MBA2572 Extended Interview: Seth Godin - How to Have a Better Strategy and Win People Over

Summary

The $100 MBA Show: Extended Interview with Seth Godin on Strategy and Winning People Over

Episode: MBA2572
Release Date: January 13, 2025
Host: Omar Zenhom
Guest: Seth Godin
Duration: Approximately 48 minutes

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Introduction

In this extended interview, Omar Zenhom sits down with Seth Godin, the renowned "godfather of marketing," to delve deep into the nuances of strategy in business. Drawing from Seth's extensive experience of over two decades in entrepreneurship, including bootstrapping multi-million dollar ventures and authoring 21 influential books, the conversation offers invaluable insights for entrepreneurs, creators, and business enthusiasts aiming to build resilient and impactful businesses.

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Understanding Strategy as a Compass

Seth Godin emphasizes the importance of strategy as a directional tool rather than a rigid plan. He introduces empathy as a core component of strategy, highlighting the necessity to align business endeavors with the needs and desires of a targeted audience.

• Quote:
  "One of the four key parts of strategy is empathy, which is imagining that other people have the power to say yes to you or no, and that the best way to get traction is to find people who want to go where we're going."
  — Seth Godin [03:55]

Key Points:

• Strategy should guide decisions like a compass, providing direction without dictating specific actions.
• Empathy involves understanding and anticipating the audience's responses and needs.
• Focusing on a specific group ensures that efforts are targeted and effective, preventing frustration from trying to appeal to everyone.

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Choosing the Right Audience: Lessons from The Stone Pony

Seth shares the story of Bruce Springsteen's rise to fame through his performances at The Stone Pony, a dive bar in New Jersey. The key takeaway is the importance of creating what your audience wants rather than what you desire.

• Quote:
  "When you pick your audience, you pick your future. Define who you are here to serve, and know what you have to do."
  — Seth Godin [05:31]

Key Points:

• Success stems from catering to the audience's needs and preferences.
• Authenticity in serving a chosen audience builds a loyal and engaged community.
• Entrepreneurs should prioritize audience alignment over personal self-expression when building a business.

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Hobby vs. Business: Serving Others

Differentiating between activities done for personal satisfaction and those undertaken to serve customers is crucial. Seth clarifies that turning a hobby into a business requires a shift in focus to customer needs.

• Quote:
  "The difference between a hobby and a business is you do a hobby for yourself. You do a business for your customer."
  — Seth Godin [07:35]

Key Points:

• Hobbies are personal and pursued for intrinsic enjoyment without the necessity of external validation.
• Businesses demand a customer-centric approach, where the primary goal is to solve problems or fulfill needs for others.
• Attempting to monetize a hobby without understanding and addressing customer requirements can lead to frustration and failure.

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Risk, Emotion, and Strategic Decision-Making

Seth recounts personal experiences from poker and his entrepreneurial ventures to illustrate the importance of prioritizing strategy over emotional impulses in decision-making.

• Quote:
  "I know it's painful to shut down projects because you could feel something beating inside you, but strategic decisions often require letting go when there's no viable path forward."
  — Seth Godin [12:43]

Key Points:

• Emotions can cloud judgment, making it essential to rely on strategic thinking during critical decisions.
• Understanding when to pivot or abandon a project is vital for long-term success and resource management.
• Strategic resilience involves making tough choices that align with overarching business goals, even when they are emotionally challenging.

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Writing a Book: Strategy and Audience Targeting

When discussing the process of writing a book, Seth provides actionable advice on identifying the intended audience and defining the book's purpose to ensure it resonates and fulfills a specific need.

• Quote:
  "Find the smallest viable audience—the 10,000 people who, when they hear you made this, will say, 'I need to see this.' Let the book sell itself beyond that initial group."
  — Seth Godin [16:25]

Key Points:

• Define who the book is for and what problem it aims to solve for that audience.
• Focus on creating meaningful content that the targeted readers will value and share.
• Success arises from serving a specific audience exceptionally well, leveraging word-of-mouth rather than broad, unfocused marketing.

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Navigating Content Creation in the Age of Algorithms

Seth advises creators to prioritize authentic and valuable content over chasing algorithmic trends, emphasizing the importance of building genuine connections with a dedicated audience.

• Quote:
  "Find a group of people who, when they find you, will be super glad they did, and will tell their friends. That's how most successful podcasts grew."
  — Seth Godin [39:27]

Key Points:

• Algorithm-driven content can often lead to producing quantity over quality, hindering meaningful engagement.
• Building a loyal community requires consistent, valuable content that resonates deeply with the audience.
• Success is more sustainable when derived from genuine interactions and the inherent value of the work rather than transient algorithmic boosts.

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The Craft Over Outcome: Focusing on Process

Seth underscores the importance of dedicating time to mastering the craft without becoming overly fixated on the end results. This focus fosters creativity and reduces the pressure associated with immediate success.

• Quote:
  "Spend time creating things for the smallest viable audience without regard for whether you're going to win the lottery, because that's not going to feel like eating glass. That's going to feel like a privilege."
  — Seth Godin [43:37]

Key Points:

• Concentrating on honing skills and perfecting the creative process leads to higher quality outcomes.
• Detached engagement with the work itself fosters resilience and sustained motivation.
• Long-term success is built upon consistent dedication to the craft rather than seeking quick wins or external validation.

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Conclusion and Final Takeaways

Omar Zenhom reflects on the profound lessons gleaned from the conversation with Seth Godin, highlighting the significance of strategic focus, audience alignment, and the prioritization of meaningful work over superficial success metrics.

