting both profit per employee and owner satisfaction against the number of people in the organization. Perhaps getting a little bigger isn't what you want, and it might not even be possible.

  

• Low prices

  Posted: April 29, 2012, 12:55 pm by Seth Godin

  It might be that low prices are the final refuge of the marketer who has run out of ideas and is left with nothing but a commodity.

  Or it might be that organizing your business around lowering prices through efficiency, mass scale and smart choices is a powerful way to grow.

  My guess is that both are true, but you better be really sure about which one you're choosing. Hint: doing the second one successfully is really quite difficult, so if all you're doing is writing a lower number on the pricetags, you're probably playing the first game.

  

• Your dent

  Posted: April 28, 2012, 12:06 pm by Seth Godin

  Are you making a dent in the universe?

  Hint: lots of random pokes in many different spots are unlikely to leave much of an impact. And hiding out is surely not going to work at all.

  

• The story of money is not a straight line

  Posted: April 27, 2012, 12:16 pm by Seth Godin

  

  Everyone tells themself a different story about money, but there's no doubt at all that the story we tell ourselves changes our behavior.

  Consider this curve of how people react in situations that cost money.

  A musician is standing on a street corner playing real good for free. Most people walk on by (3). That same musician playing at a bar with a $5 cover gets a bit more attention. Put him into a concert hall at $40 and suddenly it's an event.

  Pay someone minimum wage or a low intern stipend (4) and they treat the work like a job. Don't expect that worker to put in extra effort or conquer her fear--the message is that her effort was bought and paid for and wasn't worth very much to the boss... and so she reciprocates in kind. The same sort of thing can happen in a class that's easy to get into and that doesn't cost much--a Learning Annex sort of thing. Easy to start, cheap to try--not much effort as a result.

  It's interesting to me to see what happens to people who pay a lot or get paid well (2,5). The kids at Harvard Law School, for example, or a third-year associate at a law firm. Here, we see all nighters, heroic, career-risking efforts and all sorts of personal investment. And yet as we extend the curve to situations where the rules of rational money are suspended, something happens--people get fearful again. Don't look to Oprah or JK Rowling or the Donald to bet it all--the huge amount of money they could earn (or could pay) to play at the next level (1 & 6) isn't enough to get them out of their comfort zone. Money ceases to be a motivator for everyone at some point.

  Most interesting of all is the long black line at zero (3). The curve goes wild here, like dividing by zero. At zero, at the place where no money changes hands, we see volunteer labor and free exchange. In these situations, sometimes we see extraordinary effort, the stuff that wins Nobel prizes. Just about every great, brave or beautiful thing in our culture was created by someone who didn't do it for money. We see the local volunteer putting in insane hours even though no one is watching. We hear the magical song or read the amazing poem that no one got paid to write. And sometimes, though, we see very little, just a trolling comment or a half-hearted bit of commentary. Remove money from the story and we're in a whole new category. The most vivid way to think about this is the difference between a mutually-agreed upon romantic date and one in which money changes hands.

  All worth thinking about when you consider how much to charge for a gig, what tuition ought to be, what motivates job creators or whether or not a form of art disappears when the business model for that art goes away.

  

• Some reading without charge (worth way more than it costs)

  Posted: April 26, 2012, 4:17 am by Seth Godin

  The Valve company handbook (download), about the post-industrial method of management.

  Bassam Tarazi on accountability (part 1). This is brand new. (Download here)

  The on-purpose person, free ebook until the 28th.

  And some recent posts on The Domino Project blog (though we're not publishing any new books, the blog continues).

  Bonus: a new (short) TED talk from Nancy Lublin. Does changing the medium change the message?

  (Plus, a new one from Hugh, not free, but still a bargain...)

  

• Do you have a people strategy?

  Posted: April 26, 2012, 12:43 pm by Seth Godin

  Hard to imagine a consultant or investor asking the CMO, "so, what's your telephone strategy?"

  We don't have a telephone strategy. The telephone is a tool, a simple medium, and it's only purpose is to connect us to interested human beings.

  And then the internet comes along and it's mysterious and suddenly we need an email strategy and a social media strategy and a web strategy and a mobile strategy.

  No, we don't.

  It's still people. We still have one and only one thing that matters, and it's people.

  All of these media are conduits, they are tools that human beings use to waste time or communicate or calculate or engage or learn. Behind each of the tools is a person. Do you have a story to tell that person? An engagement or a benefit to offer them?

  Figure out the people part and the technology gets a whole lot simpler.

  

• Don't expect applause

  Posted: April 25, 2012, 12:48 pm by Seth Godin

  Accept applause, sure, please do.

  But when you expect applause, when you do your work in order (and because of) applause, you have sold yourself short. That's because your work is depending on something out of your control. You have given away part of your art. If your work is filled with the hope and longing for applause, it's no longer your work--the dependence on approval has corrupted it, turned it into a process where you are striving for ever more approval.

  Who decides if your work is good? When you are at your best, you do. If the work doesn't deliver on its purpose, if the pot you made leaks or the hammer you forged breaks, then you should learn to make a better one. But we don't blame the nail for breaking the hammer or the water for leaking from the pot. They are part of the system, just as the market embracing your product is part of marketing.

  "Here, here it is, it's finished."

  If it's finished, the applause, the thanks, the gratitude are something else. Something extra and not part of what you created. To play a beautiful song for two people or a thousand is the same song, and the amount of thanks you receive isn't part of that song.

  

• Needs and wants are often confused

  Posted: April 24, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  When people have their basic needs met, it's not uncommon for wants to magically become needs. It's our hardwired instinct to seek to fill unmet needs.

  That pays off for any marketer that has persuaded his market that they need what he sells. It backfires when those 'needs' are seen for what they actually are--luxuries.

  When you sell a want, you have to work harder, you must seduce the market, because wants are fickle, picky and not easily bullied.

  

• When smart people work for big companies

  Posted: April 23, 2012, 12:43 pm by Seth Godin

  A good employee says, "I know that this is a serious problem, it's hurting our customers and we can do better, but I can't do a thing about it because it's run by a different department."

  A version of this might conclude with, "And I don't even know the name of the person who's responsible."

  This is a sure sign of systemic failure as well as a CEO who is not doing the job she should be. When smart people who care get frustrated, something is wrong.

  This lack of responsibility/communication is not a feature or a benefit that helps customers or shareholders. This is a flaw in the system of the big company, a cost of having a larger organization. The very same system that allowed the organization to become big and powerful is showing serious cracks.

  It doesn't have to be this way. But it will unless senior management hires, trains and organizes to avoid it. Is there a more important issue to be worked on?

  

• If you think that's what we want, why don't you give it to us?

  Posted: April 22, 2012, 12:30 pm by Seth Godin

  The sign in front of the breakfast bar at the hotel says, "from garden to table."

  Really? Virtually every item I see has been processed four times, steamed, stored and steamed again.

  Marketing pitches are finely tuned to resonate with the audience in mind. Too often, though, the marketer is only in charge of the pitch, and someone else in the organization has to make the thing.

  So the marketer brags about how tasty the food on the airplane is, or how reliable the cell phone service is or how magically transporting the aromatherapy of the soap is--and then someone else, someone under different pressures and constraints--has to deliver. And they rarely do.

  They rarely do because the paying customer isn't their customer. Their customer is the quality control department, the accounting department and the "don't-rock-the-boat" department.

  Marketers need to spend less time making promises and more time keeping them.

  

  

• The easiest and the best

  Posted: April 21, 2012, 12:44 pm by Seth Godin

  The easiest customers to get are almost never the best ones.

  If you're considering word of mouth, stability and lifetime value, it's almost always true that the easier it is to get someone's attention, the less it's worth.

  

• Selling to people who haven't bought yet

  Posted: April 20, 2012, 12:42 pm by Seth Godin

  The portion of the population that haven't bought from you or your competition yet is not waiting for a better mousetrap.

  They're not busy considering a, b and c and then waiting for d.

  No, they're not in the market. They don't believe that they have a problem that's worth the time and money they think it's going to take to solve it.

  As a result, smart marketers don't market to this audience by saying, "hey, ours is better than theirs!"

  If this group thought that they had a solvable problem, the would have solved it already.

  No, they won't respond to a better-than-them pitch. Instead, they're much more likely to respond to a new statement of their problem and a new statement of the solution. Don't ask them to announce that they were wrong when they decided that they didn't need a tablet, a survival kit or an anti-impotence drug. Instead, make it easy for them to make a new decision based on new information.

  

• Ticket update for May 16

  Posted: April 19, 2012, 7:18 pm by Seth Godin

  The premium tickets for my NY gig have already sold out and there are no more student tickets either. Sorry to disappoint.

  Early Bird tickets end on Sunday, the 22nd. And the six-pack remains your best buy. All the details are here. Thanks.

