Creative Marketing

Out, Out Damn Lies!

Did I mention Seth Godin's new book ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS?

Well, it's out. And if you really want to get marketing you'd be smart to get this, read this, absorb this, and then get out there and start lying...

Seth Godin Is A Liar...

That's right. A liar. And I'm calling him out here and now.

Of course, don't take that as a bad thing, 'cuz it ain't, at least not the way Seth defines in his new book ALL MARKETERS ARE LIARS. Catchy title, eh? And A LIE!

Oh, don't be surprised, he as much as tells you so in the subtitle: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World.

So, who's lying? Well, really good marketers. And, unfortunately, really bad marketers. And all those so-so marketers in between. (Although some are lying more than others.)

Well then, who's telling the truth? Mostly the really good marketers.

See, it's not that marketers are liars, not really. It's that they create stories about their products or services that consumers see and make judgments about.

If the marketer tells the right story, consumers "get it" and then create their own visions of how that story plays out in their own lives... Consumers create their own lies about products and services based on the stories companies present to them.

So marketers are liars... but then, they're not.

If you're confused by this, read the book.

If you get it, still, read the book.

If you don't get it, then you really need to read the book.

Liars are everywhere... the best ones are stealing your customers.

FREE PRIZE INSIDE

I just finished reading Seth Godin's  FREE PRIZE INSIDE! THE NEXT BIG MARKETING IDEA and all I can say is "wow!" This guy just really thinks differently about business and marketing and, well, just about everything.

Some of my favorite quotes from FREE PRIZE! are:

"Little changes cost you. Big changes benefit you by changing the game."

"The most obvious symptom of a failed project is that management tries to add a lot of people and money at the end (now that it is important and failure is expensive). This never works because more people.... actually slow down a project rather than fix it."

"If marketing is about communicating to consumers that you've solved their problem, then the first step is, in fact, to solve their problem"

"If  you're working on a truly remarkable idea, then by definition, there's no way in the world you can prove it's going to work."

"Generally, it's a bad idea to answer objections. If you spend all your time answering one objection after another, sooner or later the people you're selling to will find an objection you can't answer. Better to answer an objection with a question.... Keep working your way back until you uncover the actual problem -- not the symptom of the problem."

And there is so much more.

Indeed, this is one of those books so packed with challenging ideas it's hard to keep from highlighting the whole damn thing, one page after another.

So if your business is stuck and boring and trying to figure out what to do next, then you need to read FREE PRIZE INSIDE! And while you're at it, read his blog, too. Mostly about business, but every now and then you can learn something interesting about other topics, like daylight savings time and such.