Linchpin will likely not be the last book Seth Godin publishes in a traditional way.
If you live primarily inside the echo chamber of the online marketing world you’ve undoubtedly heard that Seth Godin, author of at least 12 books that we know of, has pulled the plug on the publishing industry by proclaiming that he no longer intends to publish books the way they are traditionally published. You can get the full story on Seth’s blog, from MediaBistro and even the Wall Street Journal.
Now, before I go any further it must be stated that I am a fan – I am inspired by Seth’s writing and have been blessed by his support on more then one occasion. We have the same publisher and he was kind enough to write testimonials for the jacket of both my books. He is the real deal and has a following that any business or business person would envy. But, let’s keep this in perspective. This is not the end of traditional publishing as we know it, it’s not even the end of traditional publishing as Seth knows it.
Business books, and sadly marketing books, make up a very small chunk of the book publishing world, but even inside this rather small bubble, this is simply a statement that content consumption has evolved. We know that, we’ve all responded to that, but more than anyone else I know Seth has a knack for clearly stating the things we’ve all been standing around thinking – some may not agree, but that’s a skill set that turns people into thought leaders.
Business book writers don’t really have to be that good at writing. I include myself in that last statement. I don’t think my publisher cares so much about what I can write. They do care deeply about what I can sell. That’s the reality that irks some, but it’s a fact. I have no idea if I’m a good writer or not – although three or four pages into a Don DeLillo novel and I realize how terribly inappropriate it would be call myself an author – but I love that people are inspired to action by something I’ve figured out how to put on paper – the digital and print kind. Not that the world is waiting for me to weigh in, but I do intend to continue to publish in the traditional sense because I still enjoy it and think that the majority of content consumers enjoy it as well.
Seth Godin can afford to move to non-traditional forms of publishing because he has access to traditional forms of publishing and distribution. If you’re a book buyer, you are going to stock Seth Godin’s next hardback. If you’re a world class book editor, you’re going to enjoy editing Seth Godin’s next book. Seth Godin actually stands to make more money from a book he can self publish because he has the platform to do so. This move makes sense and is not a completely bold or trailblazing one. But, let’s wait and see when it hits the shelves.
The Wall Street Journal article cited above states that Linchpin has sold roughly 50,000 copies. That’s a nice number, that’s a number that gets you Wall Street Journal and New York Times Best Seller status in the world of business books. Jonathan Franzen has a new book coming out next week. (Yes, there’s a Kindle version) His last book sold 2.85 million copies and I’ll bet the majority of business book fans couldn’t name it. So, before we go off and do away with the traditional print and distribution models understand that more than anything else, Seth wants to have a conversation with his fans and if he has something to say, you can bet he will generously say it in as many forms as are deemed necessary.
Perhaps the biggest winners from the buzz of Seth moving on are the self-publishing industry and authors without a sufficient platform to attract the attention of a Portfolio.
Technology has allowed us to move past the days when we simply drove a prospect to our website, captured their name and email address, and started them in a drip system in hopes that at some point they would click on a link in one of our emails and buy something.
Today’s lead generation system is a fully automated lead engagement system aimed at delivering the right information to the right person at the right time – and helping the sales team spot the perfect prospects ready for further engagement. By chaining together a series of web based applications you can create a system that engages, analyzes, and even gets pretty close to thinking about how to create better leads.
Below is an example of how a system like this might flow
Run a series of ads using Adwords and Facebook promoting a free downloadable eBook
Create seriously interactive and user friendly landing page forms with wufoo
Landing page success page includes Audio Acrobat audio recorded instructions on what to expect next
When prospect requests copy of free eBook Solve 360 CRM creates a record and sends email to Flowtown
Flowtown analyzes the social media activity associated with email and appends CRM record with social media data
Based on social media activity criteria Flowtown creates influencer alerts and tags records for segmentation
Segmentation information is sent to Constant Contact to enroll prospect in one of a series of email follow-up campaigns based on social media participation
Email series invites prospects back to a series of video landing pages using personalized URL technology from SendPepper that also creates a post card mailing with personalized data from the campaign
When a SendPepper pURL landing page is visited the Solve 360 CRM creates a task and the appropriate sales person receives a mobile alert to call the prospect
A system like this can be created by any size small business and gives you the kind of fire power that would make a salesperson at a Fortune 100 company giddy – as long as you also monitor every aspect using a tool like Google Analytics to help improve conversion at every step.
