hello everyone marco montemagno here
digital domination summit 2013 and for
the next guest I only have two words
Seth Godin hi Seth
thank you so much for being here today
raiga
oh you have a great Italian since that
I’m always happy to do interviews with
all the speakers at digital nation
summit but we you have a really a
personal reason and I will show you
immediately in 2000 I bought this book
alright which is unleashing the idea of
years this is the Italian version with
an unpronounceable title the currency
was not even in euro was lira so really
it is another age and I remember that I
bought the book I read it in a day and
then I decided ok I’ll do a tack I’ll be
a tech entrepreneur in my life
I gonna do this business you were
talking about the website called planet
feedback I think and I did a kind of
clone in Italy which failed miserably
but the point is that you really inspire
me to change not actually you did
inspire me to fail but you really
inspire me to to change and try
something new and from that moment I
just did startups and this kind of thing
so really for me is a personal
connection with you how many people did
you inspire around the world you know
there’s no way to measure that I can
tell you they probably got read 3 or 4
million times and what I was trying to
do wasn’t to make a living I gave the
book the e-book away for free it’s still
free on the internet you could search
for it I was trying to make a point and
it was really a break for my career
because I discovered that the value of
generously making the point is
significantly greater than anything you
can ever get paid by charging for
something and what people are looking
for is connection which comes from
generosity and doing something that’s
challenging and I try to do all three of
those things and sort of have been
repeating myself ever since yeah and and
we did a book by the way it was a
historical moment I think because no one
really believed from what I remember
that if you just give it for free then
people gonna buy
got the e-book and then I I went to buy
the book so it was the first way I think
well maybe the first time that you
proved that that was possible yeah it
was pretty scary at the time but it
seemed to work out okay yeah another
thing just a couple of personal
questions and then I go deep inside some
topics that I would like to talk with
you and obviously share your tips with
the business and the viewers of digital
Domitian summit what I really like about
your your career in this moment is the
following
I was checking your Wikipedia page you
know before in doing an interview you
always go to check because you can go
blind
yeah the interesting thing is that the
field occupation is written author and
marketing guru and I said okay that’s
great I mean but my feeling and I’m your
fellow readers for many years is that
you not in the business anymore of you
know marketing or email marketing at
least this is my perception but you
evolving you practicing what you’re
preaching and you went to I don’t know
the Icarus deception is an example
started to talk about fears how to
change inspiring people so it’s
definitely is an evolution I don’t know
if it’s a mistake or is the way that
you’re going through I don’t need it’s a
mistake I think that I would like to
think of it as the fact that marketing
is changing and I’ve been there from the
beginning of it changing that when I
look permission marketing it was a
controversial notion and that with each
step along the way what’s becoming clear
to more and more people is that
marketing and advertising are not the
same thing and marketing and lying or
not the same thing and marketing and
spinning and spamming and interrupting
people are not the same thing but
marketing is having the guts to tell a
story that’s true and to care enough to
have the youth hubris of caring a flying
higher of doing work that matters it
turns out that it’s marketing now so
yeah I’m doing something different than
I was doing twelve thirteen years ago
but also the world of what marketers do
all day is different and there’s a bunch
of reasons for that
number one is it everyone is a media
company now so instead of having to
wrestle to get an editor to approve of
you you have your own channel so my
program anything you want if you can put
into the world anything you want what
will you choose and the second thing
that happened is all media is now
optional you cannot force someone to see
an ad you cannot force someone to watch
this interview cannot force someone to
watch a show so if it’s all optional and
you own the channel what are you gonna
put on it and it seems to me that what’s
holding us back
not that we weren’t born smart enough or
creatively enough for caring enough
what’s holding us back we’ve been
trained to be afraid we’ve been trained
to fit in and ironically being afraid
and fitting in are the two things that
undermine all marketing and keep it from
working so at the core of my work and I
call myself a teacher more than an
author you know at the core of my work
as a teacher is to help people spread
ideas that they care about it’s always
been that and what I’d like to do is
help people care about things that they
actually care about doing work that
matters and then once they’ve done that
help them figure out how to have those
ideas spread another question about your
your style you have an amazing blog
followed by don’t sort of people all
over the world but you actually I think
he declared once that you’re not trying
to to get new readers anymore you could
easily do it because I mean I’m a tech
entrepreneur and you could write totally
different post SEO optimized title lists
and so on but you don’t do it so I would
like to understand why well I think
there are a couple reasons the biggest
reason is this the minute you try to go
for unlimited to reach everyone to be
mass you have to start being average
because average and mass are the same
thing average people want average stuff
and so the minute I
have to make a decision writing
something that I’m not super proud of
it’s gonna get me a bigger audience or
writing some then that I am proud of
that’s for my audience which decision
should I make and we’re seeing this over
