Seth Godin's Blog, page 34

Now and then, someone comes along who surprises the status quo. She didn’t do well on her SATs but ends up writing a brilliant novel. She didn’t go to a famous college but builds a successful enterprise…

The surprising thing isn’t that success is uncorrelated with the filters we’ve set up. The surprising thing is that we think the filters and signals are actually accurately correlated with future success.

They’re not.

Sometimes, our work is in opposition. Something is broken, and we need to fix it.

But often, we’re working with something that’s fine. All it needs is our care and effort and it will get even better.

March it down the road. Not because you’re pushing anyone, or because anyone is pushing you.

Simply because it matters.

There’s the kind that no one can possibly like. The popups, popunders, high-pressure, track-your-private-data, scammy, spammy, interruptive, overpriced, overhyped, under-designed selfish nonsense that some people engage in.

And then there’s the kind that inspires us, delights us and brings us something we truly want.

We call them both marketing, but they couldn’t be more different.

The selfish marketer is marketing at us, trading money for attention to sell average (or below average) products to disinterested people. The excuse is that money needs to be made, or that the boss insists, or that we have no choice…

The successful marketer is marketing with us and for us. And she doesn’t need an excuse.

PS New episode of Akimbo is out today: Shun the non-believers

If you want to make the Olympic soccer team, join a symphony orchestra or get into medical school, the path is well lit. It's not easy, but the goals are clear and the boundaries are obvious.

Day by day, achievement by achievement, it's a linear race. You know the rules, you can see the competitive landscape and you can train. It's rare that the rules change along the way.

This is irresistible for some people, and if it ends, or they don't make it, they're often lost in the wilderness.

That's because real life doesn't have clear goals and obvious boundaries.

Real life is not organized around an 800 on the SATs, or a FGA average that's the highest in the league.

Instead, real life has changing rules, hidden rules, rules that aren't fair. Real life often doesn't reveal itself to us all at once, the way the rules of baseball are clearly written down.

And so, the first challenge of real life is: find some goals. And the second: figure out some boundaries.

It doesn't pay to get stressed out that these goals and these boundaries aren't the same as everyone else's. It doesn't pay to mourn the loss of the rigid structures that worked in the world you used to be in.

You're in real life now.

So, find some goals and find some boundaries.

Then you can get back to work.

There are two paths, really:

"I will serve just enough to make the maximum profit"

or

"I will profit just enough to provide the maximum service."

The difference between an actual discussion (where we seek the right answer) and a political one is simple:

In a political discussion, people don’t care about what’s correct or effective or true. Facts aren’t the point.

The honest answer to, “if it could be demonstrated that there’s a more effective or just solution to this problem, would you change your mind?” is, for a political question, “no.”

It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the the local water tower, the death penalty, labor unions, euthanasia, fair trade, organic food, the EPA or carbon. In political discussions, we don’t have enrollment in the scientific method. We’re not open to effectiveness or proof. We’re engaged in a tribal conflict.

The problem with the fencing in of one topic after another as political is that it gives us less and less space to learn and grow and understand.

Think tanks in DC call themselves non-partisan. But of course, that’s not true, because they’ve already made up their minds. They’re not thinking at all. Merely arguing.

It’s only been 140 years since the price tag first appeared.

Before that, most every transaction was a negotiation. The seller tried to win by charging more, the buyer by paying less.

In many ways, that’s a good thing–treating different people differently, rewarding good customers, adding fluidity to transactions.

But for most buyers, most of the time, the certainty and convenience of transacting without fear, without conflict and without a hassle makes it worth it.

This idea is spreading.

It’s possible to negotiate a substantial contract in a few minutes by email—if both sides care more about forward motion than they care about the last decimal point. Or, to be more honest about it, if they care more about the benefits of the future than they care about the narrative of treating their partner like an opponent.

In an economy based on connection instead of scarcity, the ease of those connections, the reliability built into them, our confidence that the future will match promises made–all of these benefits dwarf the narcissistic narrative of the deal maker who simply seeks to win today, at all costs.

The essential first step is not waiting for ‘the other guy’ to go first. Each of us can go first if we care enough about getting there.

Ringing is resonant. A small force causes sympathetic vibrations, and magic happens.

Wringing requires significant effort and can even destroy the object it is applied to.

When you ring a bell for your clients, you’ve delivered with care and empathy.

But when you seek to wring every dollar out of a transaction, you’ve probably engaged for the last time.

“Knock, knock…”

That’s not a coming attraction. It’s an invitation. An opening. A bit of tension in terms of closure.

A coming attraction, on the other hand, gives it all away. It says, “here’s a bit of what we’ve got, and the rest of it is just like this, but almost as loud and almost as shiny.”

In the short run, coming attractions work faster. They get you a certain kind of audience and they lead to less disappointment.

But the alternative, the hard work of creating tension and then delivering on it–that’s where our best path lies. It requires trust, not proof, and the patience to find an audience that cares enough to work with you to get to where they’d like to go.

If someone insists on experiencing your experience before you give them the experience, it’s really unlikely you’re going to be able to delight them.

You’re probably familiar with class rank. Among all the kids in this high school, compared to everyone else’s GPA, where do you stand?

And you’ve heard about sports rank, #1 in the world at tennis or golf or chess.

But somehow, we don’t bother with community rank.

Of all the contributions that have been made to this community, all the selfless acts, events organized, people connected–where do you stand?

Maybe we don’t have to measure it. But it might be nice if we acted as if we did.