The entire process can be designed, monitored and tuned in such a way that it feels appropriate and elegant for each prospect that experiences it. While few things will ever replace person to person contact in the world of engagement a well designed lead engagement system is the front line tool that can help you create the know, like, and trust required to get that all important first meeting.
I have to warn you that today’s post is a bit of a ramble because I’m working through something that feels kind of big, but that I don’t know that I’ve concluded.
If you’ve read this blog or, for that matter, anything I’ve written you know that I believe a business is a system and marketing is perhaps the most important component system in any business. While this notion resonates with most of the small business owners I speak with, the practical application can be rather difficult to master.
Most business employ systems, whether they know it or not. We are naturally drawn to those systematic experiences that make things feel more effective and efficient, but often lose site of just what makes them so. The villain is this case is not systems or even a lack of systems, it’s our flawed systematic thought. If we look at improving our marketing return by tearing down failed systems or installing new ones, but do so with the same flawed systems thinking, we run the risk of simply producing another set of flawed processes.
Most people who work with marketing think of it as a set of tools that can be forged to produce and keep a result, a customer. It’s this thinking or rationality that must be changed first in order to truly impact the system that produces results.
So often when we think of building systems, or even the smallest of processes, we think about the steps we need to take in order to make sure something gets done in the most efficient manner – even if that work feels completely meaningless to the person operating the process.
What if instead we viewed every decision, every action, every system with the end impact in mind first and worked backwards?
You can have any number of desired results in mind, even breaking them down in a hierarchy of departments like lead generation and customer service. But, the key to any systems thinking is to get very clear about a specific tangible result and drive back to every point that can logically come into play to deliver that result.
Instead of thinking we need to develop a customer service system, think we want to make sure that 100% of our customer willingly refer us to their friends. Instead of thinking we need to develop a lead conversion system, think we want every prospect to conclude they would be crazy to choose someone else. Could that kind of thinking change how and what you built by way of a system? Could this kind of thinking pump meaning into every task, operated by every employee, at every level?
If this way of viewing any challenge or initiative crept into your business at the most foundational level I believe you would find systems creation much more like creating art than creating a factory.
My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.
I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr.
Print What You Like – Very cool little web app allows you to grab parts of web pages and only print those parts – saves paper and formats pages for print
Facebook announced what can clearly be called a “me too” location check in function yesterday, but hey, when you have half a billion people using something, even a copied innovation can have huge immediate impact. Facebook Places is a smart-phone location check-in feature that allows users to share their location, find the location of their friends, and discover new places based on other Facebook user recommendations – much like Loopt, Foursquare and Yelp! provide.
To get started, you’ll need the most recent version of the Facebook application for iPhone. (As of last night you had to search and download as it was not showing up as an update) You also can access Places from touch.facebook.com if your mobile browser supports HTML 5 and geolocation. A lot of information about how this service works is still evolving (Only available in the US right now as well) but you here’s the current FAQ page from Facebook
This is a big deal because location check-in has exploded as a habitual way of connecting and it stands to reason that a large number of people using Gowalla and Foursquare today will migrate their location check-ins to the network where they spend most of their time already – Facebook. This move kind of makes my status as the Mayor of my local coffee shop look a whole lot less interesting.
Facebook seems very invested in this function and were adamant about the fact that users will have the ability to set and restrict privacy using Places. By default your checkins will go to your profile and news stream. If you want to change who can see your checkins, go to your account’s privacy settings. You’ll see that “Places I check in” is by default shared with “Friends Only.” You can change who views your checkins from this area.
Why It’s a Big Deal for Business
Facebook is building a suite of advertising tools that will allow you to list, claim and advertise your place on Facebook
You no longer have to educate your customers – they all know what Facebook is
People checking in at your business are naturally telling some part of the word about your business
Offering coupons and special offers for people who check in is a natural way to tap the power of using online tools to drive offline sales.