  

• Bandits and philanthropists

  Posted: April 19, 2012, 12:41 pm by Seth Godin

  The web is minting both, in quantity.

  Bandits want something for nothing. They take. They take free content where they can find it. They fight for anonymity, for less community involvement. They want more than their fair share, and they walk past the busker, because they can hear him playing real good, for free.

  The spammer is a bandit, stealing your attention because he can get away with it, and leaving nothing in return.

  Philanthropists see a platform for giving. They support the tip jar. They argue for community standards and yes, for taxes that are more fair to the community. They support artists online, and when they can, they buy the book.

  The artist who creates a video that touches you, or an infographic that informs you--she's giving more than she gets, leaving the community better than it was before she got there.

  Both types have been around forever, of course. But the web magnifies the edges. It's easier than ever to be a free rider, to make your world smaller and to take. And easier than ever to be a big time contributor, even if you don't have any money. You can contribute your links or your attention or your energy...

  The fascinating thing for me is how much more successful and happy the philanthropists are. It turns out that when you make the world smaller, you get to keep more of what you've got, but you end up earning a lot less (respect, connections, revenue) at the same time.

  

• Two ways to buy the expensive

  Posted: April 18, 2012, 12:05 pm by Seth Godin

  Buying something like a house, a piece of fine art, a used car or a business is as much a marketing exercise as selling that very item might be.

  There are two common approaches. The first is to denigrate.

  Explain that the seller has bad taste. That the car isn't in good shape. That the art was poorly selected for the resale market. Poke holes in the business model, the management team or the landscaping design.

  Better still, make the seller feel as though she's on thin ice. Bring an exploding offer to the table and watch her squirm as it goes down in value from day to day. Point to others that have waited too long to sell and how they ended up regretting it. Question her values and her judgment.

  In other words, go for the win, where winning is defined as getting a great price.

  There are two problems with this approach. The first, and the biggest, is that anything you truly want to buy probably has multiple buyers interested, and with better information available every day, the best stuff is going to be sold to someone else. Your denigration strategy is going to inevitably limit your pool of available items to sellers with self-esteem or desperation issues.

  The second problem is that the word spreads. Your gallery or your buyout fund or your dealership quickly earns a reputation (there's that marketing thing again) as the buyer of last resort, once again creating an environment where your approach determines what's available to you.

  The alternative is to respect and to communicate. After all, you're here to buy something--I'm guessing that's because you think it's worth something more than you're willing to pay for it. So value the judgment and taste of the seller. Be clear about what you like about it, be honest about the value that's been created. Even better, instead of coming in high and then figuring out ways to bully and lower your offer, come in low and enjoy the process of bidding it up, making the seller root for you and look forward to hearing from you. (This is particularly useful when making an investment where you want management to be happy with you after the deal is done).

  In a fair market, it's entirely likely you'll end up paying precisely what you would have paid using the other method, but you'll be offered more works, more stuff worth paying for, and your reputation will reflect that. Most of all it's important to understand that we're not talking about bushels of wheat. Very little is a commodity, and the method you use to buy your expensive item may be even more important than how much you pay.

  

• "I was just kidding"

  Posted: April 17, 2012, 12:10 pm by Seth Godin

  The haute couture designer who brings out a few designs that look like they came from a truck stop.

  The fancy chef who sends out a chocolate-dipped Oreo as part of dessert.

  The book designer who uses Comic Sans as the type on the cover of a prize-winning novel...

  In each case, they can get away with it because we know they're capable of so much more. In each case, the irony is apparent, they're not hacks--they're only pretending to be hacks.

  Before your digital work is shipped, you need to understand whether people will look at your blog or your lens or your ebook or your landing page and say, "hack," or "wow." It takes a while before you can claim your LOLcat or bizarre tweet was just a joke, not the acme of your taste.

  

• Come to New York on May 16th (Pick Yourself)

  Posted: April 16, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  For the first time in a long time, I'm doing an all-day public event. It's not something I do often, and I hope you'll consider coming.

  [If you know someone who might benefit, I'd appreciate it if you would forward or tweet this post].

  I'm calling it Pick Yourself and it's the culmination of months of preparation. It won't be webcast or recorded, as we've tried to create something that works best precisely because it's live--not just as a result of what I'm saying on stage, but due to the people you meet and sit next to and connect with over your challenges and projects and dreams.

  Digital scales, of course, because it spreads effortlessly and without cost. Real life, alas, doesn't work that way. What we've tried to do is create an event that's better precisely because you came, because you're in the room, because someone on a similar journey is sitting next to you. A beautiful big theatre filled with intimate one on one connections.

  Assembling a group of six (friends, colleagues or strangers) makes it even more likely that you'll come to the event ready to share and scheme and plan, taking action after it's over.

  If you're interested in coming, please read all the details and be sure to get your confirmation after you've registered in order to join the exclusive online community we're building for attendees.

  You can discover the details of the event right here.

  Early bird and group tickets are significantly less expensive than regular tickets will be in a week, so if you're interested, I hope you'll grab it now.

  See you in Tribeca.

  

• All artists are self-taught

  Posted: April 15, 2012, 12:05 pm by Seth Godin

  Techniques and skill and even a point of view are often handed down, formally or not. It's easier to get started if you're taught, of course.

  But art, the new, the ability to connect the dots and to make an impact--sooner or later, that can only come from one who creates, not from a teacher and not from a book.

  

• Lessons from Caine's Arcade

  Posted: April 14, 2012, 12:12 am by Seth Godin

  Maybe you've seen this short film.

  The first thing that made me smile was how willing Caine was to do his art regardless of how the world responded (it didn't). Caine didn't care. The goal wasn't to be accepted, the goal was to do it right.

  The second extraordinary thing is easy to miss. Around 3:30, you learn Caine's folk-arithmetic trick of using square roots to validate the PIN numbers on each fun pass. Extraordinary.

  And the third? Starting around the nine-minute mark, any entrepreneur with a heart is going to shed a few tears. In the immortal words of Caine Monroy, "and I thought they were here for me, and they were."

  

• Money scales but emotions around money don't

  Posted: April 14, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  You're not half as annoyed when you get a $25 parking ticket as you are when the fine is $50.

  An investment banker isn't twice as excited about a $20 million bonus as she is about a $10 million one.

  There are threshholds that determine how we feel about money-related events (good and bad), but beyond those threshholds, the relationships get all out of whack. Being a million dollars in debt feels about the same as being five million in the hole.

  The way you feel about more (or less) of something probably doesn't rise or fall based on how much it cost to produce that feeling.

  Marketers and organizations and the less emotional use this fact against us all the time. They understand that while the utility curve for money for a single individual can change widely over time, the value of that money to the organization is largely linear.

  

• Better than everyone

  Posted: April 13, 2012, 12:35 pm by Seth Godin

  Clay Shirky reminds us that the media business has changed. Forty years ago, your TV show only had to be better than two other shows--not every show, just the shows on the other channels. Today, of course, with a million choices, each show earns the attention it gets in every single moment.

  As I wrote in the Dip a few years ago, the only way your business wins in Google world is to be the best available option, where "best" means best for the person searching for an answer, and "available option" means everything. (Best doesn't mean most expensive or exclusive, it merely means the best choice for me, right now. You don't have to be happy about how much competition you have, but it helps to admit it.)

  

• The end of the diva paradox

  Posted: April 12, 2012, 12:54 pm by Seth Godin

  Great surgeons don't need to be respectful or have a talented, kind or alert front desk staff. They're great at the surgery part, and you're not here for the service, you're here to get well (if you believe that the surgery part is what matters). In fact, gruffness might be a clue to their skill for some.

  Great opera singers don't have to be reasonable or kind. They sing like no one else, that's why you hired them, and why they get to (are expected to) act like divas. Get over it.

  So the thinking goes.

  The traditional scarcity model implied some sort of inverse relationship between service and quality. Not for service businesses like hotels, of course, but for the other stuff. If someone was truly gifted, of course they didn't have the time or focus to also be kind or reasonable or good at understanding your needs. A diva was great partly because, we decided, she was a jerk.

  I think that's changing, possibly forever, for a bunch of reasons:

  • The state of the art is now easier to find. Word spreads about behavior and service faster than ever. As a result, customers quickly become aware of what a raw deal they're getting from this supposedly gifted individual.
  • It's so much easier to deliver better service (Dr. Diva, please send me an email if you're running late!) that we're far less forgiving.
  • Since just about any intelligent and caring person can use technology and a bit of humility to deliver better service (see above), we start to wonder whether that diva provider actually is intelligent and caring. And if he isn't, it doesn't really matter if he has some sort of skill, because uncaring hands are worth avoiding.
  • With fewer great gigs available (even in opera), it's not so easy act like a jerk (or be insulated and uncaring) and still get work.