Key Takeaways:

• Strategic Clarity: Define and adhere to a clear strategy that serves a specific audience, ensuring all efforts are aligned with this directive.
• Empathy and Audience Needs: Deeply understand and prioritize the needs of your target audience to build a loyal and engaged community.
• Craftsmanship: Invest time in perfecting your craft, focusing on the quality and value of your work rather than the immediate outcomes.
• Authenticity Over Algorithms: Create content that genuinely resonates with your audience instead of succumbing to algorithmic pressures and trends.

Final Reflection: The episode serves as a compelling guide for entrepreneurs and creators, offering actionable insights and philosophical wisdom from one of the most influential minds in marketing. Seth Godin's emphasis on empathy, strategic clarity, and authentic engagement provides a foundational framework for building businesses that are not only successful but also meaningful and impactful.

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Notable Quotes Recap:

1. "One of the four key parts of strategy is empathy..."
   — Seth Godin [03:55]

2. "When you pick your audience, you pick your future..."
   — Seth Godin [05:31]

3. "The difference between a hobby and a business is you do a hobby for yourself. You do a business for your customer."
   — Seth Godin [07:35]

4. "I know it's painful to shut down projects because you could feel something beating inside you..."
   — Seth Godin [12:43]

5. "Find the smallest viable audience—the 10,000 people who, when they hear you made this, will say, 'I need to see this.'"
   — Seth Godin [16:25]

6. "Find a group of people who, when they find you, will be super glad they did..."
   — Seth Godin [39:27]

7. "Spend time creating things for the smallest viable audience without regard for whether you're going to win the lottery..."
   — Seth Godin [43:37]

---

This episode is a treasure trove for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of strategic business building, offering both philosophical insights and practical advice that can be directly applied to various entrepreneurial endeavors.

Transcript

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[Omar Zenhom]

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[Seth Godin]

Good job.

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[Omar Zenhom]

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[Podcast Host]

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[Capella University Representative]

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[Omar Zenhom]

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[Podcast Host]

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[Omar Zenhom]

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[Capella University Representative]

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[Omar Zenhom]

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[Podcast Host]

Edu Seth Godin is the godfather of marketing. He's founded two businesses, one called Squidoof, the other one's called Yo Yodine. That got acquired by Yahoo. Seth Godin is the best selling author of 21 books. Books. And his books are just legendary.

[Seth Godin]

If you want to build a vibrant, resilient business, you have to start by solving the problem for a few people.

[Podcast Host]

Hey, everybody. Welcome Back to the $100 NBA Show. I'm Omar Zenholm and today's episode is an extended interview with the godfather of marketing, Seth Godin. We're gonna be talking about strategy in our conversations because his latest book is all about strategy. This is strategy. The reason why I think this book is so important for all of us is that so many entrepreneurs, so many creators, so many builders, so many creatives start their thing, they work on their thing and they just get to it with no strategy, with no direction, really. And we've talked about why this is a mistake, how to come up with a strategy, and what are some things you should look out for, some pitfalls along the way. You know, Seth is just a brilliant mind. I'm so glad I got to sit down and talk to him. He's kind of a hero of mine. I've been following him for so long. He has a daily blog over at Seth's blog. It's pretty incredible. He's accomplished over the years. He's built two businesses and his books are just like legendary. The Dip Tribes, Purple Cow. This is marketing. All marketers are liars. There's so many incredible books that he's published. We're going to get into today's conversation about strategy, about why write a book, how to write a book. We're going to talk about his take on risk as well as what to look out for when you're building out a business and you're really trying to pay the bills. But at the same time trying to attract great clients with great work. So let's jump into that conversation with Seth Godin right right now. Seth, so good to have you on the podcast. I was mentioning earlier that, you know, you've been a. A huge influence on me, as I've been throughout my last 20 years in entrepreneurship, my journey. I've read so many of your books that have been a gut punch in a lot of ways. Lessons I needed to learn just in time. Whether it was like the Dip or Linchpin or Purple Cow or Tribes, oh my gosh, all marketers are liars. These books have. It's funny because I think back at these books, I think back, it's kind of like I read these books in different chapters of my journey and it really helped me along the way. I do think Purple Cow maybe was like your most influential book, but I do think your latest book, this is Strategy, just read it last week. And I do think that this book is probably the most important book that you've written because a lot of people in my space, the space I play in, it's online business, it's SaaS, it's courses, coaching, services. And people are obsessed with their product. They're obsessed with being unique and being interesting. And it's almost like strategy is like an afterthought. Like they don't really think about where I'm going. And I love your definition of strategy in the book, being like a compass rather than a detailed plan. Why do you think people just forget about strategy? And why is this so important?

[Seth Godin]

So when someone talks about empathy, we think they're being soft and they're talking about kindness. And I'm a big fan of kindness, but that's not what we're talking about. It's so hard to start something. It's so hard to find the resources to lean into it, to create something that the loudest voice in the room is our voice, the noise in our head, the one that has made decisions about what we would want. And so we walk into the world basically saying, if I were you, I would sign up for this. If I were you, you would realize how good this is. But you're not me. And I don't know who you are. And you don't know who I am and you don't want what I want. You don't see what I see. And if we keep this drive of me, me, me following the leader, tactics stuff, we will get frustrated really fast because people have the power to ignore us and to say no. So One of the four key parts of strategy is empathy, which is imagining that other people have the power to say yes to you or no, and that the best way to get traction, to help our business get to where it's going is to find people who want to go where we're going. And if there aren't people like that, make something else.

