Category Archives: Seth Godin

The Old Old is the New New

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I’ve grown quite fond of my old-style hats. I have a fedora and a willis hat. When I wear theses hats I get comments from people (and sometimes stares). Yet, these were the hats everyone used to wear. Now, it seems like a very new thing to do.

Of course trends come and go and come back again. That’s nothing new. But it has made me think about how some of the recent trends in marketing are not new, but old. When business became modern, the old way became passé. In our postmodern world, old has become new:

Old Old is the New new

*see Brand Autopsy’s High-Tech vs. High-Touch post

**see Seth Godin

Making Your Own Measuring Stick

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Earlier this week I mentioned this was possibly Seth’s most important post.

Why do I say that?  Because as a society, we allow others to define success.  So we end up striving hard and sacrificing much in order to acheive someone else’s definition of success.  Living for too little a goal.

My take on life is we each have our own measuring stick. This is true of businesses as well.  If you’re adopting your definition of success from another person or adopting your company’s from the competition… you’ll probably fail even if you “succeed.”

This week, I heard the story of a man in our church.  I’ve known him for a while.  I have always been amazed by his involvement in leading others in the church and being involved in their lives.  He seems very successful in many ways, including busienss.  What I discovered this week was he capped his lifestyle early.  He owns his own business and now only works 20 hours a week.  The rest of his time is spent on his family and in ministry.

He has a different definition of success than many businessmen.

What’s the measuring stick you back your heels up to?  Tiptoeing and stretching in order to feel tall?  Have you ever wondered if being tall equals success?

Bloggers Who Have Influenced Me – Seth Godin

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Seth Godin portrait by Dustin Staiger
Illustration based on this Flickr photo by Mark Hurst.

Without a doubt, no other blogger has influenced my perceptions of marketing more than Seth Godin. Before I started reading Seth’s blog and books, I had a pretty narrow perception of marketing. I also had a narrow perception of career and business success.

Here’s what I’ve learned from Seth (in no particular order):

Permission marketing is more effective than interruption marketing.

Getting your message to sneezers is more urgent than getting it to the masses.

Remarkable gets remarked about.

Very good is the opposite of remarkable.

Perfection is the enemy of remarkable.

Survival is not enough.

There’s always a story.

How you tell it matters.

I am a laser beam.

Small is the new big.

Treat different customers differently. (segmentation ain’t just for databases)

Ideas are different than opinions. (which lead to this)

——————–

Seth is labeled as an agent of change. I find that appropriate since I can truly say he has changed the course of my career, which of course changes the course of my life.

Thank you Seth, for inspiring change. I, for one, have benefited from it.

Watercoolers Dampen Postcards (Monday Bonus)

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Watercooler SpicketsWatercooler Spickets
Flickr photo by feefee.

I advised a political candidate recently to follow up with a blogger who had contacted him.

“The blog probably doesn’t reach as many people as TV, radio, or direct mail.” I acknowledged. Then I explained, “But the people who read it are influencers. By engaging them with your message, you can hope to affect watercooler talk across the city.”

Seth makes the point much better than I did.

What if you’re not a politician? Should you care about watercooler talk?

Being CoPassionate

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There’s one character who appears in The Incredibles only three times, but he really says it all, that little kid on the tricycle. When Mr. Incredible yells at him, “Well, what are you waiting for?” the kid replies, “Oh, I don’t know. Something amazing, I guess.” That’s what we’re ALL waiting for.
Andrea Gronvall interview with Brad Bird, Director of Pixar’s The Incredibles.

My wife and I were talking the other evening. She said, “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

It’s not what you think.

My wife is a dental hygienist. She had been at a “team meeting” with the dental office. My wife thought the dental consultant said something I would say. They discussed how to ask patients questions and discover what the patient might want done to enhance their smile. The hope is that they discover something the patient is passionate about changing. The consultant then encouraged the office staff to be passionate about that change with the patient.

That’s being CoPassionate.

Being CoPassionate is the difference between being considered an inspiration and being considered a nut.

Being passionate about what you offer customers is great. Understanding why your customers get passionate and reflecting that back to them is even better. When you do that, something amazing happens.

That’s what we’re ALL waiting for.

Interview with a Warrior – Tim O’Leary Pt. 2

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Warriors, Workers, Whiners and Weasels bookDUST!N
So, we’re segueing into your book, Warriors, Workers, Whiners & Weasels and you have an accompanying blog with that, which is blog.warriorsandweasels.com. Can you tell me a little bit about the book?

Tim
Well, it’s a management philosophy that I’ve been working with for some time and thought I’d put it down on paper. Basically, what I’ve found over the years is that I’d classify people into those four categories and it became an easy lexicon so that you didn’t have to explain things. You’d be working with your managers and say, “Oh, we’ve got a whiner here.” and everyone would know what that was. It became a time-saving classification system.

In the book I break down into those four categories. I offer hints as to how you deal with people, because there’s a lot of people on the cusp. They’re making that career decision that they’re going to be a worker or a warrior… or they’re going to go down into whiner territory and stay there for the rest of their lives.

So the book is written from two perspectives:

The manager’s perspective to say, “OK, this is a helpful way to help me classify people with some hints of how to manage them.”

From the personal perspective to say, “Wow! Am I acting like this sometimes?” As I was writing the book I thought I’ve exhibited all these traits myself at one time or another. I found it helpful to look at a decision I have to make and go, “Boy, if I make this decision… bottom line is I’m being a weasel. Am I comfortable with that?” or I’m whining here.

DUST!N
You’ve got a lot of experience starting up a lot of different companies throughout the years. Is this something you’ve just distilled from your experience of all the different companies you’ve worked with?

Tim
Absolutely. Not only starting my own companies, but I might work with 40 or 50 clients in a year. We’re a project-based agency and I’ve been in this business now 20 years doing this kind of work. And there’s a lot of businesses where you get to see a lot of clients… but it’s pretty interesting. Not only in how I manage my own staff and my own personal life, but when you work with all these companies, you see a lot of dysfunction. I can look at my clients, and you see enormously successful companies and you say, “Wow! That guy’s a warrior. I can see why they’re successful.” Sort of the personality of the organizations. The concept seemed very extendible across the board.

So, around the office, now we can communicate really quickly.
“How’s the new client?”
“Well, the head guy’s a real warrior, but we’ve got a whole level of weasels in this department. It’s going to make our life very difficult.”

You have to figure out how to help make those organizations be successful when they have the wrong people in the wrong positions.

DUST!N
There are some different books out there and resources that use some similar concepts. Even some people using allegories to get the point across. Like, if you took the DISC model for personality types, you might say someone was a high D or S… or a DSC.

For me, it’s kind of hard to apply that in the scenarios you’re talking about applying it across different contacts in the organization. So, do you see your 4 W’s as something people can apply pretty readily and easily to their clients and within their own organization?

Tim
Well, I think so. I think it’s real common sense. And stringing together four attributes that people think of anyway, it doesn’t make me brilliant. The book to a certain extent is about how you proceed up or down that scale and the steps you take to get there.

Also, with a full acknowledgment that you’re going to deal with all four classifications… a lot. The problem is, when you get weasels in an organizations… they don’t do things for… it’s a real minority of people luckily, but there are people in life that do things for no apparent reason. It’s a very ego-intensive, evil way to deal with things. I’d rather deal with someone who’s incompetent, because I can deal with that.

DUST!N
(laughs) So, who would you say this is written for? Who’s the audience for this book?

Tim
Hopefully we’ll find two audiences… (Read More “Interview with a Warrior – Tim O’Leary Pt. 2)