  

• Don't give up (you're on the right track)

  Posted: April 11, 2012, 12:45 pm by Seth Godin

  Wrestling with a puzzle, a project or a problem, the likeliest reason to give up is the belief that it can't be done. What's the point of persevering if it's actually impossible to succeed?

  "It can't be done," we say, throwing up our hands. Not "I can't do it," or "It's not worth my time," but "It can't be done."

  In the year after Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile, the record was broken again and again. Once people realized it could be done, it wasn't an impossible task any longer. And that's why there's a flood of tablets on the market, many from companies that had what they needed to build the first one, but didn't until Apple showed them the way.

  Two things you might take away from this: First, there's solace in finding someone who has done it before, whatever "it" is you're trying to do. Knowing that it's possible and studying how it was done can't help but increase the chances you'll stick it out.

  Second: huge value accrues to the few able to actually do a thing for the very first time.

  

• It's easier to go faster now than it is to go faster later

  Posted: April 10, 2012, 12:55 pm by Seth Godin

  This rule is true for any company that is growing.

  If you're in a race, race now, because early leads and early gains compound, and because coordination issues in bigger organizations always slow you down.

  

• Is everyone entitled to their opinion?

  Posted: April 9, 2012, 12:41 pm by Seth Godin

  Perhaps, but that doesn't mean we need to pay the slightest bit of attention.

  There are two things that disqualify someone from being listened to:

  1. Lack of Standing. If you are not a customer, a stakeholder or someone with significant leverage in spreading the word, we will ignore you. And we should.

  When you walk up to an artist and tell her you don't like her painting style, you should probably be ignored. If you've never purchased expensive original art, don't own a gallery and don't write an influential column in ArtNews, then by all means, you must be ignored.

  If you're working in Accounts Payable and you hate the company's new logo, the people who created it should and must ignore your opinion. It just doesn't matter to anyone but you.

  I'm being deliberately harsh here for a reason. If we're going to do great work, it means that some people aren't going to like it. And if the people who don't like it don't have an impact on what happens to the work after it's complete, the only recourse of someone doing great work is to ignore their opinion.

  2. No Credibility. An opinion needs to be based on experience and expertise. I know you don't like cilantro, but whether or not you like it is not extensible to the population at large. On the other hand, if you have a track record of matching the taste sensibility of my target market, then I very much want to hear what you think.

  People with a history of bad judgment, people who are quick to jump to conclusions or believe in unicorns or who have limited experience in the market--these people are entitled to opinions, but it's not clear that the creator of the work needs to hear them. They've disqualified themselves because the method they use for forming opinions about how the market will respond is suspect. The scientific method works, and if you're willing to suspend it at will and just go with your angry gut, we don't need to hear from you.

  If these two standards sound like precisely the opposite of what gets you on talk radio or active in anonymous chat rooms, you're right. Running your business or your campaign or your non-profit or your sports team based on what you hear on talk radio is nuts.

  

• Twitch

  Posted: April 8, 2012, 12:09 pm by Seth Godin

  If you're scouting for a first baseman, you should keep your eyes open for someone with good twitch skills. Insanely fast reflexes, the ability to snatch a ball out of the air, someone who might not be able to run a marathon but is insanely quick with no notice.

  Twitch skills used to be rarely needed in the business world. There were certainly people on trading desks or in air traffic control towers who had to have the ability to shoot first and ask questions later, but generally, we rewarded those that could find and stick to the long line.

  Not sure if you've noticed, but in the last twelve months, the social internet is emphasizing twitch more than ever before. All that smart phone checking and checking in and name checking and instant rejoindering is amplifying the work of those that are just a little quicker than everyone else.

  Twitch is very satisfying. You can go home knowing that you volleyed everything there was to volley that day, that you played the digital cards you were dealt beautifully, that you gained a few followers and a little respect. Twitch is a constant adrenaline rush, during which you have to plan very little and take responsibility for less. Turn inbound into outbound...

  Here's the thing: While twitch may pay off in any ten minute cycle, I'm not sure if it gets you very far in the long run, where the long run might be as short as two weeks.

  

• On making a ruckus in your industry

  Posted: April 7, 2012, 12:25 pm by Seth Godin

  Bring forward a new idea or technology that disrupts and demands a response

  Change pricing dramatically

  Redefine a service as a product (or vice versa)

  Organize the disorganized, connect the disconnected

  Alter the speed to market radically

  Change the infrastructure, the rules or the flow of information

  Give away what used to be expensive and charge for something else

  Cater to the weird, bypassing the masses

  Take the lead on ethics

  (Or you could just wait for someone to tell you what they want you to do)

  

• In the palm of your hand

  Posted: April 6, 2012, 12:14 pm by Seth Godin

  A successful project might very well lead to having your customers, your vendors or your employees eating out of the palm of your hand--aware of your wishes and eager to do what you ask.

  Now what are you going to do?

  This is always a temporary state. Abuse it and it's over, fast.

  I think it comes down to whether you ask them to do things that are good for you or good for them.

  

• Organized bravery

  Posted: April 5, 2012, 12:09 pm by Seth Godin

  The purpose of the modern organization is to make it easy and natural and expected for people to take risks. To lean out of the boat. To be human.
  
  Alas, most organizations do the opposite. They institutionalize organized cowardice. They give their people cover, a place to hide, a chance to say, “that’s not my job.”

  Our organizations are filled with people not only eager to dehumanize those that they serve, but apparently, instructed to do so. In the name of shareholder value or team play or not rocking the boat...

  During times of change, the only organizations that thrive are those that are eager to interact and change as well. And that only happens when individuals take brave steps forward.

  Giving your team cover for their cowardice is foolish. Give them a platform for bravery instead.

  

• When execution gets cheaper, so should planning

  Posted: April 4, 2012, 12:31 pm by Seth Godin

  If you're going to build a $10 million skyscraper, by all means, plan and prototype and discuss and plan some more.

  On the other hand, if the cost of finding out is a phone call, make the call. No need to spend a lot of time planning how to call or when to call or which phone to use when execution is fast and cheap.

  The digital revolution has, as in so many other areas, flipped the equation here. The cost of building digital items is plummeting, but our habit is to plan anyway (because failure bothers us, and we focus on the feeling of failure, not the cost).

  The goal should be to have the minimum number of meetings and scenarios and documentation necessary to maximize the value of execution. As it gets faster and easier to actually build the thing, go ahead and make sure the planning (or lack of it) keeps pace.

  

• Updated: new editions of Stop Stealing Dreams

  Posted: April 3, 2012, 10:31 pm by Seth Godin

  The free ebook (free as in free to read and share) now has two new audio editions, a French edition, one for readers in Brazil and yes, a bumper sticker that summarizes the book in 12 square inches (what three words would you use?). It's available to read on your screen, to print out and to read on your Nook or Kindle. People have turned it into online discussions and are working on other translations, including Polish and Italian too.

  If you haven't read it yet, check it out. If you have, feel free to share.

  

• If your happiness is based on always getting a little more than you've got...

  Posted: April 3, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  then you've handed control over your happiness to the gatekeepers, built a system that doesn't scale and prevented yourself from the brave work that leads to a quantum leap.

  The industrial system (and the marketing regime) adore the mindset of 'a little bit more, please', because it furthers their power. A slightly higher paycheck, a slightly more famous college, an incrementally better car--it's easy to be seduced by this safe, stepwise progress, and if marketers and bosses can make you feel dissatisfied at every step along the way, even better for them.

  Their rules, their increments, and you are always on a treadmill, unhappy today, imagining that the answer lies just over the next hill...

  All the data shows us that the people on that hill are just as frustrated as the people on your hill. It demonstrates that the people at that college are just as envious as the people at this college. The never ending cycle (no surprise) never ends.

  An alternative is to be happy wherever you are, with whatever you've got, but always hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you're gone and most of all, doing important work.

  

• The coalition of No

  Posted: April 2, 2012, 11:57 am by Seth Godin

  It's easy to join.

  There are a million reasons to say no, but few reasons to stand up and say yes.

  No requires just one objection, one defensible reason to avoid change. No has many allies--anyone who fears the future or stands to benefit from the status quo. And no is easy to say, because you actually don't even need a reason.

  No is an easy way to grab power, because with yes comes responsibility, but no is the easy way to block action, to exert the privilege of your position to slow things down.

  No comes from fear and greed and, most of all, a shortage of openness and attention. You don't have to pay attention or do the math or role play the outcomes in order to join the coalition that would rather things stay as they are (because they've chosen not to do the hard work of imagining how they might be).

  And yet the coalition of No keeps losing. We live in a world of yes, where possibility and innovation and the willingness to care often triumph over the masses that would rather it all just quieted down and went back to normal.

