Seth Godin's Blog

• Put a name on it

  Here's a positive step to avoid the faceless bureaucracy that wants to take over your organization: Every new rule needs to be associated with one and only one person who is willing to stand up for it and explain it...Here's a positive step to avoid the faceless bureaucracy that wants to take over your organization:Every new rule needs to be associated with one and only one person who is willing to stand up for it and explain it (to your people and to the public)."No swimming until 45 minutes after eating." Really? Why? Who made this rule up? Why?I think most international travelers would like to know who made the rule that bans wifi from international flights. Or the name of the other person who made the rule that you can't have a blanket covering your legs during the last hour of a flight. If we knew the bureaucrat's name, could we lobby to have them fired for being ridiculous actors in security theater?Organizations thrive on their ability to allow individuals to remain faceless. It permits them to act badly, not in the interest of their customers. One of the reasons I so enjoy buying from small companies is that you know exactly who has their name on each and every policy. It builds a more responsive organization and it's good marketing.

• It's not the rats you need to worry about

  If you want to know if a ship is going to sink, watch what the richest passengers do. iTunes and file sharing killed Tower Records. The key symptom: the best customers switched. Of course people who were buying 200 records...If you want to know if a ship is going to sink, watch what the richest passengers do.iTunes and file sharing killed Tower Records. The key symptom: the best customers switched. Of course people who were buying 200 records a year would switch. They had the most incentive. The alternatives were cheaper and faster mostly for the heavy users.Amazon and the Kindle have killed the bookstore. Why? Because people who buy 100 or 300 books a year are gone forever. The typical American buys just one book a year for pleasure. Those people are meaningless to a bookstore. It's the heavy users that matter, and now officially, as 2009 ends, they have abandoned the bookstore. It's over.When law firms started switching to fax machines, Fedex realized that the cash cow part of their business (100 or 1000 or more envelopes per firm per day) was over and switched fast to packages. Good for them. If your ship is sinking, get out now. By the time the rats start packing, it's way too late.

• How far away is your future?

  Let's try a thought experiment: A flying saucer comes to Earth, destroys a major city to get our attention, then announces that in 10,000 years it is coming back to destroy the Earth. In order to eliminate any doubt, it...Let's try a thought experiment:A flying saucer comes to Earth, destroys a major city to get our attention, then announces that in 10,000 years it is coming back to destroy the Earth. In order to eliminate any doubt, it then blows up Mars.Assume for a moment that you believe the threat and there's nothing we can do about it...Question: how would knowing that the planet would disappear in 10,000 years change your typical day?Okay, now run the same story, but 1,000 years from now instead.You can probably guess where this is going. What if it were twenty years? If it were twenty years, how would that change things?Most of us assume a single range of focus that we care about. And it's usually right around the corner, or even closer. Is that the place to be focusing your brand or your business or your life?

Roland Frasier Marketing Strategies Blog