and over again I visited sorry that’s a
reminder we’re talking today I visited a
famous business magazine online and I
got three pop-up ads an audio prompt
before I ever got to the article and so
clearly they’re trying to make a
business of it
the thing is magazines had built into
them and what it made what would make
them both great content and an
acceptable business but on the internet
doesn’t work that way on the Internet
sooner or later you gotta make a choice
and the choice comes down to are you
doing this because you care and your
friend to say or are you doing this
because you’re trying to make the
biggest noise possible yeah and the
problem with the second strategy is
they’re always trying to beat everyone
else in the noise sweepstakes it’s
always someone who’s noisier than you
there’s always so many more Twitter
followers than you there’s no and even
if you get up being yertle the turtle
and you’re at the top of the hill little
dr. Seuss reference then what right then
you say okay I’m done
I’m not buying that I would rather say
this is me this is my blog I know how to
tweak it to get more people to notice it
but I’m not gonna because I care too
much about my readers today yeah in 2009
I think you you wrote a post like first
ten or something like that where you
were explaining it to start from first
ten and if they were really your fans
and then they would spread and then I
think all the tribe theory was around
that we we come to the to the remarkable
point because in the end you say ok we
have to do something remarkable so a big
tip that I always a big lesson that
always got from you was try to be to do
something different in a different way
the other day I went to buy these these
mouths from from Apple either if you can
see it the funny thing is that is really
written mouth and is a very simple mouth
and I paid 50 pounds and I was thinking
gosh
miles now it goes one Nura probably no
one even produced smiles anymore but
everyone very happy to buy their 50
pound miles from Apple so they did
obviously a remarkable thing and a
remarkable brand but the question that I
have for you is how can you really do a
remarkable activity because this is the
problem you know everyone say be
remarkable great but how okay
so let’s break that question down first
of all remarkable and different are
totally different things different lots
of things are different but remarkable
is worth talking about that’s what the
word remarkable means in English worth
making a remark about so merely being
different isn’t the point the point is
did you touch someone in a way that
makes them feel better if they tell
someone else so that idea of iris book
you got you didn’t hear about it because
I sold it to you’ve heard about it
because someone else told you something
else told you someone else told why did
they tell each other well it was
remarkable then a book from her
best-selling author was free it was
remarkable that you could actually
attach it to an email and send it to
your whole list now today that’s not
remarkable but then it was so I gotta
differentiate these things the second
thing is that the Apple Mouse is not
remarkable no one talks to anyone else
about the Apple Mouse unless they’re
talking about how ridiculously
overpriced it is right that that’s not
why you bought it you bought it
because part of the religion of app is
that they will teach you to have better
taste than you had before you met them
right that’s interesting Apple’s mission
in the world Michael Shrieve nailed this
is to teach their customers to have
better taste and so computers are a
method to get taste into the world but
Apple is not in the computer business
they’re in the taste business the
emotion business the connection business
so if you have invested in the platform
if you are going to the cathedral of
Apple
visiting the local you know diocese to
pick up your stuff at their store and
want to communicate to other people that
you are in this tribe well how can you
cook up a two pound Mouse yeah to your
beautiful work of art you can’t so what
they’re saying to you Marco is you’re in
and this is one of the sacraments it
looks like this we don’t have to tell
you why it’s better we don’t even have
to give it in a non-generic name it’s a
mouse but it’s our mouths
it’s the mouse Johnny design for you for
next day they’re about another point
that you’ve been writing also in these
days is picking yourself and also you
see you wrote so many things that
inspired me and actually I did stuff
after that I read your things I hope you
you will never write bad thing otherwise
I will do it no but you wrote in the
Icarus deception he wrote about picking
yourself and I was really inspired I
wrote you in the email where I sent you
the invitation before the event I moved
in UK and I found myself little bit lost
you know because I thought gosh I don’t
have my tribe anymore you know and my
business so I in one moment I was
waiting for someone picking me for
television for my
startups whatever and then I say no I
gotta pick myself I are gonna follow
Seth one more time and I’m gonna pick
myself and I try to do something you
know an event or something so this idea
of picking yourself is very very
inspiring for me could you elaborate on
that because also some people is little
bit you know frustrated by that or you
touch a very sensitive nerve I think
okay so here is a traditional business
model I have a book I want to write I
need to find one of there’s only 12
people in New York City who have to say
yes you can write this book
they give me enough money to get it done
then the book comes out here too but
still exactly right then the book come
what comes out now what well there’s
only 500 people in the world who I need
to pick my book and say this book is
great you should go buy it so twice I
said I cannot succeed with this book
unless someone in New York picks it and
Oprah picks it or someone in New York
picks it and you know some guy who’s got
a magazine picks it different groups of
people and the project fails if both of
them don’t pick it and if you watch the
media just to pick the book business is
an example every couple days we see this
process happening again and again a book
