Tribes by Seth Godin

Show Notes: From Amazon: The marketing guru, Seth Godin argues that lasting and substantive change can be best effected by a tribe: a group of people connected to each other, to a leader and to an idea. Smart innovators find or assemble a movement of similarly minded individuals and get the tribe excited by a new product, service or message, often via the Internet (consider, for example, the popularity of the Obama campaign, Facebook or Twitter). Tribes, Godin says, can be within or outside a corporation, and almost everyone can be a leader; most are kept from realizing their potential by fear of criticism and fear of being wrong. The book’s helpful nuggets are buried beneath esoteric case studies and multiple reiterations: we can be leaders if we want, tribes are the way of the future and change is good. This episode of Cocktail Party Statement discusses how Tribes can be used in conjunction with some other popular marketing books to develop new corporate concepts and methods of conducting business. Tribes are different than leader/follower groups – they are made up of like minded, passionate members working towards similar goals. A few notes from the show: Find your niche (your tribe, the people that love your product) and be sure to spend the majority of your time on the right people. Every customer is not for you. “Some people are better than others” Mass marketing is dead. You’re no longer marketing to everyone, instead market to the early adopters who will spread to the mainstream. Tribe: Shared interest, not a team, equal + high level of involvement “A tighter tribe is better than a bigger tribe” “Leaders have followers, managers have employees” “A tribe is a method to get change to occur” Our Cocktail Party Statements: Phil – “No matter how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things, find your passion, find the other people who are passionate and market to them.” Aaron – “Leaders have followers, managers have employees. Find what you’re passionate about and go.” Karin -“Reacting is what your body does to medicine. Responding is when you respond to competitive action. Initiating is causing the things that others react to.”