[Podcast Host]

I love this because it also makes you understand that, you know, it's so thought provoking because this idea of, like, it's not about, like, okay, I want to feel people's pain and make sure that they're comforted. It's more like, I want to understand where they're coming from so I can see if I can help them or not.

[Seth Godin]

Yeah. So let's talk about the Stone Pony for a second. The Stone Pony, which is a dive bar in New Jersey in the United States, is the reason that Bruce Springsteen is Bruce Springsteen. Because he showed up in that bar as a struggling artist. And what he figured out is when he played certain songs a certain way, the crowd loved it. And when he didn't, the crowd didn't like it. And it's not like Bruce Springsteen had these songs in his head, and he was born to run this way.

[Podcast Host]

I love it. I love it.

[Seth Godin]

It's that he wanted to make music that the audience needed to hear, not that he needed to hear it, because if he needed to hear it, he could have stayed home. Right. And so when you pick your audience, you pick your future. When we can define who exactly we are here to serve, now we know what we have to do.

[Podcast Host]

I love that you went there, because some of the people that listen to the podcast, some of the people that come up to me at conferences, they would describe themselves as artists. They would consider themselves. I'm an artist, I'm a creator. I put things out the world. Hopefully, you're in my tribe and you'll buy my stuff. They rarely think about the audience. They're kind of building it for themselves. They're kind of building it to express themselves. And when I kind of talk about that, I talk about, well, you know, have you talked to your customers? Do you know what they want? You know, their pain points are. They kind of, like, cringe. They're like, oh, no, that's not who I am. Like, what do you say to that?

[Seth Godin]

Well, there's room for following your passion, doing your craft and making art. That's called a hobby. And I love hobbies. I have hobbies. The minute I try to sell one of my handmade cherry wood canoe Paddles. It's not a hobby anymore. Now it's a business. The difference between a hobby and a business is you do a hobby for yourself. You do a business for your customer. So if you don't know who your customer is, you have a hobby, and I'm in favor. But then don't try to make money from it.

[Podcast Host]

I love it. I mean, it's a good reminder that you are in business like you are serving somebody. You know, this is not just a chance for you to put art in the world and then hopefully live off of it. You know, which is interesting because I am proud of what I put out in the world. I'm just talking myself, you know, I'm proud of what I put out in the world. I know it's not great, but I am a lot freer, actually, when I'm doing things that are my hobbies, my interests, I get to kind of do things without worrying about failing. And there's. I don't think that I would be as good as a business person if I didn't have those things. Would you agree with that?

[Seth Godin]

Well, I would disagree strongly with you saying the thing you put out in the world isn't great. Right. I mean, people have an enormous number of choices when it comes to how they will spend their time, their attention, their trust, and their money. And they're spending it on you. Where you are putting out is great because that's what they want. And that is different than saying, I made this for me, and now demanding that the world applaud you. And this is where small business people stay small. They stay small, they become bitter. They get broken because they're banging against this wall. You know, if you think that the, you know, the big influencers or the big whatever professionals in the world are like that in real life, you are mistaken. They are not. Most of them are introverts. They are just. They get on stage and something changes in them. They sit down at the keyboard and something changes. You know, maybe Stephen King writes in his spare time, but most people who. Who write professionally write professionally because they already know the story. Writing it down and going through the editing and everything else, that's not for them. That's for the reader.

[Podcast Host]

It's so interesting. One of my favorite hobbies, actually, is poker. I love playing poker because it teaches so much about myself. It's actually a really good parallel with business. I don't know if you play poker, but for me, when I play poker, you always go into poker with a strategy. You always go into, like, okay, this is what I'm going to fold. This is when I'm going to start depending on my position on the table, all that kind of. You have all this strategy in your head, but then the strategy gets challenged by emotion. Like, in the moment your heart is beating, you see the other person, oh, this person's trying to bully me off the table. I'm going to show them. And then your ego plays a role in this whole thing, and then that's really when the strategy gets challenged. Are you going to stick to the strategy or not? And poker is really about, are you able to make the right decision regardless of the outcome in your life, in your business, in what you do, how much does your strategy get swayed by emotion? And are you conscious of it? And how do you reconcile that?

[Seth Godin]

Well, we'll talk about poker for a second. I heard a little Annie Duke in your last little bit there, and he's a friend of mine, world poker champion. And I got kicked out of the only poker game I was in. It was a league with the guy who did the Ghostbusters logo and four other creators. And it was like small money. I went the first week, and I didn't have a strategy. I had tactics, but I didn't understand poker players were supposed to have strategy. So I won a hundred bucks and went the next week. And as I'm playing, I noticed every once in a while, a guy would say, if there are only two people left in the hand, to the person who was left. You want to split the pot?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's an option.

[Seth Godin]

Oh, that's really cool, because you can do the math. That's diversification of the risk.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Seth Godin]

So I start doing that, and then I start saying, when there's three people left, hey, you want to split the pot? And at the end of that night, the organizer came over to me and he said, I don't think you should come back. I said, what do you mean? He said, you're not here to play poker. You're here to just keep minimizing your losses. That's not why we play poker. So that's this little insight into who I am when I am being a professional. I put strategy way ahead of my emotion. I have shut down projects that most people would have stuck with for a few more months because I could see it's the end of the road. And even though there was something beating inside of me that wanted to prove that I could get through the other side, I knew there was no other side. We built Squidoo, which was a website to help people raise money for charity. We were the 40th biggest website in the United States. I only had eight employees. We were number 40, bigger than almost any TV network. And one day, Google turned us off. They wouldn't explain why our traffic went from. We went from number 40 to number 40 million in one day. And I did everything in my power to understand what Google was doing and why. And then I said, I can't fix this. We're stopping now. As opposed to following my emotion, which would have been fight the fight and, you know, get through this. There was no through this. And I still think about that because it was painful to do, but it was the right strategy.