author shows up hoopla hoopla hoopla and
then they’re gone well that worked for a
hundred years but two things happen one
it’s harder than ever to get picked
because more and more people are saying
pick me pick me pick me and to the
pickers have less power than they used
to
right it used to be that if you were on
the cover of a magazine
everyone in quotations would see it it
used to be that if you got mentioned on
a TV show everyone with watch the number
of people who watch The Tonight Show is
a quarter or less what you who used to
watch The Times well though getting
picked isn’t worth as much anymore
anyway so there’s an alternative and the
alternative is if you are frustrated
because you’re not getting picked
instead of whining about the fact you’re
not getting picked the alternative is to
build a business that does not require
gatekeepers to pick you so you write a
book you print it as a PDF you email it
to 50 people who like you and trust you
and if you don’t have 50 people who like
you and trust you start over right but
you do now if those 50 people who like
you and trust you look at the PDF and
say this is great and they email it to
50 people who like them and trust them
now you’ve reached 2,500 people if it
happens one more time
you’ve reached over a hundred thousand
people who have read what you wrote now
for a hundred thousand people read what
you wrote in just five days for free
will you be better off get worse No
and that happens in every industry I can
think of except this it works also for
the customer one thing that you I don’t
know I think every time I go to
demo day for a startup old investors say
okay tell me who your customer is who is
your customer with your ideal customer
and you think yeah okay but how do I
find my ideal customer is not that easy
so do you have any tip or suggestion to
find your customer obviously is
different for any kind of business but
do know some guidelines or that you
think you know Marko you get to pick any
business you want when you start a
business so why don’t you start a
business where your customer is easy to
find and why don’t you start a business
where the customers when you find them
have others in their tribe that they
talk to chronicling the difference you
know we’re looking at a company like
Napster one of the fastest growing
companies in history
Napster did not design it for people in
nursing homes because even though people
in nursing homes have plenty of spare
time people in nursing homes do not like
new music and they don’t have a lot of
friends but if you design it for
colleges it’s easy to find people who go
to college right and because they all
are in a place called college it’s also
pretty easy to imagine that someone who
likes something that you do who’s in
college has 50 friends because they are
in college so they knew who their
customers are they picked a group a hive
of people that likes to talk to itself
if on the other hand you write something
for a group that’s not connected in any
way that doesn’t have anything in common
other than the fact that they might want
to buy from you please understand and
you have set yourself up to do something
really difficult yeah because the
channels of the way communication spread
aren’t lined up for you so five years
from now making something for people who
don’t eat gluten is gonna be way easier
than five years ago because five years
ago people who didn’t eat gluten at a
medical condition and they didn’t know
anyone else who had the problem so even
if they discovered a great gluten-free
Bakery who they gonna tell five years
from now the newsletters the magazines
the conferences the connections you
discover you
a gluten problem you’re gonna have 100
friends who also have a gluten problem
right away and if you find something
great and you tell those hundred friends
bingo it’s a way yeah I next time I do
an interview with you I come with the
block notice – – right I can’t do
anything we have to write down okay I
will watch the interview and I write it
down I recently read an interesting book
contagious I think oh is the title and
this guy did research and try to find
the science of what goes viral and this
kind of things and got a lot of example
one example that was interesting for me
and I wanted your opinion about that was
about Mars he said in 1997 Mars
the chocolate that company they taste to
a spike of selling and I didn’t
understand why and then they discovered
that the reason was that human being
started to go Mars so was the first
mission to Mars and when people go in
the supermarket they basically were
triggered to to buy the Mars so I was
thinking wow this is a great example but
if I think about me I mean I have two of
the United States send a mission in the
space with digital domination summit
named you know to treat your people so
it’s not possible that for most of the
companies it’s not possible so what’s
your suggestion in this huge noise that
you describe it before to stand up on to
to to to really be visible is there any
any platform or strategy that you think
that really works in 2013 and maybe
didn’t work before well you know first
of all I think it’s a very dangerous
example you gave and I don’t think you
should put too much faith in it occasion
is looking at things that went viral in
the rear view mirror doesn’t help you
figure out what’s gonna go viral right
and this isn’t an area where we see that
it’s like looking at a stock fund based
on past performance that if there was an
easy way to base past performance at
future performance all stock market
investors would be rich and you’re not
you know your big challenge here is this
Mars makes an average
product for average people Mars Needs
everyone with teeth right that’s not
everyone in England but everyone with
teeth to eat a mars bar that’s how they
make the living that’s not what you’re
trying to do
yeah right you don’t want everyone you’d
be happy with 200 thousand people right
yeah yeah isn’t that about so ignore the
masses shun the non-believers make vis
not for outsiders it’s for insiders
obsessed with people who get the joke
make it ever more arcane you know the
xkcd comic is one of the most popular
online Congress and 95% of them are
completely non understandable to most
