Guilty as charged. I was listening to Seth Godin, one of my favorite creative-brainys (that is a made up word), on 57 ways to get the world to spread your stuff and suddenly I needed to go to the little girls’ room. OMG, there were at least 40 minutes left in his Webinar on MarketingProfs, and even though I have a Pro MarketingProf membership (which is so worth it) and could have replayed it later, I was not willing to put this learning session on hold. I was engaged in every word he was saying.
How did that happen? How do you get people that glued to what you have to say?
Here’s my take on the Seth factor. He’s cool. He’s never boring. He challenges my thinking. He’s nice to listen to, compelling and calm all at the same time. He’s earned the very smart cat badge, a combination of status from credibility builders like his books, speeches and blogging and what others say the big media and fans around globe.
While he did share 57 ideas and some bonuses, here are my top four and what I going to do differently.
1) He does not have guest bloggers.
Why? Because it fuzzes it up. It is his brand promise to his readers.
As I’m evaluating the guest bloggers on Oddpodz,and I have been thinking about this for a while, he has an excellent point. Plus, guest posts are a lot of work. And unless they are highly read and driving traffic, which unfortunately my guest bloggers have not been, the ROI is just not there. So starting next week, the guest bloggers section will be laid to rest. The posts will be archived and remain on the site, but no new guest bloggers.
2) He blogs everyday.
That’s heavy. and scare the crap out of me to commit to that.
I said he challenged me. OK, then. I love to write. I do interesting stuff every single day. And even if I’m sick or staying in my cave, I think about really interesting things that I know others can benefit from. If I can’t pump out at least a paragraph a day, then shame on me.
3) He does not tweet.
That’s a side-line of the next takeaway for me. The actual big idea is: he consciously decides that he will not do everything, Tweeting is an activity like golf or collecting fish bones. He knows he does not have the bandwidth to do it well and right, so he’s not going there. I respect that.
I think all to often we put pressure on ourselves to do stuff that’s not really required or in our “do it freakin well zone”. For me this means not doing stuff that does not deliver happiness, money or peace in your soul. Personally, I like to tweet, it’s a good outlet for my inner soundbite, snarky side.
4) Try. Fail. Repeat.
That’s not a new one for me. But felt it was important for this list. Thank you Seth.
Love your thoughts on any of this.
Check out this Book review – “Tribes” by Seth Godin.