[Podcast Host]

I love it because it reminds me of my own experience. You know, I built a webinar software with Nicole for 10 years, webinar ninja. We recently exited that business earlier this year. And it was so emotional, making the decision to sell your business. And it was, it was so hard. But I got some advice from people that sold their business that is that if you're. If it's hard, then you know, it's the right time to sell. Because when it's easy, like, you're, you're selling low, you're selling when people don't want it. You're selling when you don't think that you can do anything with it. And I was so surprised. How I thought I was a pretty logical, you know, first principles, thinker, all that kind of stuff. But when, when it came down to actually signing, it was a very emotional moment. And you could do all the strategy, do all the thinking, but in the moment, I think, I mean, obviously we're all done. I was like, made the right choice. Awesome. Great. But why do we get so emotional about things like that? I was trying to, I was curious to hear you thinking about that.

[Seth Godin]

A long time ago, people decided work was personal. It was personal because if you didn't do it, you were going to starve to death. It was personal because it was your craft. It was the way you present it to the world. And then we amplified it by like, bring your whole self to work and define yourself by your. Your success or failure. So how could it be any other way but to feel this emotional way? Now? The people who have many more zeros after their numbers than you and I, they don't think it's personal at that level. They're just moving cards around the table. Right. The reason that those people end up in a toxic mess is because then they decide that the only thing that's personal is how much actual dollars to have in the bank, and they start doing things they're not proud of to make that number go up. And I feel sorry for those people because they've lost the spirit of why people like you and I start projects.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's a good one.

[Omar Zenhom]

At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone. Resi virasa pollo de Personas que Peru portu exito un futuro diferente esta ma University. Visit Capella. Edu.

[Podcast Host]

I. I wanted to take this moment selfishly to ask for some advice. I've never written a book, and I've always wanted to write a book. Yeah, I always wanted to write a book. The problem I have is I read amazing books like yours, and I say to myself, if I write a book, it's going to be at least as good as some of these books I'm reading. And I'm going to tell you this story. And it really bothered me, this situation. I went to this meetup. It was all about book writing. And there was a book writing coach and somebody telling you, okay, this is how you become a best seller and all this kind of stuff. And there's other people in the group that have sold books and published books, and they came to me and they said, omar, you got this great podcast, all these listeners. You could just take some episodes and make it into a book and sell X amount of copies, and you're a bestseller in one day in Amazon, and this is easy for you. And I'm like, I had a visceral feeling. I don't want to do that. That seems so wrong. And so, like, I only have one shot at my first book, and I want to make sure that it has meaning. What compels you to say, okay, I need to write a book about this? And how do you not, like, how do you resist the urge of, like, this book has to, like, change everybody's life and be like, everything. I'm going to. How do you get specific? How do you choose a topic? How do you actually get down and make that decision?

[Seth Godin]

Well, this is a great case study. We're not going to talk about me. We're going to talk about Omar. All right, so we be. Because it's going to teach about all the issues of strategy that I talk about in this strategy, starting with this. Who's the book for and what's the book for? Because clearly everyone on earth is not going to read the book. Yeah, who needs to read this book?

[Podcast Host]

It's for people that were like, Me, I was a teacher for 10 years and I was trying to find a way out of a paycheck and give them basically guidance on how to quit their 9 to 5 and replace their income with a full time entrepreneurship, business. Something like that.

[Seth Godin]

Yeah, great. It's a great place to start because you didn't describe what they look like. You described what they're dreaming about. Right. Number two, is it for people who look to books to solve this problem or is it for people who haven't. It hasn't occurred to them to look to a book to solve this problem?

[Podcast Host]

I would say it's for people who look to book. Look to books to solve this problem. People are probably like, you know, reading other books in this area.

[Seth Godin]

Great. Much, much easier because now we don't have to start by, by teaching people to go buy a book, change the media. If you're looking for a book that will help you do this, here is a book that will help you do this. Yeah, that is a huge strategic decision. The what's it for Is, I think, based on how you describe people to help someone get from where they are stuck to where they hope to get unstuck. Right. Okay. How many people would need to get unstuck for you to feel like it was worth doing?

[Podcast Host]

Solid question. I feel like numbers are so arbitrary. I don't. I mean, I would say the reason, one of the reasons why I want to write a book is because I want to reach people that read books and don't listen to the podcast. So I want to get them on the path of, you know, first seeing that this is possible. So I don't think that everybody's going to actually see the finish line. So just getting people to read the book, probably 10,000.