people I know if I show an xkcd comic to
somebody who’s not like you and me and I
say this is hysterical they go I don’t
get it
and that’s the point Randall is doing
something that people don’t get except
the people who do and the people who do
talk about it in this a great point by
the way and I think most of the
companies do this mistake they try to go
I don’t know mainstream or for the
masses and and then and they don’t have
their tribe or their their niche how do
you handle rejection in all this process
because you know a lot of time you get
no no no I heard a story from you when
when you started you gotta you have a
sort of list of companies that you try
to contact and a cut in a column you
wrote no for now and I really loved this
idea that it was a no it was no for now
could you elaborate on that sure and I’m
a little more sophisticated about my
thinking now than I was but it starts
with this the people you are calling on
do not owe you an answer they do not owe
you a meeting they do not owe you one
minute of their time and so this notion
of crafting the perfect pitch letter and
somehow tricking someone to give you the
thing they can never get back their
attention I don’t have a lot of faith in
that I don’t think that’s the way that
we grow rejection from people who care
about who rejection from people who are
open to what you are
doing rejection from people who ought to
understand what you’re doing is a
message to you and it is not a message
that you should give up it’s a message
that you just told them a story that did
not resonate with them and it’s not
their fault it’s your fault and so what
you learn from that and the reason it
says no for now it’s not no you’re an
idiot go jump off a bridge I never want
to hear from you again it’s know this
story on this day did not resonate with
me do not bother me tomorrow with the
same story you will not be able to
badger me into doing business with you
but what you could do is tell me a
different story about a different
problem on a different day because if
you’ve treated me ethically the first
time why wouldn’t I want to hear it the
second time and the mistake is trying to
get the giant best customer to say yes
first the giant best customer want them
to say yes last you want to start by
finding people who have the same need
but are more likely to listen carefully
to your story because actually the story
the big guy wants to hear is tell me all
the other people who have already said
yes that’s the way you get the big guy
90% of the people who use Twitter join
after yo the 10 percent who went first
run obviously so they were waiting for
people to say I use it it’s fine they
don’t want to go first most people don’t
want to go for and that’s what’s going
on here is that you need to get used to
people saying no but then understand the
real reason they said no and most of the
time the real reason they said no is I’m
busy your story didn’t work go away
I’m really going along can I get you
three more minutes removing this tower
how do you okay you being speaking it
was speaking about Twitter you not on
Twitter and you declared that you’re not
reading your Amazon reviews I don’t know
if it’s true or not but you say I don’t
read I don’t care
why I mean on Twitter you could be a
star I mean or on Lincoln you could be a
star
as you’re on your blog why why did you
choose this helped me understand why
being a star is a good thing
oh no I mean you can get a wider
audience so yeah so wouldn’t work for
with your readers what would it make me
happy right what about me happy you have
hundreds of thousands of anonymous
people sizing me whenever they felt like
a joke or understand something what it’d
make me happy to know that in a 20
minute conversation I have to go check
Twitter because now there’s fifteen or
twenty or thirty things waiting for me
to respond to what what it makes me
happy to make this promise to the world
and then not keep it every single day
right why would why would anyone want to
make that promise so that the whole
craft of being a media company and
everyone is a media company is make
promises and keep them I cannot keep the
promise of Twitter and remain a sane and
happy human being right so just because
other people are making that promise
great go hang out with them I don’t have
a TV show either right because I don’t
want to go through the hoops necessary
to make that promise maybe one day I’ll
decide to do that but the way you do
this to quote my my mental is igg who
passed away less yours do not become a
wandering generality instead figure out
how to become a meaningful specific and
I said I know how to write the best blog
I know how to write maybe one of the
best blog in the world I don’t know how
to be the best Twitter or in the world I
could probably put an enormous amount of
effort into it and figure some stuff out
as I went but why why don’t I just take
these limited resources I’ve got and put
them into this thing I love to do it
matches my temperament and that my
readers like to cut it so that’s why it
was one or the other and I decided to
stick with the blog and I’m glad I did
so last question promised if you’d if
Seth Godin would start today building
2013 you arrived from another planet and
you say okay now I start and that there
is this online thing what would you do I
mean what would
start a game with the blog or you would
go with a video audio is any kind of
format that you would do differently I’m
starting with no money yeah like when
you started you start with no money and
you have to choose what would you do I
would start an email newsletter for a
very very specific group of people
I would convene them in person when I
could and keep them up to date when they
were I would go you know the sommelier
is in Milano or the people who do the
triathlon who live in Cleveland or the
people who own high-end hair salons in
New York City I would find a group of
people that I resonated with one by one
by one I would build a tribe i would
coordinate that tribe i would connect
that tribe but I would never ever have a
problem I love it Seth thank you so much
that Gordon good luck for everything and
hope to see you soon thanks Marco we’ll see you
