Thoughts on Seth Godin’s London Session

 

Seth Godin’s stated aim yesterday at the London Session was to ‘give us a headache’ – well, what he *did* do was give us food for thought – if he counts that as headache material! I’ve taken the table above, which he showed during his talk, from this old post of his. 

He said a lot of interesting things, most of which was drawn from his books and his blog. The more interesting part was the 2-hour long Q&A session that followed, which I kept thinking to myself was like a free consultancy session from one of the smartest marketing brains in the world. There were lots of entrepreneurs, some musicians and even a vicar in the audience, apart from the usual advertising, marketing and B2B suspects. 

So without further ado, and paraphrased in my own words, here are the main things I gleaned:

1. Ideas that spread win.

2. Some things are too important to be left to the marketing department: you need to be agile and ready to execute on-the-go. Bureaucratic delays while things are passed around from one department to another are likely to harm you in the long run. Pick it up and run!

3. As Seth says here, the TV-Industrial complex, the model that we can interrupt people with ads on TV, is over. Now people will not look at your ad or product unless they want to. And to make them to, you need to tell a story. 

4. Design stuff that people want to talk about, or stuff that they want. That’s the key to success. Not pushing something that people don’t want down their throats in the hope that sales will pick up. 

5. Turn strangers into friends before turning them into customers. Then the longevity of your product is much more of a likelihood than otherwise. 

6. The internet gives power to every individual. So like the Comcast technician found sleeping on his client’s couch, you can’t afford to be rude to someone in the hope that that will solve your problem. Seth spoke of a lady who repeatedly returned shoes she bought online but was never refused that privilege because the positive press from the larger decent majority was more important to them than the negative press they would have got if this lady shouted from the rooftops that their return policy was fake. What if her comments were numbers 1, 2 and 3 on a Google search for the company? Be Google-friendly. 

7. Does your business have a story, like LittleMissMatched, which sells pairs of socks that don’t match to school girls because it gives them something to show off to their friends?

8. Gatekeepers are no longer important. People like non-interfering middlemen who don’t try to own the situation. Like Kiva, which puts you in touch with the person you want to help directly, rather than the countless charities who decide what they want to do with your money on their own. Or Paypal. 

9. The music industry is like the Seinfeld curve, which in Seth’s words is this: 

The Seinfeld curve shows us Jerry’s life. If you like Jerry Seinfeld you can watch him on television, for free, in any city in the world two or three times a day. Or, you could pay $200 to go see him in Vegas. But there is no $4 option for Jerry Seinfeld. This is death. You can’t make any money in here. Because if you’re not scarce I’m not going to pay for it because I can get if for free. And one of the realities that the music industry is going to have to accept is this curve now exists for you. That for everybody under eighteen years old, it’s either free or it’s something I really want and I’m willing to pay for it. There is nothing in the center-it’s going away really fast.

Recognise where your product’s strengths really lie. 

10. Is your company trying to make products for customers or trying to find a customer for your products?

11. Being a heretic is not always dangerous – in fact it can sometimes reward you more than you think. Take the risk. 

12. Shun the non-believers. They are not going to like your product anyway. Instead, try to find the people who have the potential to believe. 

13.  Consumers do open themselves to interruption if you are providing information that suits them. Like DailyCandy, a site that provides opt-in information to users, which was sold for $115 million 6 months ago. 

14. Don’t bend down too low. Chiat/Day were known for rejecting clients who didn’t see things the way they saw it. And they are *STILL* known for the path-breaking Apple ad, among others. 

15. If you can create something that will attract it’s own tribe, like Apple, there’s nothing like it. 

The thing with Seth is that a lot of what he says is common sense but the way he says them and the examples he quotes are really things worth listening to. Getting inspiration and insight together – a deadly combination.