[Seth Godin]

Okay. That's a fine number. This has nothing to do with being a bestseller. This has nothing to do with how do I get the word out, how do I hustle the thing, how do I find strangers to go read this? 10,000 is the right number. Your job is to sell the first 10,000 books. After that, it's the book's job to sell the rest of the books. Meaning you can write a book that 10,000 people, once they touch it, will not be able to go to sleep until they hand it to a friend or a spouse or a co worker, if that's what happens. So, you know, when I did Purple Cow for people who are watching the video, it came in a milk carton and people, I only made 10,000 of them. What a coincidence. And some of the People who bought it put the milk carton on their desk. Why would they do that? They weren't trying to help me. They were doing it because by labeling their quest, they could talk to their boss about it, and then their boss might change the way they did things at work, and that would help everybody. So the side effect was more books got sold. But that's not why I wrote the book. I wrote the book so people would talk about the book. So who's it for? What's it for? We find the smallest viable audience, the 10,000 people who, when they hear that you made this, will say, without reading it first. I need to see this. I'm interested. Let me touch this. You already have the asset needed to alert enough of those people that this thing is ready for them. Right. So now we get back to where you started, which is, I don't want to write a book unless it's better than War and Peace or Steve Pressfield's the War of Art or some other book with the word war in the title. And I gotta tell you, I did 120 books before I had the first bestseller that had my name on it.

[Podcast Host]

I didn't know that. Wow.

[Seth Godin]

I. I did email addresses of the rich and famous. I did the Smiley Dictionary, which was the first book of emoticons and smileys. I did a book that replaced Cliff Notes. I did the Stanley Clap Kaplan SAT prep books. So I wasn't born to write a book that was memorable. I learned the craft of making a book that people might want to read and talk about. So that doesn't mean you should ship junk, but it means you shouldn't talk yourself out of being generous just because someone with more practice than you did a better job. And the way I like to think about this is, let's say you're on the Gold Coast. You're working as a lifeguard. There's a lifeguard every six meters along the dock, and someone starts drowning right in front of you, you could accurately and honestly say that that lifeguard three down is a better swimmer than you and that they should do the rescuing, except they're 40 meters away. Obviously, you should jump in and save that person, because you're not a fraud. You're the best available lifeguard, right? And the thing is, you are the best available tutor for the people who already trust you to help them get stuck or to give them a tool that they can hand to their friends who are stuck and to hold back on that is to let somebody drown. Don't do that.

[Podcast Host]

That's Great. That's great. I mean, I'm conscious of the fact that we're. We're in or on a podcast episode, and I can't let that absorb for a bit, but that was very interesting. What I loved about what you just did in our little coaching session here was you allowed me to define the rules of my game. Like, I think sometimes we forget I've been in business, I've been running businesses for 20 years. And sometimes you forget that. That's the beauty of entrepreneurship, is that you can. You can define the rules. You can make your own utopia, as Derek Sivers says, you know, like, you can create your own kind of world. And it reminds me of a part of the book I wanted to kind of talk about. I kind of bookmarked it before, before this, this episode. And basically it's. It's about don't bet on games you can't win. Yeah. Anyway, let's talk about, like, social situations or all. And, and, but I think also in business, you know, don't create circumstances that make it hard for you to win. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

[Seth Godin]

Well, you get to pick. So in the five years after Google started taking over Search, every couple months, I would get a note from someone who said, I got something better than Google. I'm going to come out with a search engine that's better than Google. And they have no funding, they have no team. It's just them and an idea. And it's so secret, they don't want to tell anybody. Like, you only have tomorrow once. Don't waste tomorrow trying to defeat the most extraordinary problem solution set in the history of mankind that you're not gonna. Yeah, that's a game you cannot win. So the reason you're doing it is because you know you can't win, so it's safe. Instead, find the smallest unit of innovation and, and practical productivity and go do that. Can you make things better for 20 people in your town? Can you connect the pediatric dentists in Sydney? Because the pediatric dentists in Sydney would like to be connected to one another. No one else is trying. You might fail. And if you fail at that, you'll have to admit you failed and you won't be able to blame Google. But you can start that now. And the only way to solve a big problem is with a little solution repeated over and over and over again. If you want to build a vibrant, resilient business, you have to start by solving the problem for a few people.

[Podcast Host]

In the book, you talk a lot about simplicity. You talk about keeping your strategy simple to make it easier to implement and to be sustainable. What are some of the threats that people can expect that will kind of complicate their strategy as they pursue it?

[Seth Godin]

Well, the biggest threat is that people are confused about strategy and tactics. So when the world changes, they want to change their tactics, which they should, so they're tempted to change their strategy. The second threat is scale, because as you get bigger, the strategy that got you there might not be resilient enough to go to the next step. So one of, one of the strategies that's easy to talk about is Microsoft's strategy, which they've had since a week after they were founded. And that strategy is be the IBM of software. All right, what does that mean? The IBM of hardware was IBM. And it meant IBM has so many salespeople and so appropriately conservative that no one ever got fired for buying an expensive thing from IBM because IBM would make sure it was better than mediocre.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Seth Godin]

And Microsoft doesn't have to make the fastest, most cutting edge, best design thing. They just have to make something that you're not going to get fired for because they have so many people to support your company, to save better. As long, as long as they kept doing that, they were doing fine. And when Ballmer came in and wanted to make it more ego driven and more complicated, the whole thing starts to fall apart. And so your strategy is this simple idea that says, where is there an insatiable desire? Where is there such a big need for something that it's going to be hard to fill it right away? And then how can we over time build assets and solutions that people who are trying to solve that problem count on us to solve it?

[Podcast Host]

That's interesting because I do think that like you mentioned in the book, you know, strategies like a North Star, it's like a compass. I don't think people actually understand how important that is, like to actually like post it noted on their monitor, you know, like, because it's a good kind of thing to check every time you make a decision, like, is this aligned with my strategy is aligned with what I'm trying to do. Is it going to get me closer to that direction or not? And the reason why I bring this up is because I do feel like a lot of people, their compass is just this like foggy success, like I want to be successful. And it's not really a real direction, it's like a mirage. How do you help people kind of choose a strategy, choose a direction?