digital domination summit 2013 and for
the next guest I only have two words
Seth Godin hi Seth
thank you so much for being here today
raiga
oh you have a great Italian since that
I’m always happy to do interviews with
all the speakers at digital nation
summit but we you have a really a
personal reason and I will show you
immediately in 2000 I bought this book
alright which is unleashing the idea of
years this is the Italian version with
an unpronounceable title the currency
was not even in euro was lira so really
it is another age and I remember that I
bought the book I read it in a day and
then I decided ok I’ll do a tack I’ll be
a tech entrepreneur in my life
I gonna do this business you were
talking about the website called planet
feedback I think and I did a kind of
clone in Italy which failed miserably
but the point is that you really inspire
me to change not actually you did
inspire me to fail but you really
inspire me to to change and try
something new and from that moment I
just did startups and this kind of thing
so really for me is a personal
connection with you how many people did
you inspire around the world you know
there’s no way to measure that I can
tell you they probably got read 3 or 4
million times and what I was trying to
do wasn’t to make a living I gave the
book the e-book away for free it’s still
free on the internet you could search
for it I was trying to make a point and
it was really a break for my career
because I discovered that the value of
generously making the point is
significantly greater than anything you
can ever get paid by charging for
something and what people are looking
for is connection which comes from
generosity and doing something that’s
challenging and I try to do all three of
those things and sort of have been
repeating myself ever since yeah and and
we did a book by the way it was a
historical moment I think because no one
really believed from what I remember
that if you just give it for free then
people gonna buy
got the e-book and then I I went to buy
the book so it was the first way I think
well maybe the first time that you
proved that that was possible yeah it
was pretty scary at the time but it
seemed to work out okay yeah another
thing just a couple of personal
questions and then I go deep inside some
topics that I would like to talk with
you and obviously share your tips with
the business and the viewers of digital
Domitian summit what I really like about
your your career in this moment is the
following
I was checking your Wikipedia page you
know before in doing an interview you
always go to check because you can go
blind
yeah the interesting thing is that the
field occupation is written author and
marketing guru and I said okay that’s
great I mean but my feeling and I’m your
fellow readers for many years is that
you not in the business anymore of you
know marketing or email marketing at
least this is my perception but you
evolving you practicing what you’re
preaching and you went to I don’t know
the Icarus deception is an example
started to talk about fears how to
change inspiring people so it’s
definitely is an evolution I don’t know
if it’s a mistake or is the way that
you’re going through I don’t need it’s a
mistake I think that I would like to
think of it as the fact that marketing
is changing and I’ve been there from the
beginning of it changing that when I
look permission marketing it was a
controversial notion and that with each
step along the way what’s becoming clear
to more and more people is that
marketing and advertising are not the
same thing and marketing and lying or
not the same thing and marketing and
spinning and spamming and interrupting
people are not the same thing but
marketing is having the guts to tell a
story that’s true and to care enough to
have the youth hubris of caring a flying
higher of doing work that matters it
turns out that it’s marketing now so
yeah I’m doing something different than
I was doing twelve thirteen years ago
but also the world of what marketers do
all day is different and there’s a bunch
of reasons for that
number one is it everyone is a media
company now so instead of having to
wrestle to get an editor to approve of
you you have your own channel so my
program anything you want if you can put
into the world anything you want what
will you choose and the second thing
that happened is all media is now
optional you cannot force someone to see
an ad you cannot force someone to watch
this interview cannot force someone to
watch a show so if it’s all optional and
you own the channel what are you gonna
put on it and it seems to me that what’s
holding us back
not that we weren’t born smart enough or
creatively enough for caring enough
what’s holding us back we’ve been
trained to be afraid we’ve been trained
to fit in and ironically being afraid
and fitting in are the two things that
undermine all marketing and keep it from
working so at the core of my work and I
call myself a teacher more than an
author you know at the core of my work
as a teacher is to help people spread
ideas that they care about it’s always
been that and what I’d like to do is
help people care about things that they
actually care about doing work that
matters and then once they’ve done that
help them figure out how to have those
ideas spread another question about your
your style you have an amazing blog
followed by don’t sort of people all
over the world but you actually I think
he declared once that you’re not trying
to to get new readers anymore you could
easily do it because I mean I’m a tech
entrepreneur and you could write totally
different post SEO optimized title lists
and so on but you don’t do it so I would
like to understand why well I think
there are a couple reasons the biggest
reason is this the minute you try to go
for unlimited to reach everyone to be
mass you have to start being average
because average and mass are the same
thing average people want average stuff
and so the minute I
have to make a decision writing
something that I’m not super proud of
it’s gonna get me a bigger audience or
writing some then that I am proud of
that’s for my audience which decision
should I make and we’re seeing this over
and over again I visited sorry that’s a
