The Five Lessons I learned From Seth Godin

I am not a big fan of marketers, most of them pump out crap for dollars

I remember reading ‘If You're Clueless About Selling and Want to Know More’ by Seth Godin way back in 1998.

Most of you will have never heard of it, and for a reason… It was rubbish.

… or I didn’t get it back then, I am not sure which.

I still have it in my library, but after twenty minutes of trying to find it today to share with you I gave up… and I ordered another copy from eBay. (I will report back)

26 years later I am guessing it was me rather than Seth that was wrong. I am sure I just didn’t get it.

Since then Seth has written another 19 books and I have read almost every single one.

And from most of which, I found amazing value.

I have not read his latest ‘This Is Strategy’, but ‘This Is Marketing’, ‘Purple Cow’, and ‘The Practice’ are my favourites and sit just below ‘Made To Stick’ as my all time essential reads.

On a side note ‘The Practice’ may not resonate with you, but it has really helped me on a path I am working on towards in a brand new business I started six weeks or so ago.

If you are trying to put your work out there then you need to read this.

But, this is not what this article is about…

I wanted to share the five key lessons I have learned from Seth over the last twenty or so years of really understanding his writing.

1. You have to create and engage with the content you want to.
   There are so many ways to connect right now, people feel forced into engaging with every social media platform, they feel under pressure to post on X, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. Seth writes one blog post a day, does the occasional podcast, ignores social media, and doesn’t even allow comments on his blog. He just wants to put his message out there.

2. Stand out from the crowd.
   Everyone can learn the same skills as you. You are not a genius, if anything you are 5% better than the rest of them. Find a way to stand out, no one has ever said ‘let’s follow them, they are average’, find your USP and shout it out loud, build your tribe.

3. Share your ideas.
   Don’t think what you know is unique. Share it, because someone just as clever as you will come along and it will be theirs. If you think you have something unique, then take action today, because someone will tomorrow, if you don’t want to, let someone else do it instead.

4. Make the right choices.
   We are often shown amazing opportunities, you need to choose whether to spend the time and resources to go after them. Sometimes it is better to stick at what you are doing rather than going after the greener grass. Persistence always usually wins out.

5. Failures are worth having.
   I have failed so many times in my life and been on the bones of my ass, but being broke and hungry made me work better. Not harder mind, just better. Work out what you do the best and stick to that. Don’t pretend that you can make this work if you just put out one piece of content a day if that is not in your nature. Find out what you do best… and do that.

   And as this is my top 5 list, so I will add one more for good measure…
   

6. Find your purple cow.
   I struggled with this initially, I guess it was imposter syndrome, when I first met Ed way back in 2006, I had just sold all of my sites and Ed was doing TDC and teaching people how to sell sites etc. I didn’t really want to talk to him about it because I felt like a hanger-on, but my business partner at the time kind of forced it upon me.
   
   A month or so later, we connected, became friends, and although I had just started The Immediate Edge a few months before I wasn’t sure it was something I really wanted to do.
   
   Ed made me realise that what I really wanted to do was share my knowledge. That was my Purple Cow. Yours may be entirely different, the purple cow is about helping others get what THEY want whilst you get what you want.

   
   Comments appreciated.