  Yes is the new normal. And just in time.

  

• Monetization and fairness

  Posted: April 1, 2012, 12:21 pm by Seth Godin

  Years ago, before I wrote Purple Cow, purple was just another color, sitting in the back rows with orange and teal and magenta. The success of that book transformed the way the color was treated, and I watched with surprise and then delight as more and more of the world embraced the notion of purpleness.

  At some point, though, creation needs to be rewarded. Writing is a lonely and risky endeavor, and if people are able to blithely take the work of another, we'll soon run out of writers.

  Add to this problem the rampant linking that goes online. People are always linking to this blog, for example, without asking first. Not to mention those that might discuss one of my books in a meeting (at a profit-making business, no less!) without permission or payment of royalties.

  That's why today (appropriately) I'm reporting the results of several lawsuits I quietly filed over the last year. My lawyers were able to trademark the terms Purple® and Purple Cow®, and beyond that, to get a design patent on the idea of using Purple® in the marketing of a product.

  Several entities have already reached a settlement with my firm. On the international front, Radojka Glavonjić, a farmer in Serbia, is paying an ongoing royalty for publicity and endorsements surrounding her new calf. (Worth noting that it's a bull, actually).

  We were unable to reach a settlement with Prince Rogers Nelson, but he has agreed to retitle his hit song Bluish Red Rain.

  For those that might accuse me of overreaching, please consider that we took no action at all against this Purple® squirrel.

  Critics will be pleased to know that we are granting the US Army a royalty-free license to continue calling it a Purple® Heart.

  PS by reading this post, you agree to the shrinkwrap license and terms and conditions that have become used by some in the industry, and thus agree not to use the word Purple® in any conversation or memo or text or tweet without sending me one simoleon each time you do.

  I know that you, my loyal readers, will support me as I continue to pursue a fair and honest settlement with others that seek to profit from my insights and risk taking. It is, after all, the only way I can produce this blog without selling a significant number of ads. Though I may add the advertisements anyway, because more is better.

  [This was my April Fool's joke for 2012, though those that don't get the joke probably won't read this far before emailing me...]

  

• How much for a really small slice?

  Posted: March 31, 2012, 12:26 pm by Seth Godin

  When the hardware store sells you a single screw for a dime, shouldn't they just give it to you? Especially if you're a good customer?

  Shouldn't that singer (you bought all her albums) return the love? You're only asking for a few seconds, a hug, a handshake, an autograph...

  It's easier than ever to break your offering into smaller bits, into pieces that are part of the whole but are tiny on their own.

  Add up enough small slices and that's the whole cake. Asymmetry is the rule now, not the exception.

  Small slices can't be free in the long run, not if that's the only kind of slice there is.

  Either you need to figure out how to sell your small slices, or you need to invent some big slices that are obviously worth what you need to sell them for.

  

• "Too long"

  Posted: March 30, 2012, 12:09 pm by Seth Godin

  You're going to hear that more and more often.

  The movie, the book, the meeting, the memo... few people will tell you that they ran short.

  (Shorter, though, doesn't mean less responsibility, less insight or less power. It means less fluff and less hiding.)

  

• Nine ideas in search of a blog post

  Posted: March 29, 2012, 6:45 pm by Seth Godin

  Loud and angry doesn't make you right. It just means that you are loud and angry.

  I'm hosting a public event in New York City on May 16th. Save the date, registration opens April 16. More details then.

  Sore muscles mysteriously respond to being soaked in a warm bath of water mixed with epsom salt.

  "Everything will be alright" is not the same as "everything will stay the same."

  If you grow up in a town with sidewalks, a suburb without them seems somehow wrong. Design instinct is cultural, not genetic.

  I wish more people would read this post about spam and bcc email.

  An interesting milestone in US politics: more and more people don't even like the Congress members they agree with.

  One of the cheapest ways to have fun and save money is to check the air pressure in your car tires. Okay, maybe not fun, but still.

  The pet supply store near my house now has a bakery section. It's either the end of civilization or the beginning.

  

• The essential question to ask before extending your brand

  Posted: March 29, 2012, 12:44 pm by Seth Godin

  Are we doing this because it's better?

  Or because we can?

  As organizations grow, they gain an audience, revenue, cash flow and trust. They add staff and then, soon, they decide it's time to offer something new. Smuckers decides perhaps it should use its shelf space to offer a peanut butter. A corporate coach wonders if he ought to add HR consulting services. A website decides to clone a product made by a smaller company that they can bring to a larger audience...

  If you extend your reach because you can, because you have market power, you will probably be doing your existing customers a small service (centralized support or billing or just one less person to deal with) but your brand doesn't increase in stature. You had a chance to bring some of your original magic to the table (after all, it's that magic that got you started) but all you did was bully the competitors out of the way.

  On the other hand, if you extend your brand because the new offering is better, magical in the way you can make it magical, then you've dramatically increased not just your market share but your perception as well.

  Nike and Apple sometimes fit into the second category--the iPhone and some of Nike's clothing options are clearly different/better. Starbucks did it when they launched their ice cream.

  On the other hand, there are literally thousands of organizations (including non-profits) that head down the path of mediocrity by rushing to offer 57 varieties, merely to please today's shareholders, merely because they can.

  

• Why isn't it better?

  Posted: March 28, 2012, 12:08 pm by Seth Godin

  • Perhaps you don't know enough
  • Perhaps you don't care enough, or
  • Perhaps you're unable to execute because of committees, the status quo and fear

  These might be three ways to say the same thing.

  The combination of fear and ignorance (two sides of the same coin) can be paralyzing.

  

• Making big decisions about money

  Posted: March 27, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  We're bad at it. And marketers know this.

  Consider: you're buying a $30,000 car and you have the option of upgrading the stereo to the 18 speaker, 100 watt version for just $500 more. Should you?

  Or perhaps you're considering two jobs, one that you love and one that pays $2,000 more. Which to choose?

  Or...

  You are lucky enough to be able to choose between two colleges. One, the one with the nice campus and slightly more famous name, will cost your parents (and your long-term debt) about $200,000 for four years, and the other ("lesser" school) has offered you a full scholarship.

  Which should you take?

  In a surprisingly large number of cases, we take the stereo, even though we'd never buy a nice stereo at home, or we choose to "go with our heart because college is so important" and pick the expensive college. (This is, of course, a good choice to have to make, as most people can't possibly find the money).

  Here's one reason we mess up: Money is just a number.

  Comparing dreams of a great stereo (four years of driving long distances, listening to great music!) compared with the daily reminder of our cheapness makes picking the better stereo feel easier. After all, we're not giving up anything but a number.

  The college case is even more clear. $200,000 is a number that's big, sure, but it doesn't have much substance. It's not a number we play with or encounter very often. The feeling about the story of compromise involving something tied up in our self-esteem, though, that feeling is something we deal with daily.

  Here's how to undo the self-marketing. Stop using numbers.

  You can have the stereo if you give up going to Starbucks every workday for the next year and a half. Worth it?

  If you go to the free school, you can drive there in a brand new Mini convertible, and every summer you can spend $25,000 on a top-of-the-line internship/experience, and you can create a jazz series and pay your favorite musicians to come to campus to play for you and your fifty coolest friends, and you can have Herbie Hancock give you piano lessons and you can still have enough money left over to live without debt for a year after you graduate while you look for the perfect gig...

  Suddenly, you're not comparing "this is my dream," with a number that means very little. You're comparing one version of your dream with another version.

  

• Speechless

  Posted: March 26, 2012, 12:55 pm by Seth Godin

  Unhappiness compounds.

  Unaddressed, it compounds into frustration.

  And frustration is the soul killer, the destroyer of worker and customer relationships, loyalty and progress.

  The solution is pretty simple: address the unhappiness. Change the system or talk about the problem or acknowledge it if that's all that can be done. None of this can happen, though, unless there's communication.

  Most open door policies are window dressing. Most, "is everything okay with your dinner?" is rote. True communication, actual intention (and action) in digging deeper, is difficult work. If it doesn't feel like you're working at it, you're probably not doing it right.

  

• "I don't see it"

  Posted: March 25, 2012, 12:57 pm by Seth Godin

  Venture capital, marketing and pop culture are largely about pattern matching. Something happens, something else happens and it's the beginning of a trend.

  Some people (like Clive Davis and Fred Wilson, to pick two) see the trends before others, often without being able to verbalize them.

  If you are around people who are able to understand these things before you are, it's worthwhile to call yourself on it, and see if you can get into some discussions about what they see that you don't. I get particularly restless if it's obvious that there's something going on but I can't see it. I can't move on until I see it too.

  The more often you match patterns, the better you get.

  

• Episode markers

  Posted: March 24, 2012, 12:53 pm by Seth Godin

  Our lives are lived in compartments, like panels in a cartoon strip.