reminder we’re talking today I visited a
famous business magazine online and I
got three pop-up ads an audio prompt
before I ever got to the article and so
clearly they’re trying to make a
business of it
the thing is magazines had built into
them and what it made what would make
them both great content and an
acceptable business but on the internet
doesn’t work that way on the Internet
sooner or later you gotta make a choice
and the choice comes down to are you
doing this because you care and your
friend to say or are you doing this
because you’re trying to make the
biggest noise possible yeah and the
problem with the second strategy is
they’re always trying to beat everyone
else in the noise sweepstakes it’s
always someone who’s noisier than you
there’s always so many more Twitter
followers than you there’s no and even
if you get up being yertle the turtle
and you’re at the top of the hill little
dr. Seuss reference then what right then
you say okay I’m done
I’m not buying that I would rather say
this is me this is my blog I know how to
tweak it to get more people to notice it
but I’m not gonna because I care too
much about my readers today yeah in 2009
I think you you wrote a post like first
ten or something like that where you
were explaining it to start from first
ten and if they were really your fans
and then they would spread and then I
think all the tribe theory was around
that we we come to the to the remarkable
point because in the end you say ok we
have to do something remarkable so a big
tip that I always a big lesson that
always got from you was try to be to do
something different in a different way
the other day I went to buy these these
mouths from from Apple either if you can
see it the funny thing is that is really
written mouth and is a very simple mouth
and I paid 50 pounds and I was thinking
gosh
miles now it goes one Nura probably no
one even produced smiles anymore but
everyone very happy to buy their 50
pound miles from Apple so they did
obviously a remarkable thing and a
remarkable brand but the question that I
have for you is how can you really do a
remarkable activity because this is the
problem you know everyone say be
remarkable great but how okay
so let’s break that question down first
of all remarkable and different are
totally different things different lots
of things are different but remarkable
is worth talking about that’s what the
word remarkable means in English worth
making a remark about so merely being
different isn’t the point the point is
did you touch someone in a way that
makes them feel better if they tell
someone else so that idea of iris book
you got you didn’t hear about it because
I sold it to you’ve heard about it
because someone else told you something
else told you someone else told why did
they tell each other well it was
remarkable then a book from her
best-selling author was free it was
remarkable that you could actually
attach it to an email and send it to
your whole list now today that’s not
remarkable but then it was so I gotta
differentiate these things the second
thing is that the Apple Mouse is not
remarkable no one talks to anyone else
about the Apple Mouse unless they’re
talking about how ridiculously
overpriced it is right that that’s not
why you bought it you bought it
because part of the religion of app is
that they will teach you to have better
taste than you had before you met them
right that’s interesting Apple’s mission
in the world Michael Shrieve nailed this
is to teach their customers to have
better taste and so computers are a
method to get taste into the world but
Apple is not in the computer business
they’re in the taste business the
emotion business the connection business
so if you have invested in the platform
if you are going to the cathedral of
Apple
visiting the local you know diocese to
pick up your stuff at their store and
want to communicate to other people that
you are in this tribe well how can you
cook up a two pound Mouse yeah to your
beautiful work of art you can’t so what
they’re saying to you Marco is you’re in
and this is one of the sacraments it
looks like this we don’t have to tell
you why it’s better we don’t even have
to give it in a non-generic name it’s a
mouse but it’s our mouths
it’s the mouse Johnny design for you for
next day they’re about another point
that you’ve been writing also in these
days is picking yourself and also you
see you wrote so many things that
inspired me and actually I did stuff
after that I read your things I hope you
you will never write bad thing otherwise
I will do it no but you wrote in the
Icarus deception he wrote about picking
yourself and I was really inspired I
wrote you in the email where I sent you
the invitation before the event I moved
in UK and I found myself little bit lost
you know because I thought gosh I don’t
have my tribe anymore you know and my
business so I in one moment I was
waiting for someone picking me for
television for my
startups whatever and then I say no I
gotta pick myself I are gonna follow
Seth one more time and I’m gonna pick
myself and I try to do something you
know an event or something so this idea
of picking yourself is very very
inspiring for me could you elaborate on
that because also some people is little
bit you know frustrated by that or you
touch a very sensitive nerve I think
okay so here is a traditional business
model I have a book I want to write I
need to find one of there’s only 12
people in New York City who have to say
yes you can write this book
they give me enough money to get it done
then the book comes out here too but
still exactly right then the book come
what comes out now what well there’s
only 500 people in the world who I need
to pick my book and say this book is
great you should go buy it so twice I
said I cannot succeed with this book
unless someone in New York picks it and
Oprah picks it or someone in New York
picks it and you know some guy who’s got
a magazine picks it different groups of
people and the project fails if both of
them don’t pick it and if you watch the
media just to pick the book business is
an example every couple days we see this
process happening again and again a book
author shows up hoopla hoopla hoopla and