[Seth Godin]

Well, so the hard part is choosing. And you know this from poker, right? That the only thing that's fun about poker, other than winning money, is you have to make decisions all the time. And what many people who are building businesses, like your listeners are building are actually doing is looking for a job without a boss. They hated having a boss. If they could just figure out how to leave that person out and do work all day and get paid for it, that's what they would like to do. And the problem with that is you have a new boss and they're terrible at their job. They wake you up in the middle of the night worrying you. They yell at you, they undermine you. They don't pay you enough, they don't give you a team to support you. They're you. So you got to get a better boss who is making decisions, right? And the fact that the decisions are hard is good because it means they're important.

[Podcast Host]

That's so good. It's so good because. And. And one of the things you talk about the book a lot, like, the reason why I think of poker so much when it comes to strategies, because I'm thinking about it as I'm reading your book, and when I'm reading it, it's like one of the things you say is part of the whole path of following your strategy is saying no. A lot. A lot of people don't know that. Professional poker players, they fold 80% of the time. They don't even play. They just fold the cards, and it's just, no, no, no, no. I'm not playing this because my chances of success are quite low, and I'm not going to do it. It's also not according to my strategy. And I think in the beginning of the journey of entre, I knew I fell into this my first. I would say probably three to four years, where you're so hungry for opportunity. You're so hungry for, like, I got to grab everything. Plus, my parents are immigrants. Parents immigrated from Egypt to the US and you don't say no to anything. Immigrants are hoarders, right? So it's like, sacrilegious to say no to an opportunity. But at some point, sometimes very early on when you have some success, you have to really get on the no train and start saying no to most things. How do you. How do you become conscious of this and become more good, more, you know, a better. A better person say no, and better at just saying no to opportunities that maybe are not aligned with your strategy.

[Seth Godin]

So I'll tell you two personal stories, and then I'll summarize it in a rule, but the two stories are, I got very lucky early in my career because when I was struggling, my uncle threw me a lifeline and got me a consulting gig for six weeks. And it made me enough money to be able to last six more months. The reason I was lucky is that the consulting gig was helping do the spreadsheet and financial analysis for a takeover of six nursing homes. So I had to visit these nursing homes. And particularly in the 80s, the disinfectant used in nursing homes, combined with the lack of care, created a Proustian memory in my head that I can smell right this minute, 40 years later.

[Podcast Host]

I know that smell. My mom was dietitian in nursing home.

[Seth Godin]

Yeah, I never, ever, ever want to do something like that again. So that was a really good way for me to remember. Pick your customers, pick your future. And then as I got into the book business, I did a book where we had 100 law firms as our customers. And law firms are never easy to deal with, but angry law firms are very, very hard to deal with. Pick your customers, pick your future. That was another message to me, which, like, if I'm going to do anything independently, I'm going to do it for people I am proud to work with who treat me with respect and dignity. And so that's what I learned emotionally. But the big insight here is this. If you're a freelancer, I'm a freelancer. I am proud to be a freelancer. Freelancers get paid when they work. They're not building something like you and Nicole built that you could sell. They're building their craft. My, you know, my words are all my words. And if I stop doing it, I'm gonna pay. The only way to move up if you do that is not by working more hours, because there aren't more hours to work. It's not by hiring junior versions of yourself because they're not going to work for you for long and let you keep most of the money. The only way to move up is to get better clients. And the way you get better clients, better clients pay you more, demand more, talk about you more. The only way to get better clients is to do the kind of work that better clients are attracted to. It is not by doing a good job for bad clients. And so if you are on fiverr or upwork and taking lousy work from lousy clients, hoping that one day you'll be noticed by a good client, it's not going to happen. You're going to need to do the hard Work to lay the conditions, to build a strategy that attracts the kind of client you want.

[Podcast Host]

I think that is so profound, so important. If you're listening right now, this, and you're doing gig work, if you're doing freelance work, if you're trying to get some traction, a lot of us, we just say yes to any kind of job so that we can, you know, get some portfolio work, get some examples, all that kind of stuff. I heard you say in another interview that, you know, you could do that. Just don't charge for it. Like, do it on your own and. And display that work. You know, one of the things I learned in the film world, Nicole went to New York Film Academy, and we did a whole bunch of gigs. And one of the things I learned is that people do these, like, specs where, like, they'll make a commercial for Nike, and Nike didn't commission them to do it or anything. They just do it. So they have it on their portfolio. And it's like a thing to kind of like, hey, I can create great work, and they don't have to deal with bad clients, like you said. But at the same time, they can. They can attract great clients by showing the kind of work that they can provide to them. So I think that's so important. Like, a lot of us, we think that, oh, this is just reps I need to put in. And, you know, like, one of the things you learn, I learned through learning to get serious about working out is, like, not all your reps are equal. Like, some of them are lousy reps. You know, the ones that actually. A full extension and the stretch and all that kind of stuff. The ones that hurt the most are the ones that actually count. So I love that reminder of, you know, hey, the quality of what you put out there is going to attract the quality of the customer.

[Seth Godin]

Yeah, I just want to insert a couple things. As someone who struggled for a long time, you got to pay the bills. It's okay to take lousy work and get paid for it. All I'm saying is you need to pay yourself first with your time to say yes. But every day I'm a client for two hours. Every day, I'm doing work where I'm the client that goes in my portfolio. Now I can pay the bills the rest of the day. That's fine, right? So let's say you want to make a living as a copywriter. One thing you can do is find a charity you care about and go raise a million dollars for them. I promise you, if you Raise a million dollars for them. They're not going to say, no, we don't want your million dollars. Those posts you wrote, that stuff you put in the World goes in your portfolio. And now when you're looking for a good client, you say, yeah, I raised a million dollars for Save the Children. How'd you do that? Well, we can talk about it.