  Where you sit and when you leave and how you walked in--they are all markers, ways we space things out. Walking into the doctor's office or the principal's office or the parole office are physical acts that change our psyche.

  Don't underestimate the power of having a customer walk into the dressing room or on stage or to the cash register. Don't forget that as soon as your audience walked into the conference room, they changed.

  One way to change the story, then, is to change the markers. To move people from one spot to another when you want them to change their attitude (inside the movie theatre is very different from the popcorn-sales counter in the lobby).

  I'm serious. Get up and move. Start fresh. [Bonus: the cartoon version!]

  

• Extending the narrative

  Posted: March 23, 2012, 12:18 pm by Seth Godin

  Did you wake up fresh today, a new start, a blank slate with resources and opportunities... or is today yet another day of living out the narrative you've been engaged in for years?

  For all of us, it's the latter. We maintain our worldview, our biases, our grudges and our affections. We nurse our grudges and see the very same person (and situation) in the mirror today that we did yesterday. We may have a tiny break, a bit of freshness, but no, there's no complete fresh start available to us.

  Marketers have been using this persistence to their advantage forever. They sell us a car or a trip or a service that fits the story we tell ourselves. I don't buy it because it's the right thing for everyone, I buy it because it's right for me, the us I invented, the I that's part of the story I've been telling myself for a long time.

  The socialite walks into the ski shop and buys a $3000 ski jacket she'll wear once. Why? Not because she'll stay warmer in it more than a different jacket, but because that's what someone like her does. It's part of her story. In fact, it's easier for her to buy the jacket than it is to change her story.

  If you went to bed as a loyal company man or an impatient entrepreneur or as the put-upon retiree or the lady who lunches, chances are you woke up that way as well. Which is certainly safe and easy and consistent and non-confusing. But is it helping?

  We dismiss the mid-life crisis as an aberration to be avoided or ridiculed, as a dangerous blip in a consistent narrative. But what if we had them all the time? What if we took the resources and trust and momentum that helps us but decided to let the other stuff go?

  It's painful to even consider giving up the narrative we use to navigate our life. We vividly remember the last time we made an investment that didn't match our self-story, or the last time we went to the 'wrong' restaurant or acted the 'wrong' way in a sales call. No, that's too risky, especially now, in this economy.

  So we play it safe and go back to our story.

  The truth though, is that doing what you've been doing is going to get you what you've been getting. If the narrative is getting in the way, if the archetypes you've been modeling and the worldview you've been nursing no longer match the culture, the economy or your goals, something's got to give.

  When decisions roll around--from what to have for breakfast, to whether or not to make that investment to what TV show (or none) to watch on TV tonight, the question to ask is: Is this a reflex that's part of my long-told story, or is this actually a good decision? When patterns in engagments with the people around you become well-worn and ineffective, are they persistent because they have to be, or because the story demands it?

  

• Clearing the decks

  Posted: March 22, 2012, 12:23 pm by Seth Godin

  SwissMiss points to a great infographic about how professional photographers actually spend their time.

  

  Part of the magic (and the risk) of the internet is that if you want to, you can use your access to tools, markets and media to go even further in the direction of the chart on the right. You can become your own booker, accountant, publicist and more. Hey, it's free! You get to keep all the money!

  Of course, it also means you don't get to spend very much time at all doing what you set out to do in the first place, which is shoot pictures, or write music or coach or whatever it was.

  The other thing you can do is find the guts and resources to move even more to the left. Hire other people (at huge expense) to do all those things you certainly could do on your own, so you can actually do the work you were born to do.

  One thing to consider: finding and retaining a great salesperson is more difficult than you might think, since a great salesperson might very well contribute even more value than you do.

  

• Confidence without guts

  Posted: March 22, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  Too many MBAs are sent into the world with bravado and enthusiasm and confidence.

  The problem is that they also lack guts.

  Guts is the willingness to lose. To be proven wrong, or to fail.

  No one taught them guts in school. So much money at stake, so much focus on the numbers and on moving up the ladder, it never occurs to anyone to talk about the value of failure, of smart risk, of taking a leap when there are no guarantees.

  It's easy to be confident when you have everything aligned, when the moment is perfect. It's also not particularly useful.

  

• Getting confused about causation and correlation

  Posted: March 21, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  Have you noticed that in most cities, every time there are lots of umbrellas, it's raining?

  From this analysis, the obvious way to make it rain is to be sure that everyone has an umbrella, preferably a black one, since that seems to be the kind that's most visible during big storms.

  The trappings of successful marketing (or successful anything for that matter) aren't always the causes. Sometimes they are the caused. Just because Apple did something doesn't mean that it was responsible for Apple's success. It may be that they were successful despite some of the things they did, not because of them.

  

• ʎssǝɯ os ʇou sı lɐʇıƃıp

  Posted: March 20, 2012, 12:54 pm by Seth Godin

  The real world is messy. Signs hang at funny angles (or upside down). There's dirt in the corner. Cables are in disarray.

  In the digital world, when something is out of place, we notice it.

  It's a mistake to believe that messiness is always a bad thing. The organic feng shui of the real world gives us comfort, it makes things feel real or special or treasured.

  Over time, our digital footprints add up and create a cyber world that starts to take on some of that very same messiness. Change a font or a layout or where something is, and it bothers us.

  You can take advantage of that need for comfort by making your digital work a little less sterile, a bit less squared off.

  

• When should we add marketing?

  Posted: March 19, 2012, 12:02 pm by Seth Godin

  In the Mad Men era, we added marketing last. Marketing and advertising were the same thing, and the job was to promote what was made.

  In the connection era, the marketing is the product, the service and most of all the conversations it causes and the connections it makes.

  Marketing is the first thing we do, not the last. Build virality and connection and remarkability into your product or service from the start and then the end gets a lot easier. Build it into your app, your book, your movie, your insurance policy, and the red soles of your shoes.

  What if the product is boring, someone asks...

  Well, you get to decide what you make. If you're entering a competitive field and you intend to grow, the best plan is to revisit your starting assumption and make something else.

  

• The ironic truth about sincerity

  Posted: March 18, 2012, 12:45 pm by Seth Godin

  No one cares how much you care.

  That salesperson who will surely die if he doesn't close this sale, that painter who is sweating blood to get her idea on the canvas, that student who just pulled an all-nighter...

  In fact, we're hyper alert to the appearance of caring. We want to do business with people who appear to care, who appear to bring care and passion and dedication to their work. If the work expresses caring, if you consistently and professionally deliver on that expression, we're sold.

  The truth is that it's what we perceive that matters, not what you bring to the table. If you care but your work doesn't show it, you've failed. If you care so much that you're unable to bring quality, efficiency and discernment to your work, we'll walk away from it.

  And the irony? The best, most reliable way to appear to care when it matters--is to care.

  

• Fifty is the new thirty

  Posted: March 17, 2012, 12:15 pm by Seth Godin

  Baby boomers continue to redefine our culture, because there's just so many of us, we're used to being the center of attention.

  Add into that the fact that we're living much longer and careers are becoming more flexible and it's pretty clear that in just about every cultural respect, fifty year olds are living, acting and looking more like thirty year olds every day.

  This changes more than personal financial planning. It changes the marketing of every service and product aimed at consumers--and yet most traditional advertisers are stuck in the mindset that thirty is the end of your chance to find a new customer or build a new brand.

  

• Specific promises, kept

  Posted: March 16, 2012, 12:32 pm by Seth Godin

  We live in a vague world. And it gets vaguer all the time. There are so many waffle words, so many equivocations, so many ways to sort of say what we kind of intend to possibly do...

  In this environment, the power of the specific, measurable and useful promise made and kept is difficult to overstate. And if you can do it regularly, on time and without a fuss, we will notice.

  [If it's not working for you, perhaps you need to make and keep bigger promises. "Service excellence is our goal," doesn't count.]

  

• We say we want a revolution...

  Posted: March 15, 2012, 12:22 pm by Seth Godin

  Of course, what we say doesn't matter so much. What we do is what matters, and we have far more influence that we'd like to confess.

  We say we want local merchants to offer great service, deep selection and community values, but we cross the street to the big box store to save $3.

  We say we want companies to honor their promises and act transparently, but one new product or big discount from a business that has deceived us in the past and we come right back for more.

  We say we're disgusted with Congress, but almost all of us vote to re-elect the dufus we sent there in the first place.

  We say we hate spam, but we send it. And sometimes buy from it.

  We say we'd like people to think first and act later, but we get cut off in traffic and all bets are off.

  We say we love art, the brave work that touches us, but we listen to oldies and rarely head out to hear live music or visit a cutting edge gallery.

  Hypocrisy may be an epidemic, but the problem isn't in what we say. It's what we do.