then they’re gone well that worked for a
hundred years but two things happen one
it’s harder than ever to get picked
because more and more people are saying
pick me pick me pick me and to the
pickers have less power than they used
to
right it used to be that if you were on
the cover of a magazine
everyone in quotations would see it it
used to be that if you got mentioned on
a TV show everyone with watch the number
of people who watch The Tonight Show is
a quarter or less what you who used to
watch The Times well though getting
picked isn’t worth as much anymore
anyway so there’s an alternative and the
alternative is if you are frustrated
because you’re not getting picked
instead of whining about the fact you’re
not getting picked the alternative is to
build a business that does not require
gatekeepers to pick you so you write a
book you print it as a PDF you email it
to 50 people who like you and trust you
and if you don’t have 50 people who like
you and trust you start over right but
you do now if those 50 people who like
you and trust you look at the PDF and
say this is great and they email it to
50 people who like them and trust them
now you’ve reached 2,500 people if it
happens one more time
you’ve reached over a hundred thousand
people who have read what you wrote now
for a hundred thousand people read what
you wrote in just five days for free
will you be better off get worse No
and that happens in every industry I can
think of except this it works also for
the customer one thing that you I don’t
know I think every time I go to
demo day for a startup old investors say
okay tell me who your customer is who is
your customer with your ideal customer
and you think yeah okay but how do I
find my ideal customer is not that easy
so do you have any tip or suggestion to
find your customer obviously is
different for any kind of business but
do know some guidelines or that you
think you know Marko you get to pick any
business you want when you start a
business so why don’t you start a
business where your customer is easy to
find and why don’t you start a business
where the customers when you find them
have others in their tribe that they
talk to chronicling the difference you
know we’re looking at a company like
Napster one of the fastest growing
companies in history
Napster did not design it for people in
nursing homes because even though people
in nursing homes have plenty of spare
time people in nursing homes do not like
new music and they don’t have a lot of
friends but if you design it for
colleges it’s easy to find people who go
to college right and because they all
are in a place called college it’s also
pretty easy to imagine that someone who
likes something that you do who’s in
college has 50 friends because they are
in college so they knew who their
customers are they picked a group a hive
of people that likes to talk to itself
if on the other hand you write something
for a group that’s not connected in any
way that doesn’t have anything in common
other than the fact that they might want
to buy from you please understand and
you have set yourself up to do something
really difficult yeah because the
channels of the way communication spread
aren’t lined up for you so five years
from now making something for people who
don’t eat gluten is gonna be way easier
than five years ago because five years
ago people who didn’t eat gluten at a
medical condition and they didn’t know
anyone else who had the problem so even
if they discovered a great gluten-free
Bakery who they gonna tell five years
from now the newsletters the magazines
the conferences the connections you
discover you
a gluten problem you’re gonna have 100
friends who also have a gluten problem
right away and if you find something
great and you tell those hundred friends
bingo it’s a way yeah I next time I do
an interview with you I come with the
block notice – – right I can’t do
anything we have to write down okay I
will watch the interview and I write it
down I recently read an interesting book
contagious I think oh is the title and
this guy did research and try to find
the science of what goes viral and this
kind of things and got a lot of example
one example that was interesting for me
and I wanted your opinion about that was
about Mars he said in 1997 Mars
the chocolate that company they taste to
a spike of selling and I didn’t
understand why and then they discovered
that the reason was that human being
started to go Mars so was the first
mission to Mars and when people go in
the supermarket they basically were
triggered to to buy the Mars so I was
thinking wow this is a great example but
if I think about me I mean I have two of
the United States send a mission in the
space with digital domination summit
named you know to treat your people so
it’s not possible that for most of the
companies it’s not possible so what’s
your suggestion in this huge noise that
you describe it before to stand up on to
to to to really be visible is there any
any platform or strategy that you think
that really works in 2013 and maybe
didn’t work before well you know first
of all I think it’s a very dangerous
example you gave and I don’t think you
should put too much faith in it occasion
is looking at things that went viral in
the rear view mirror doesn’t help you
figure out what’s gonna go viral right
and this isn’t an area where we see that
it’s like looking at a stock fund based
on past performance that if there was an
easy way to base past performance at
future performance all stock market
investors would be rich and you’re not
you know your big challenge here is this
Mars makes an average
product for average people Mars Needs
everyone with teeth right that’s not
everyone in England but everyone with
teeth to eat a mars bar that’s how they
make the living that’s not what you’re
trying to do
yeah right you don’t want everyone you’d
be happy with 200 thousand people right
yeah yeah isn’t that about so ignore the
masses shun the non-believers make vis
not for outsiders it’s for insiders
obsessed with people who get the joke
make it ever more arcane you know the
xkcd comic is one of the most popular
online Congress and 95% of them are
completely non understandable to most
people I know if I show an xkcd comic to
