Why does it matter who Seth Godin is?

Just like Don Vito Corleone in the Godfather, Seth Godin is a self-made man. He is someone who has changed the way the world markets their ideas and he did it in a big way. Seth Godin is a 53 year old Stanford MBA graduate, author of 15 international bestselling books(The Dip, Purple Cow, V is for Vunerable)  founder of Squidoo.com, and marketing guru. His blog has been ranked the #1 marketing blog out of hundreds of thousands. He has created many startups and then sold them. Yoyodyne was one such company and Seth sold it to Yahoo for $30 million in 1998. Seth Godin caught my attention by the reverence paid to his name on Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income blog a few weeks ago.  So after looking deeper into Seth and his modus operandi, I wanted to share some gold nuggets about his success and his insight on marketing strategies.

1)      Ideas that spread win.

2)      To spread ideas, you must be remarkable. You must put yourself out there and be talked about.

3)      Find an “Otaku” –  (a Japanese word for a group of people obsessed with something) and appeal to them. (think hot sauce aficionados , apple computer techies) If you are lucky they will try your product and if you’re really lucky, they will tell their friends about it.

4)      The old model was an average product for average people.  Selling something on TV for the masses. That model is broken. Instead of selling to the masses, now you must sell to the few people that are listening.

5)      Your product must be remarkable. Is it worth making a remark about? That means it must be like a purple cow on the side of the road. People will not bother talking about a cow that is brown. It’s like white noise, it’s unnoticeable and unremarkable. Have a purple cow.

6)      “The thing that’s going to decide what gets built, what gets talked about, what gets bought is; Is it remarkable?” – Seth Godin

7)      “Mediocre is for losers.” – Seth Godin

8)      “My goal is not to have the most popular blog. My goal is to have my blog.” – Seth Godin

9)      Talking about stepping out, Seth makes the point that you could very well find yourself alone in a category of one with no customers but you will never find yourself alone in a category of one if you follow the crowd.

10)   One example was a barefoot carpet salesman who became remarkable by wearing no shoes. He was worth talking about because he was different.

Seth stresses the point that cheap is not what people want. They want something worth talking about.

After thinking on his advice it seems apparent that Seth Godin is doing something right. In a world where people have less time to wade through more media, standing out from the crowd is the only place to be seen. The problem with that is that you have to often stand alone and that can be scary. If I asked you when you woke up if you intended to go through the day unnoticed or if you would strive to be mediocre, what would you have said…? So if mediocre is not the goal, then what are we doing to be different today? What have I done to be remarkable today? Thanks Seth. I have my work cut out for me.