  

• Speaking when they care (reorganizing the economics and attitude of customer service)

  Posted: March 14, 2012, 12:49 pm by Seth Godin

  Advertisers struggle to be heard through the noise. Customer service reps, on the other hand, can whisper.

  A few organizations have figured out how to turn customer service into a marketing opportunity and thus a profit center. They figure if they've got your attention, if they're talking to you at a moment when you care a great deal, they can turn that into an opportunity to delight. And being delighted is remarkable and worth talking about.

  That means that if your organization has a stall, deny and avoid policy when it comes to customer interaction, you will almost certainly be defeated if a competitor comes up with a scalable way to delight.

  Overseas call centers and online chat handled by untrained workers with no incentives seem like clever ways to cut costs during stressful times. What they actually are is scalable engines of annoyance, time-sucking processeses that raise expectations and then totally dash them. Better to not even have a phone number. (You can't call Google but you don't want to call Adobe--which one generates more animus--the inability to call, or the promise, unfilled, of respect and thoughtful help?)

  Or consider: Some airlines are starting to realize that a delayed or cancelled flight is actually a chance to earn some remarkability. In the two hours that someone is stranded, they're paying very careful attention to your brand. What are you doing? Notifying them by email that the flight is late, offering them free wifi, even giving them a link to a free book or movie online--none of that costs more than caring...all of them important opportunities to be heard and remembered.

  Investing in delight via customer service is cheap to experiment with and easy to prove. Just siphon off 1% of your calls to a trained person who actually cares and wants to help--and see what happens to customer satisfaction and word of mouth. Cancel a few TV ads and you can pay for it--soon it will pay for itself.

  

• The mathematical impossibility of universal delight

  Posted: March 13, 2012, 12:04 pm by Seth Godin

  Jack Nicholson calls it, "rabbit ears."

  If you're hyper-aware of what others are thinking, if you're looking for criticism, the unhappy audience member and the guy who didn't get the joke, you will always find what you're seeking.

  For it to be any other way, you'd either have to be invisible or performing for a totally homogeneous audience.

  Invisible is an option, of course. You can lay low, not speak up and make no difference to anyone.

  That's sort of like dividing by zero, though. You'll get no criticism, but no delight either.

  As for finding a homogeneous audience, good luck with that. The one thing that's true of all people is that they are different from one another. What delights one enrages the other.

  Part of the deal.

  

• The extraordinary software development manager

  Posted: March 12, 2012, 12:02 pm by Seth Godin

  Being good at programming is insufficient qualification for becoming a world class software project manager/leader. Too often, we take our best coders and turn them into incompetent managers because it seems like a logical next step, and because we don't pay adequate attention to what we really want from these critical executives. (Hint, this is about many fields, not merely software).

  1. Clients want useful visibility into the future in terms of costs, timing and deliverables
  
  in fact, it's almost impossible to be too clear, to benchmark enough and most of all, to overdo the work of identifying forks in the road when it comes to decision making. When a client hires a developer or a company embarks on a software project, they are lost. Even something as complex as building a house is dwarfed by the rapid change, shifting priorities and most of all, the requirement for the new, that's involved in even a simple software project.

  The indispensable software development manager is aware of this and lays it all out for us.

  2. Code is going to be used, reviewed, updated and inspected by people other than the person writing it
  
  At some point in the next [insert time frame], a dozen people we have never met will either be updating or using this code, whether they are people we hire or people we partner with. It's tempting to question the value of an organized architecture and clear code commenting, but again, it's almost impossible for an organization to overdo this. We don't have time to do it over so we have to spend the time to do it right. In software programming only the amateur's approach rewards speed over long-term usability.
  
  3. A great programmer is worth thirty times as much as a good one.
  
  Which means that hiring a good programmer in a competitive field is a killer error. It also means that managing a programmer in a way that accepts 'good' will lead to a fail as well.
  
  4. Programming at scale is more like building a skyscraper than putting together a dinner party

  Architecture in the acquisition of infrastructure and tools is one of the highest leverage pieces of work a tech company can do. Smart architecture decisions will save  hundreds of thousands of dollars and earn millions. We'll only make those decisions if we can clearly understand our options.

  Or, you can have some newbies hack something together real quick. Up to you.

  

• "It's not business, it's personal"

  Posted: March 11, 2012, 12:56 pm by Seth Godin

  It's too easy to blame the organization and the system and the bottom line for decisions that a person would never be willing to take responsibility for.

  Whenever you can, work with people who take it personally.

  

• Learning from four viral events

  Posted: March 10, 2012, 11:32 pm by Seth Godin

  March 2012 is a big month for viral ideas that change the way people think about more than just LOLcats. Here are four that happened in the last week or two and each brings its own lessons:

  Marilyn Hagerty's review of the local Olive Garden was a huge Twitter sensation, an easy target for ironists in search of something to snark about. The octogenarian (as much fun to type as it is to say) was fabulous in her refusal to take the bait, and this is a classic Internet meme, here today, gone tomorrow. One lesson: you can't count on media stories to pop, and when they do, they are not worth much to the media companies that publish them. You need more than one to make it a business.

  The Kony video is the fastest-spreading internet video of all time, and one that is much harder to pigeonhole than an Olive Garden review. The most important takeaway is that this overwhelming pop is unlikely to ever happen this way again. A video this long, on this complex (and previously little known) a topic, for a non-profit--no, this is the exception that proves a bunch of rules. I have no doubt that the success of the video (seen by more people than any single TV show this week) will lead many organizations astray in the naive belief that they can emulate this one. If a non-profit board decides to spend precious resources on a video hoping it will change the world in three days, I think they're misguided.

  I don't have the stats of time watched, but my confident guess is that the vast majority of viewers only lasted a few minutes. It's also worth noting that 60,000,000 or more views led to significantly less than a dime donated (on average) per viewer, and that unlike Dollar Shave Club, there was no well-rehearsed method to turn a viewer into a fan into a donor into a repeat donor.

  I'm hopeful that good causes and complicated ideas benefit from rapid viral spread among strangers moving forward. My fear is that this looks like an easy shortcut, and it's not.

  One thing we can learn, I think, is that production values are rising. For an idea to spread, it's more important than ever that the sneezer (the one spreading the idea) feels comfortable enough to send it along. In the case of the Olive Garden, the sneering tweeter could do so feeling comfortably superior. In the Kony video, the production values were a clue that the story was safe to share.

  Dollar Shave Club isn't just a clever online video, it's a business. Of the four, it's the one that was most intentional and was best designed to lead to long-term success. The key distinction: Use the viral spread to gain a permission asset. Then, turn that asset into a profitable business.

  Here's how they did it:

  First, realize that razors are boring and expensive and that buying them is a bit of a hassle. If you address all three of these issues for the consumer, you don't need to deliver a better razor in order to succeed--all that's necessary is a better way to get the razor in the hands of the buyer. The model of permission is at the heart of the project--the razor business can't possibly pay off if consumers only buy one or two times and then get bored. Instead, Dollar earns the right to send you a bunch of razors every month forever, making the value of a new customer very high. They can invest that value into a clever video and into aggressive pricing. Also very smart: The affiliate program doesn't encourage you to pimp your friends to make money for yourself. Instead, they politely remind you that if you share their affiliate link, you get free razors, the very thing you're encouraging your friends to buy. The symmetry is compelling and successful.

  And finally, my free ebook Stop Stealing Dreams continues to spread, with tens of thousands of new readers every day. There's no doubt I could have dramatically increased the number of viral engagements if I had made a video instead, and if I had created some sort of deadline (free this week only!). On the other hand, one lesson from this sort of gradual viral spread is that while it doesn't happen overnight, it can spread for months or even years into the future.

  Here are two books on the topic, a new one by Dan Zarrella and an older one by me.

  

• Information density

  Posted: March 10, 2012, 12:36 pm by Seth Godin

  How many choices should your customers have? How much information should be presented, how many dials are there to turn, how quickly are you asking for people to grasp concepts and make choices? Consider two options:

  When talking to an amateur, to a stranger, to a newbie, to someone who isn't committed, the best path is clarity, which means simplicity. Few choices, no guessing, no hunting around.

  When talking to a fellow professional, to a peer, to someone in the same groove as you, the goal is to maximize useful density of choice. Put as much power in the hands of the user as possible.

  If you're a frustrated user, it's likely that the marketer/presenter/doctor has made a mistake and either split the difference in how much information and power was conveyed or missed the mark entirely in one direction or the other.

  The interface for your mail program ought to be far more information rich than the emergency kill switch at the gas station.

  The texture of your sales pitch ought to be deeper and more sophisticated for a return customer than it should be when you're selling door to door.

  The menu at a fancy restaurant should probably have more choices and more detail than one at a fast food joint.