somebody who’s not like you and me and I
say this is hysterical they go I don’t
get it
and that’s the point Randall is doing
something that people don’t get except
the people who do and the people who do
talk about it in this a great point by
the way and I think most of the
companies do this mistake they try to go
I don’t know mainstream or for the
masses and and then and they don’t have
their tribe or their their niche how do
you handle rejection in all this process
because you know a lot of time you get
no no no I heard a story from you when
when you started you gotta you have a
sort of list of companies that you try
to contact and a cut in a column you
wrote no for now and I really loved this
idea that it was a no it was no for now
could you elaborate on that sure and I’m
a little more sophisticated about my
thinking now than I was but it starts
with this the people you are calling on
do not owe you an answer they do not owe
you a meeting they do not owe you one
minute of their time and so this notion
of crafting the perfect pitch letter and
somehow tricking someone to give you the
thing they can never get back their
attention I don’t have a lot of faith in
that I don’t think that’s the way that
we grow rejection from people who care
about who rejection from people who are
open to what you are
doing rejection from people who ought to
understand what you’re doing is a
message to you and it is not a message
that you should give up it’s a message
that you just told them a story that did
not resonate with them and it’s not
their fault it’s your fault and so what
you learn from that and the reason it
says no for now it’s not no you’re an
idiot go jump off a bridge I never want
to hear from you again it’s know this
story on this day did not resonate with
me do not bother me tomorrow with the
same story you will not be able to
badger me into doing business with you
but what you could do is tell me a
different story about a different
problem on a different day because if
you’ve treated me ethically the first
time why wouldn’t I want to hear it the
second time and the mistake is trying to
get the giant best customer to say yes
first the giant best customer want them
to say yes last you want to start by
finding people who have the same need
but are more likely to listen carefully
to your story because actually the story
the big guy wants to hear is tell me all
the other people who have already said
yes that’s the way you get the big guy
90% of the people who use Twitter join
after yo the 10 percent who went first
run obviously so they were waiting for
people to say I use it it’s fine they
don’t want to go first most people don’t
want to go for and that’s what’s going
on here is that you need to get used to
people saying no but then understand the
real reason they said no and most of the
time the real reason they said no is I’m
busy your story didn’t work go away
I’m really going along can I get you
three more minutes removing this tower
how do you okay you being speaking it
was speaking about Twitter you not on
Twitter and you declared that you’re not
reading your Amazon reviews I don’t know
if it’s true or not but you say I don’t
read I don’t care
why I mean on Twitter you could be a
star I mean or on Lincoln you could be a
star
as you’re on your blog why why did you
choose this helped me understand why
being a star is a good thing
oh no I mean you can get a wider
audience so yeah so wouldn’t work for
with your readers what would it make me
happy right what about me happy you have
hundreds of thousands of anonymous
people sizing me whenever they felt like
a joke or understand something what it’d
make me happy to know that in a 20
minute conversation I have to go check
Twitter because now there’s fifteen or
twenty or thirty things waiting for me
to respond to what what it makes me
happy to make this promise to the world
and then not keep it every single day
right why would why would anyone want to
make that promise so that the whole
craft of being a media company and
everyone is a media company is make
promises and keep them I cannot keep the
promise of Twitter and remain a sane and
happy human being right so just because
other people are making that promise
great go hang out with them I don’t have
a TV show either right because I don’t
want to go through the hoops necessary
to make that promise maybe one day I’ll
decide to do that but the way you do
this to quote my my mental is igg who
passed away less yours do not become a
wandering generality instead figure out
how to become a meaningful specific and
I said I know how to write the best blog
I know how to write maybe one of the
best blog in the world I don’t know how
to be the best Twitter or in the world I
could probably put an enormous amount of
effort into it and figure some stuff out
as I went but why why don’t I just take
these limited resources I’ve got and put
them into this thing I love to do it
matches my temperament and that my
readers like to cut it so that’s why it
was one or the other and I decided to
stick with the blog and I’m glad I did
so last question promised if you’d if
Seth Godin would start today building
2013 you arrived from another planet and
you say okay now I start and that there
is this online thing what would you do I
mean what would
start a game with the blog or you would
go with a video audio is any kind of
format that you would do differently I’m
starting with no money yeah like when
you started you start with no money and
you have to choose what would you do I
would start an email newsletter for a
very very specific group of people
I would convene them in person when I
could and keep them up to date when they
were I would go you know the sommelier
is in Milano or the people who do the
triathlon who live in Cleveland or the
people who own high-end hair salons in
New York City I would find a group of
people that I resonated with one by one
by one I would build a tribe i would
coordinate that tribe i would connect
that tribe but I would never ever have a
problem I love it Seth thank you so much
that Gordon good luck for everything and
hope to see you soon thanks Marco we’ll see you
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