[Podcast Host]

I love that. That's great.

[Omar Zenhom]

When you're earning your degree, the right support can make a difference. That's why at Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success, including your dedicated academic coach, who's available every step of the way. Whether you're working toward a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree, you can learn confidently, knowing you'll get la juda quenesasitas un futuro differente. Esta mas cerca de lo catres con Capella University. Learn more at capella. Edu.

[Podcast Host]

I wrote down one of these questions when I knew we were going to have a conversation. I wrote down this question in my notebook that I wanted to ask you because you've written so much. You have a daily blog, you've written over 21 books, and you've been doing it for so long. Have you written about a topic or had a. An opinion about something that you've changed your mind on over the years and feel like you wish. You can, like, republish it. You can maybe edit it, maybe kind of give a new angle.

[Seth Godin]

Oh, there's too many. There's so many. The secret is that my blog is digital. So when I find something particularly embarrassing I wrote 15 years ago, I just change it. I don't do that very often, but there's still a bunch of dead links on my blog. I would say the two most expensive errors. Well, one was expensive, one was a cultural challenge. The expensive one was I started an Internet company where we invented email marketing six, eight years before the World Wide Web, maybe ten. Ten years before the World Wide Web. So by the time the World Wide Web showed up, we were on AOL and Prodigy and CompuServe. We had built the most popular online game of all time. We had done all this stuff, and Mark Hurst, who worked for me, showed me the Web. And I said, that's stupid. That's never going to work. It's slow, it's clunky. There is no business model. We can't make money from this. Not interested. That cost me $50 billion. That's a very expensive mistake to make. It was a good decision with a bad outcome. And then the cultural thing is, I, like many people, naively believed that if you give everyone in the world a microphone, things will inevitably get better. And what we have discovered is that when there's an incentive in the algorithm to be a troll, to be negative, to be a jerk, some people will do it because they're in such a hurry to get to the next step. They forget that they're inside the community center screaming obscenities at kids. And I didn't speak up about that early because I didn't see it coming. And I think a lot of people now understand there was an obligation for the people who built these algorithms, the Googles and the metas and the other social networks, to bend it in this, in. In the way of community, not bend it in the way of division. And I think they made a terrible mistake.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, let's talk about it for a moment, because I, I saw this clip from a buddy of mine, John O'Nolan, who founded Ghost, which is a WordPress competitor, and he talks about the Mr. Beast, beastification of the Internet and content in general, where people are now creating content to feed the algorithm, and they're not actually creating something great or something that we want more of in the world. And he's kind of encouraging people to, like, hey, how about start thinking about what, what, what do we need to create to kind of help people improve? People make, put a smile on their face, you know, you know, bring joy to people's, you know, life instead of, how do we, you know, get more clicks, more views and get more attention. I understand the need to kind of understand the algorithm and try to feed, because that's how you get successful on these platforms. And, and not doing that is going to hurt you. What advice do you give to creators out there? Hey, I'm. I'm publishing reels, I'm publishing tweets, I'm doing all this kind of stuff, and I'm not getting any traction. I think I'm writing good stuff, but should I give in and, like, kind of play the game a little bit? Like, what would you do here?

[Seth Godin]

Well, the person you're describing is working for free, and their boss is the social media company. The social media company is making them nervous, so they will take action, so they will have a product to sell their advertisers. You're working for free, not going where you want to go. And the alternative is to stop trying to win the lottery. Someone is going to get 20 million views on TikTok. But it's probably not going to be you. And instead find the smallest viable audience. Find a group of people who, when they find you, A, will be super glad they did, and B, will tell their friends. So it's people telling their friends. That is almost every podcast that has succeeded. Podcasts don't succeed because they win some magic apple Algorith search. They win because 500 people listen to serial and they can't stop talking about it. And now it's 5,000 and then it's 50,000. So work that we're proud of isn't these 12 secret tips, blah, blah, blah. Because that's, that's just lottery tickets. And you can't. You might win a lottery a little bit, but you're never going to win it often enough to make you glad you played.

[Podcast Host]

That's so important. I mean, I often say that I get asked this question a lot, like, oh, you know, you're running this podcast for 10 years. Like, what's the secret to the success? Like, my initial answer is a little bit of a joke. Like, if I wasn't successful 10 years, there's something wrong with me. I should be successful by now. But first of all, success is such a vague word. The other thing is that I always approached the podcast thinking about what makes Breaking Bad a good show, what makes the latest Christopher Nolan film such a masterpiece. Because if you kind of focus on how can I entertain, enrich the audience in a way that, that maybe hasn't been done before or maybe even done for, was doing a little bit of better your own way, everything kind of falls into place. I don't have to worry too much about the, you know, the, the, the outcome too much. And that sounds like, I know somebody's listening to this. And like, that sounds great for you because you've 10 years in. What. What do I do? Who's just getting started? How do I, how do I, you know, kind of work on the craft, pay the bills, get better, all that kind of. I understand all that stuff, and we all been there. My question to you is that, is it just better to admit that your first few years in business is gonna suck? Like, you should just admit the fact you're gonna. It's gonna be hard and it's gonna just be difficult, and no one's gonna know who you are, but you just gotta outlast that kind of rut. Because it sounds like. Because to me, the only way out of that is, like, hitting the lottery. Like, I don't know. I don't know. Anybody who's been successful without getting lucky like that, or. Or, you know, maybe just hit the algorithm lottery. But most of the people I know that are successful, like their first few years was just eating glass.