  One of the reasons to study up on a topic is so that you can earn the right to speak and be spoken to in shorthand, and to be given the pro version of the dashboard. And if you're entering a market, consider offering a super-simple data-poor version if the competition is focused on complexity, or offering a power version if the competition is in a race to offer the user as little as possible.

  

• Conflicted

  Posted: March 9, 2012, 12:14 pm by Seth Godin

  Everything we do that's important is the result of conflict. Not a conflict between us and the world--a conflict between us and ourselves.

  We want to eat another dessert but we want to be healthy and skinny as well. Who is we? Who is the self in self control, and who is being controlled?

  We want to stand up and make difference and we want to sit down and hide and be safe.

  We want to help others and we want to keep more for ourselves.

  It's not a metaphor, it's brain chemistry. We don't have one mind, we have competing interests, all duking it out.

  This conflict, the conflict between I and me, is at the heart of being human. One side sells the other. Like all kinds of marketing, it's far more effective if you know your audience. You will do a better job of telling a story (to yourself) if you understand who you are marketing to. In this case, I is marketing to me (and vice versa). The marketing is going on in your head...

  Successful people have discovered how to be better at self marketing.

  

• Sovereignty and the new world--the end of nations?

  Posted: March 8, 2012, 12:07 pm by Seth Godin

  Geography mattered a great deal when resources were in the ground, people had trouble moving long distances and trade was primarily local.

  Now, of course, ideas spread fast, and so does money.

  Which means that national sovereignty over geography isn't nearly as important as it was. Governments are going to fight a long (and ultimately) losing battle for control.

  Multi-national corporations have the upper hand. They have long horizons and better lawyers.

  And ideas? Ideas are even more difficult to control than people are.

  

• A habit of attention

  Posted: March 7, 2012, 12:21 pm by Seth Godin

  At the core of permission marketing is the efficiency of earning, maintaining and leveraging attention.

  If you don't have to begin anew each time, you can cut the effort and spending you're putting into reaching strangers. And if the consumer can trust that you won't waste her time, she can spend more time on productive work and less time sorting offers to see what's worth looking at.

  The method for accomplishing this: make promises and keep them. Make an offer and then follow through. Don't waste my time.

  The advanced method: intentionally design your communications to create a habit of attention. Habits are hard to form and even harder to break, and when properly constructed, they can benefit both sides.

  

• Doing it wrong, relentlessly

  Posted: March 6, 2012, 9:50 pm by Seth Godin

  According to this post by Neil Patel, I blog incorrectly--missing on at least 7 of his twelve rules.

  On purpose.

  I'm not writing to maximize my SEO or conversion or even my readership. I'm writing to do justice to the things I notice, to the ideas in my head and to the people who choose to read my work.

  The interesting lesson: One way to work the system is to work the system. The other way is to refuse to work it.

  

• Three masters

  Posted: March 6, 2012, 12:40 pm by Seth Godin

  You can focus on serving your existing customer base by keeping your promises, understanding their needs and organically growing your constituency.

  You can focus on acquiring another customer base, on making a different promise to a bigger or more attractive group.

  Or you can focus on serving your muse, on making the song in your head real, regardless of who wants to hear it.

  Worth noting that you can successfully choose among the three, as long as you're consistent in your actions and goals.

  

• Fear, scarcity and value

  Posted: March 5, 2012, 12:41 pm by Seth Godin

  The things we fear are probably feared by others, and when we avoid them, we're doing what others are doing as well.

  Which is why there's a scarcity of whatever work it is we're avoiding.

  And of course, scarcity often creates value.

  The shortcut is simple: if you're afraid of something, of putting yourself out there, of creating a kind of connection or a promise, that's a clue that you're on the right track. Go, do that.

  

• Why lie?

  Posted: March 4, 2012, 12:02 pm by Seth Godin

  "We've decided to hire someone with totally different skills than yours..." and then they hire someone just like you, but more expensive and not as good.

  "We're not going to buy a car this month, my husband wants to wait..." and then you see them driving a new car from that other dealer, the one with the lousy reputation.

  "I'm just not interested..." and then you see the new RFP, one you could have helped them write to get a more profitable and productive outcome.

  People lie to salesmen all the time. We do it because salespeople have trained us to, and because we're afraid.

  Prospects (people like us) lie in many situations, because when we announce that we''ve made the decision to hire someone else, or when we tell the pitching entrepreneur we don't like her business model, or when we clearly articulate why we're not going to do business, the salesperson responds by questioning the judgment of the prospect.

  In exchange for telling the truth, the prospect is disrespected.

  Of course we don't tell the truth--if we do, we're often bullied or berated or made to feel dumb.

  Is it any surprise that it's easier to just avoid the conflict altogether? Of course, there's an alternative, but it requires confidence and patience on the part of the seller and marketer.

  Someone who chooses not to buy from you isn't stupid. They're not unable to process ideas logically, nor are they unethical or manipulated by others. No, it's simpler than that:

  Given what they know and what they believe, the prospect is making exactly the right decision.

  We always make our decision based on what we know and believe. That's a tautology, based on the definition... a decision is the path you take based on what you know and believe, right?

  The challenge, then, it seems to me, is to realize that perhaps the prospect knows something you don't, or, just as likely, doesn't believe what you believe. Your job as a marketer is to figure out what your prospect's biases and worldview and fears and beliefs are, and as a salesperson, your job is to help them know what you know.

  If you keep questioning our judgment, we're going to keep lying to you.

  

• My first recommended book list of 2012

  Posted: March 3, 2012, 5:13 pm by Seth Godin

  I think that books remain the tool of choice for changing the discussion and for impacting the way people think. There's really no better way for an individual to speak up with authority.

  I hope you find something on this list that resonates with you.

  And if you haven't read it yet, don't forget to download my new free ebook, Stop Stealing Dreams. After a week, it's been tweeted more than 4,000 times, with over 100,000 readers and more than 22,000 search matches.

  

• Finishing well

  Posted: March 3, 2012, 12:42 pm by Seth Godin

  It's not enough to finish the checklist, to hurriedly do the last three steps and declare victory.

  In fact, the last coat of polish and the unhurried delivery of worthwhile work is valued all out of proportion to the total amount of effort you put into the project.

  It doesn't matter how many designers, supply chains, workers, materials and factories were involved--if the box is improperly sealed, that's how you will be judged.

  

• Sight reading

  Posted: March 2, 2012, 12:28 pm by Seth Godin

  When I played clarinet in high school, I never practiced. I blamed it on my dog, who howled, but basically I was a lousy music student.

  At my weekly lesson, though, the teacher would scold me, guessing that I'd only practiced three or four hours the week before. I was so good at sight reading that while I was truly mediocre at the clarinet, I was way better than anyone who had never practiced had any right to be.

  We often test sight reading skills, particularly in job interviews. In that highly-charged encounter, we test the applicant's ability to think on her feet. That's a great idea if the job involves a lot of feet thinking, but otherwise, you're inspecting for the wrong thing, aren't you? Same with a first date. Marketing yourself to a new person often involves being charismatic, clever and quick--but most jobs and most relationships are about being consistent, persistent and brave, no?

  

• Ashamed to not know

  Posted: March 1, 2012, 12:33 pm by Seth Godin

  Society changes when we change what we're embarrassed about.

  In just fifty years, we've made it shameful to be publicly racist.

  In just ten years, someone who professes to not know how to use the internet is seen as a fool.

  The question, then, is how long before we will be ashamed at being uninformed, at spouting pseudoscience, at believing thin propaganda? How long before it's unacceptable to take something at face value? How long before you can do your job without understanding the state of the art?

  Does access to information change the expectation that if you can know, you will know?

  We can argue that this will never happen, that it's human nature to be easily led in the wrong direction and to be willfully ignorant. The thing is, there are lots of things that used to be human nature, but due to culture and technology, no longer are.

  

• Leap year meditation

  Posted: February 29, 2012, 2:01 pm by Seth Godin

  Once in four years, just once, perhaps we could:

  Forgive, forget, relax, care, stand out, speak up, contribute, embrace, create, make a ruckus, give credit, skip, smile, speak truth and refuse to compromise--more than we usually do. Pick just one or two and start there.

  Hey, it's just one day.

  Careful, though, it might become a habit.

  

• Fade or gain?

  Posted: February 29, 2012, 12:47 pm by Seth Godin

  An idea introduced to a population almost always fades away.

  Send 1,000 people a coupon, and perhaps 20 use it. To get more usage, you either need to ping the audience again or find a new group of people.

  This explains why marketers are always in search of new people to reach, and also insist on frequency of messaging--it maximizes the percentage of the group that is reached and minimizes the fade of the idea.

