Seth Godin talk 10 September 2014 - I captured some sound bites - all the ideas are his!

1. A morning with Seth Godin
Sound bites from the morning chat
Attended via Business Chicks
10/09/14
All Seth’s work – I just captured insights!

2. Quick history of Seth
• Has written many
books
• In 90s wrote a book
“Best of the Net” – it
only sold about 1000
copies – why?
• Same time, many of
same researchers also
help build yahoo.com
• Seth didn’t look past
his own comfort levels

3. What can I do?
• Henry Ford made the middle class possible by
pioneering mass production
• People became interchangeable
– If a supermarket checkout operator is sick, they are just
replaced by another.
• Wedgewood took it further with mass production of
pottery
– He made it nice by providing windows in his factories and
they had health insurance
• He made so much money that he was able to later fund
another great innovator
– Charles Darwin who was his grandson

4. Marketing is…
• Interrupt as many as I can to sell my product
• MORE
– More likes, more followers, more noise, more
sales
• But.. Another definition of everyone is average
• Now we are solving a problem customers no
longer have!
• Cheaper is the challenge

5. Clutter
• There is so much
to choose from is
your product
going to be
missed?
http://theavantguardian.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/supermarket1.jpg
Now: there is even more music made by more musicians than ever before yet
“the music industry is dead”

6. Destroy Perfect,
Enable Impossible

7. Seth’s solution to the death of mass marketing:
Treat different people
differently
http://27gen.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/2011-bell-curve.jpg

8. The Internet
• The Internet lets us go to the edges
– A woman who loves fly fishing would one go to a
shop and could only find maybe 2 fly rods
– She now researches the ‘net, finds a site that sells
400 different fly rods and buys the bespoke,
bamboo, etched, special weighted, gold inlaid fly
rod as its different!

9. So what do we need to do?
Co-ordination Trust
Permission Exchange of ideas
Generosity Art
Work together
horizontally
and create
value
It should be a
privilege to
connect
No one wants
to connect with
someone who
is selfish or ‘a
taker’
Be valued, safe,
open
Willingness to
share, to let go, to
empower others
Exciting and
new – we don’t
connect to
boring

10. Seth’s Circle of Marketing infographic
http://topnonprofits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/circles-of-marketing-IMG-e1343994811502.png

11. Examples
Twitter
• how did you find out about it?
• Usually, someone told you as they wanted followers
• Which is what you do too?

12. • Why bookshops fail?
– They are not selling connections
– They are only selling inventory

13. Connected Economy
• The connected economy is based on
abundance… (so why do we hoard?)

14. Tribes
• Human beings like being in sync
• We are wired for it
• Find a tribe and lead them!
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one
another, connected to a leader, and connected to an
idea. For millions of years, human beings have been
part of one tribe or another. A group needs only two
things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to
communicate.”

15. FOLLOW ME
“The secret of
leadership is simple:
Do what you believe
in.
Paint a picture of the
future.
Go there.
People will follow.”
(Seth Godin)
We all hold a little bit back. That’s what we have been taught to do.

16. ART
• Living with the tension

17. Ideas…
• We need to be more comfortable about
stealing them
– We will change them
– And we will connect them
http://changeagile.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Seth-Godin-Go-make-something-happen.jpeg

18. Feedback
Shun the unbelievers
Don’t listen
Ignore the 1 star
reviews and the haters

19. Connected in an Abundance economy
• Give credit to your bosses and your peers
• Take the blame, be responsible
SHIP
• Bring your work to the market
• Change things quietly until you bring your
work to market

20. Value
• People will realise the value of what you are
doing and surprise you with what they are
willing to do
• So, GO DO….
• Whatever it is, go do it
• Success is repeatedly failing until you connect

21. Salto Mortale
• The dangerous leap
• Leaping with danger is the
only kind that matters
• There is a difference between
ready and prepared
• YOU WILL NEVER BE READY
http://krissacurran.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/wings.jpg
http://www.scottyboxa.com/wp-content/uploads/68647_469415289762759_1012261733_n.png

22. ICARUS
Often depicted in art, Icarus and his father attempt to escape from Crete by
means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus'
father warns him first of complacency and then of hubris, asking that he fly
neither too low nor too high, because the sea's dampness would clog or
the sun's heat would melt his wings.
• We’ve been taught not to fly too high
• It is often forgotten that too low is also a risk
Important work often ships before it is ready!!

23. Fear
• It’s ok to have fear
• It’s part of the point
• Do it with the fear
DON’T STRIVE TO BE HEARD WHEN YOU’RE HERE
STRIVE TO BE MISSED WHEN YOU ARE NOT

24. WE NEED YOU TO LEAD US
Are you going to matter?