[Seth Godin]

Well, so it sounds like you go to the gym sometimes.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Seth Godin]

I don't hope it doesn't feel like eating glass to you.

[Podcast Host]

Not all days, I would say. Most days. No.

[Seth Godin]

Right. That going to the gym is the craft. The muscles are the thing you get at the end, but they're not the point. The point is the craft. I don't think when Nolan made Memento, which is one of the great movies of all time, he thought he was going to win the lottery. He just wanted to make the next film. And I think when he made Tenet and it was terrible, that was part of being him as well, that you have to be prepared to disassociate from the outcome and do the craft. Right. And so don't quit your day job when you got five kids and a mortgage and student debt. But, yes, spend four hours every Saturday and three hours every Wednesday night working on your craft. Spend those seven hours creating things for the smallest viable audience without regard for whether you're going to win the lottery, because that's not going to feel like eating glass. That's going to feel like a privilege.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Seth Godin]

And for me, the hardest moments of being a struggling entrepreneur always came when I was. There was a scale mismatch when I needed something to sell because I had too much other coming in for expenses that I was getting very close to zero. Well, that was on me because I had built one side of the expense thing without building the other side of the income thing. That ruined my day right. Now, that doesn't mean you don't lean into the wind. You gotta right that when you learn how to windsurf, you fall into the water a lot, because that's how you learn how to win. Surf you. But you better make sure you're falling into the water, not onto bricks. And, you know, my rule is when you run out of time, you run out of money. You're out. So don't run out of time or don't run out of money. Figure out where the boundaries are and then play an appropriately sized game so that you can play the game and learn the strategy, not say, this has to work. And it's, you know, the media has fueled this by telling the story of someone, you know, who flies somewhere and with their last dollar, pull something off and then it works. Yeah, but that's not how it really works. That's just a good story.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I love that you said that. Because I think most of us, for some reason, we put this time constraint on ourself. We say, if this thing doesn't work in six months, I'm just gonna quit, you know, or like, you know, I'm gonna blog for four hours on the weekend or, you know, create my videos on Wednesday nights. And if it doesn't pop off in, like, six months, then forget it. Like, why are we putting this timeline? And then the funny thing is, is that, like, say, for example, you. You did put a timeline, but you gave yourself three years or something like that. Years or whatever it might be. All of a sudden that pressure is lifted because we can't think really what five years means. It's not really a real thing in our head, and you start to create better work. Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

[Seth Godin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Podcast Host]

I love it. Seth, this has been great. I've enjoyed every moment of our conversation. I want to just end by saying that, because we don't actually. I have a lot of entrepreneurial friends, a lot of people, great authors like yourself. I think we all kind of talk, hey, what are you doing? And how's life? How's business? And everybody says it's great and wonderful, and that's kind of where the conversation ends. What I want to kind of just communicate to you is because as entrepreneurs, as business people, as creators, we don't really understand what we're actually doing or how we're impacting people. But I want to say that you've really helped me a lot. You've really helped me a lot. And it's funny, because when I was reading your books throughout the years, I really felt like you were talking to me directly. And that's not an. I don't know how you did that. It was very hard to kind of square that. And, like, how does this guy know what I'm thinking? But maybe I was like, exactly your target market. But I just want to communicate to you that the work that you've put out there over the years. I've been reading your stuff for 15 years, and it's just been incredible how it's helped me in little ways. And what I love about your work. If you've never read a book from Seth Godin, this is why I love him. He doesn't tell you exactly what to do because he doesn't know your circumstances. He doesn't know exactly what your. Where you're coming from, where your experiences are, what your skills are. He Nudges you in the right direction and that is everything. It's like having an uncle to tell you, have you thought about this? And that's what I love about your work. And I want to, you know, I love this is strategy. It's a great book. But I just want to say in totality, what you've given me has been a gift.

[Seth Godin]

Wow. Thank you. Thank you for leading. Thank you for showing up. The way you're doing this means a lot to me.

[Podcast Host]

Thanks, thanks.

[Seth Godin]

Appreciate you, Omar.

[Podcast Host]

Have a good one. What a great conversation with Seth Godin. I could go on for hours with him, but his time is super, super short and in demand. So I was glad to have the time I had with him. One of the biggest takeaways I had from today's conversation was stop doing things that don't work for you. That strategy of trying to be successful, trying to be something, build something, do something, whatever. It's writing a book or creating a business or creating some sort of product or a software. A lot of us are chasing things that we think are signals or tokens of success when really we just need to figure out what we need to do to get what we need in life, what we need out of the experience. That was kind of one of the hidden gems I got out of the Today's conversation. But if you love today's episode and you want to hear more from Seth Godin, you want more of these types of episodes, let us know in the comments below. If you are not watching on YouTube, go ahead and subscribe [e-mail] YouTube. You can also let us know by sending us a message over on our website at 100 MBA NET. Just click the contact link at the bottom of the page and we'll make sure to hear from you. And I usually reply to all the emails that we get. So thanks so much for listening and subscribing and being a part of this community. We'll see you on the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

[Omar Zenhom]

At Capella University. Learning online doesn't mean learning alone. Recividas Apollo de Personas que se perocupan portu exito un futuro diferente Esta mace ser cadalo que cres con Capella University. Visit Capella Eduardo.