  There's an important exception to the rule of fading ideas, though. Every once in a while, an idea starts with a small population and actually reaches new users, people outside the population. Instead of the idea fading, it gains traction as it spreads. Imagine a cold getting started at an elementary school but soon the cold infects parents, teachers and the co-workers of those parents...

  Eventually, even these viral ideas fade away (if they didn't, then every single person on Earth would know about LOLcats and be into slacklining.) But before that happens, an idea spread by an excited tribe can have huge reach, particularly if it's digital.

  One mathematical cause of this viral spread is the outlier who becomes quite active in sharing the idea. This superuser might tell a hundred or a thousand or more other people about it. Using his own pulpit, reaching his own tribe, the superuser raises the average (the R0 value) to over one, causing the idea to continue spreading.

  Monday's publication of Stop Stealing Dreams has exceeded my expecations for feedback and impact. While a typical bestseller might sell 2,000 copies a day, this free manifesto was downloaded and shared more than 60,000 times since yesterday. I've gotten comments from around the world, and it's clear that the manifesto has struck a chord--and that's exactly why I wrote it. (Translations in two countries are already underway... I'll post them on the download page as they become available).

  And now the moment of truth--will the people who read it, share it? Will they take the file and email it to 5 or 50 of their peers? Will they use it to start a conversation among parents or teachers or, best of all, students?

  Thanks.

  

• "It's not prime enough"

  Posted: February 28, 2012, 12:12 pm by Seth Godin

  "That number is too even... can you make the next one even odder?"

  The thing about math is that it's right or wrong, on or off, yes or no. Seven is a prime number, there's no improving it.

  The thing about life/business/culture and the things we make and do is that they are not math.

  

• www.stopstealingdreams.com is ready to read and share

  Posted: February 27, 2012, 12:00 pm by Seth Godin

  "What do you think we ought to do about education?"

  My readers ask me that question more than just about any other. So here's my question back: What is school for? (Click the link to get to the free download).

  I've just published a 30,000 word manifesto, totally free to read, share, translate, print and, most of all, use to start an essential conversation. It took a lot to get it to you, and I'm encouraging you to take a few minutes to check it out. After you read it, perhaps you'll write one of your own.

  This is an experiment in firestarting--I'm hoping that removing friction from the sharing of this idea will help it spread. If you're interested in the topic (and I hope you are), please tweet or like the project page, download the files, post mirror copies on your own blog and if you can, email them to every teacher, parent and citizen who should be part of the discussion about what we do with our kids all day (and why). If just a fraction of this blog's readers shared it with their address book, we'd reach a lot of people.

  If you get a chance, visit the page and give a shoutout to a teacher that's made a difference to you or your kids. Ultimately, our future belongs to a generation that decides to be passionate about learning and shipping, and great teachers are the foundation for that.

  

• Stick to what you (don't) know

  Posted: February 26, 2012, 12:15 pm by Seth Godin

  One of the dumbest forms of criticism is to shout down an expert in one field who speaks up about something else. The actor with a political point of view, or the physicist who talks about philosophy. The theory is that people should stick to what they know and quietly sit by in all other situations.

  Of course, at one point, we all knew nothing. The only way you ever know anything, in fact, is to speak up about it. Outline your argument, support it, listen, revise.

  The byproduct of speaking up about what you don't know is that you soon know more. And maybe, just maybe, the experts learn something from you and your process.

  No one knows more about the way you think than you do. Applying that approach, combining your experience, taking a risk--this is what we need from you.

  

• Perfect and impossible

  Posted: February 25, 2012, 12:23 pm by Seth Godin

  The definition of a revolution: it destroys the perfect and enables the impossible.

  The music business was perfect. Radio, record chains, Rolling Stone magazine, the senior prom, limited access to recording studios, the replaceable nature of the LP, the baby boomers... it all added up to a business that seemed perfect, one that could run for ever and ever.

  The digital revolution destroyed this perfect business while enabling the seemingly impossible: easy access to the market by new musicians, a cosmic jukebox of just about every song ever recorded, music as a social connector...

  If you are in love with the perfect, prepare to see it swept away. If you are able to dream of the impossible, it just might happen.

  

• The Trip Advisor tail wagging the real world dog

  Posted: February 24, 2012, 12:32 pm by Seth Godin

  More than fifty years ago, Duncan Hines (a real guy, unlike Betty Crocker), turned the restaurant business upside down. He began certifying restaurants as clean and safe, offering a sign for roadside diners that wished to welcome travelers from out of town.

  The existence of his certification changed the way restaurants did their job.

  Today, it's sites like Trip Advisor and Yelp (among many others) that are transforming the way service businesses operate. Here's how it works: at first, a business might try to ignore the system, but then they notice their customers talking about the reviews and their competitors. So some stoop so low as to attempt to game the system, sending sock puppets and friends to post reviews. But that doesn't scale and the sites are getting smart about weeding this out.

  The only alternative? Amazing service. Working with customers in such an extraordinary way that people feel compelled to talk about it, post about it, and yes, review it. It's not an accident that Hotel Amira is one of the highest rated hotels in all of Turkey. They didn't do it with the perfect building or sumptuous suites. They did it by intentionally being remarkable at service. And yes, the Holiday Inn in Oakland has the same story. They took what they had and then they deliberately went over the top in delivering on something that never would have paid off for them in the past.

  Amplifying stories causes the stories that are built to change. Outliers are rewarded (or punished) and the weird and the wonderful are reinforced. Once people see what others are doing, it opens the door for them to do it, but with more flair.

  The web changes everything it touches, sometimes in significant ways. Travelers ranted about poor service for a generation, but once the internet makes it easy to rank and sort and connect, the service has no choice but to change. Some businesses see Yelp and others as a tax, a burden they have to pay attention to in order to stay relevant, and they grumble about it. Others see these sites as the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to deliver service (which takes guts and care, more than money) to get ahead.

  

• Ad agencies don't run many ads for themselves

  Posted: February 23, 2012, 12:41 pm by Seth Godin

  Spending money on your own account is a difficult psychological hurdle. Lots of small businesses get stuck in this chasm, happy to pitch, to network, to send out proposals and to work far into the night, but hesitate when it comes time to pay actual cash money for marketing, trade show booths or other sorts of media.

  For the bootstrapper, for the woman who has worked so hard to get to positive cash flow, it feels dangerously daring, on the verge of insanity.

  The question is: do successful businesses spend money on media, or does spending money on media make you successful?

  (I think it's some of both.)

  

• Engaging with criticism

  Posted: February 22, 2012, 12:03 pm by Seth Godin

  If you need to find out how your audience is receiving your work, it's worth considering how you've structured the interactions around criticism. Sometimes a customer has a one-off problem, a situation that is unique and a concern that has to be extinguished on the spot. More often, though, that feedback you're getting represents the way a hundred or a thousand other customers are also judging you.

  Some random ideas:

  • If you defend yourself to the customer, quickly explaining precisely why the policy is the way it is, why the product is the way it is, you are pushing the criticizer away because you're telling them they're wrong about their opinion. And they might indeed be wrong, but it's certainly not going to encourage more feedback.
  • If your front line people restate the criticism in their own words and are grateful to the customer for sharing it, everyone will benefit. You can always choose to ignore the input later.
  • If there's no way for your staff to easily send the criticism up the hierarchy, it dies before it reaches someone who can do something about it.
  • If senior people follow up with the customer with specific acknowledgment and thanks, you multiply the benefits.

  Not every company needs to do this right to succeed (Apple succeeds and does not do any of these things--and as far as I know, Bob Dylan is in the same camp), but if you believe you can benefit from a cycle of feedback, it's worth a try.

  

• The map has been replaced by the compass

  Posted: February 21, 2012, 12:23 pm by Seth Godin

  The map keeps getting redrawn, because it's cheaper than ever to go offroad, to develop and innovate and remake what we thought was going to be next. Technology keeps changing the routes we take to get our projects from here to there. It doesn't pay to memorize the route, because it's going to change soon.

  The compass, on the other hand, is more important then ever. If you don't know which direction you're going, how will you know when you're off course?

  And yet...

  And yet we spend most of our time learning (or teaching) the map, yesterday's map, while we're anxious and afraid to spend any time at all calibrating our compass.

  

• Too far from the center?

  Posted: February 20, 2012, 12:20 pm by Seth Godin

  The action used to happen at court. In France, if you wanted to get ahead, you put on your outfit, called in favors and hung out near the King, because proximity was all.

  If you're in Kibera, are you too far from Silicon Valley to write an app? If you live in New Zealand, are you too far outside the mainstream music world to perform a hit song? What about an author who lives 3,000 miles from New York?

  The magic of our new form of communication is that it's no longer one-way. If you consume an app, you can write one. If you can read a blog, you can publish one. If you can grab an ebook, you can produce one.

  The center has nothing to do with geography any longer. The center is a state of mind.