Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It’s Only Common Sense: Let’s Talk Godin

It’s the season to give thanks, and one of the things I am most thankful for this year is that Seth Godin has a new book out. Full disclosure—I am an unabashed fan of Godin. Every time I read one of his books, I find myself taking hundreds of notes on the good ideas that he provides. Whenever I am stuck for an idea for a column, I take one of Godin’s old books down from the shelf and scan it until I find an idea I can steal.

This is the guy who invented permission marketing. Godin is the person who inspired all things different, unique, and innovative when it comes to sales and marketing. He leads the way when it comes to guiding all of us who make our living in marketing into the future. The first time I learned about “tribes” was from Seth Godin, and the first time I realized that the best way to get things done was to do them rather than spending time analyzing the consequences I learned from him.

Okay, so you get it by now. I think that Seth Godin is absolutely the go-to guy when it comes to sales and marketing. Thus, when a new Godin book hits the store, it’s go-to-school time!

His new book is appropriately titled This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See^[1]. In it, he talks about new marketing for the 21^st century. The book came out last week, and I have already read it twice. Well, I read it on my Amazon Fire first, then listened to it via my Audible copy, and I also plan to buy the printed version so that I can mark it up to high heaven.

By now, you must be ready for a few tidbits from the book, so I’ll start with this one. From Godin:

“Smallest available market: Every good customer gets you another one. Dead-end customers aren’t worth the trouble. Silent customers, jealous customers, and people who think you need to be kept a secret aren’t worth spending time on. Your best customers become your new salespeople. Your work to change culture thrives when the word spreads, and if you want the word to spread, you need to build something that works better when it gets spread. This creates the positive cycle you’re seeking—the one that makes change happen."

Godin goes on to explain that it is better to market to a smaller audience of raving fans than a larger audience of ho-hums. In our business, this translates to selling and marketing what you do best to those who really want what you do best. In our world today, only 300,000 books sold makes a best-seller. Consider our population, and you quickly realize what a small percentage of readers make that list—and the same applies to other businesses.

If you have a company with annual sales of $10 million and you want to grow to $13 million, then the surest bet is to market to the same kind of customer that makes up your basic business—your raving fans, as Godin likes to call them. Whatever you are doing right for these fans to make them rave, do it some more to 30% more fans and you will be a success. If you still don’t get it, simply do what you do best, nothing more and nothing less, and that’s all there is to it.

Here is another quote I love from the book:

“Don’t change your ads when you’re tired of them. Don’t change them when your employees are tired of them. Don’t even change them when your friends are tired of them. Change them when your accountant is tired of them.”

Seth explains that there is a very significant gap between when you get bored with your ads (message, story, slogan) and when people get the message. You have to stick with your message long after you are bored with it. After all, you are the seller—not the customer—so who are you to judge? You’re not buying your stuff. Get it?

Okay, I can’t resist, just one more tidbit from the book, and this could be my favorite:

“’Cheap’ is another way to say ‘scared.’ Unless you’ve found an extraordinary way to deliver your service or product, racing to be the cheapest probably means that you’re not investing sufficiently in change. When you’re the cheapest, you’re not promising change—you’re promising the same, but cheaper. The race to the bottom is tempting because nothing is easier to sell than cheaper. It requires no new calculations or deep thinking on the part of your customer. It’s not cultural or emotional, it’s simply cheaper. Low price is the last refuge of a marketer who has run out of generous ideas.”

In other words, when you have nothing much to sell, sell it cheap. Ugh! Get out there and buy this book—even buy two and give one to a friend. It’s only common sense.

References

1. Seth Godin. (2018). This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See. Portfolio Penguin.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.