Data that you can collect on users and amount of times they checkin will prove extremely valuable in tracking customers and advertising spend
If your business is not already listed on Places you can add it by following these instructions. The roll-out is a bit spotty across the US today, but my guess is that by next week people will be Places happy.
Imagine this scenario. You run an ad that directs someone to your landing page for a free report. They fill out the form, providing only their email address, and fifteen seconds later you receive an alert that tells you this person is a very high profile blogger, connector and influencer in your industry – just the kind of person you are looking for to pilot your new white labeled service.
The process described above is no longer fiction due to an innovative new service called Flowtown. In this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I visited with Flowtown cofounder and CEO Ethan Bloch. Flowtown’s mission, according to Bloch, is to help businesses paint a really rich story about their customers by appending each customer’s social media activity to their record. Or, as they put it on their website – turn an email into a social profile. I equate this to the high tech version of the salesperson of past days that knew how to quickly establish some sort of common ground with a prospect or customer.
The use of social data in the business world has become so essential and so expected that I believe the day is coming when customer and prospects will assume you know a great deal about them and expect that they can discover a great deal about the people and companies that they are considering working with through their own social networks.
Bloch shares a quote from his cofounder Dan Martell that I think is so true these days – “you already know everyone you need to know, you just don’t know who they are”
The power of Flowtown is simplicity and the growing number of integrations with service providers such as MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, Wufoo, and Unbounce.
In case you hadn’t gathered, I think Flowtown is a tool that every marketer needs in the toolbox.
As Facebook continues to grow and provide more and more search functionality so does the need to think strategically about optimizing some of your status updates.
About six months ago Facebook introduced status tagging, a feature that allows you to tag and link to pages and people that you like from your updates. When writing an update you simply start with @ and the person you want to tag and Facebook will add a link in the update to that person and (depending on privacy settings) post your update to their wall and notify them they’ve been tagged. (The tagged person can always undo the tag)
Careful use of this practice can lead to increased exposure of your updates and pages. Somewhat recently Facebook also started building “community pages” – a way to build pages on topics and help bring people together around common interests. While most of these pages exist purely from people saying they like something on their profile, some have begun to get some real niche followers and traction.
It’s beginning to make sense for people on Facebook to start to take the time to research topics related to their business, interests and industry and start “liking” a number of popular community pages with an eye on status tagging these pages in your updates.
Here’s an example. Yesterday I wrote about public speaking and mentioned the popular TED Talks and Toastmasters groups in my post. I went to Facebook to share the link for the blog post and tagged the public speaking, TED talks, and Toastmasters International community pages. This action placed my update on all three of these community pages and exposed it to another 30,000 or so potential readers. (You must be a fan of these pages to use the tagging feature and there may be a lag in the time you like them and they show up in tagging.)
Because TED is so popular (over 500,000 fans) I also took the time to post to the TED page wall. Understand that this was content that was very relevant to this audience and not just a post to grab eyeballs. Strategic optimization of your status updates can take a little more time and thought, but the additional exposure through sharing quality content and updates is becoming well worth the time.
I wonder how this might become a play for local businesses routinely tagging community pages for their city?
Speaking, or, at the very least, effectively presenting an idea, whether to two or two thousand, is an essential business skill. I would argue that marketers should have one or two core presentations that they make routinely as a way to share their companies’ unique point of view or story. Small business owners should think of presenting information in online and offline seminar formats as an important lead generation and conversion tactic.
Many people struggle with speaking in front of an audience and the only real cure for this is to get up and do it, realize no one will suffer permanently from it, and then get up and do it again. There are, however, three bits of advice that I would give to anyone that desires to become a more effective speaker. For me, effective only means getting your point across in a way that inspires the listener to do what you want them to do.
Share the love – one of the most important elements an effective speaker brings to an audience is passion. This can be passion for helping people get something valuable from hearing the lesson or advice presented or passion for the subject itself. You can’t fake passion, but when you have it, your message often comes through more clearly regardless of the polish of your speaking presence.
If you’re naturally passionate about your subject or the purpose of your information, then just don’t hold back, let people be attracted to that passion. If, however, your position requires you to present information that may be useful, but doesn’t exactly capture your imagination, then your job is to inject something you are passionate about. Let’s say you are talking about network security, but what you really love is World of Warcraft, music, or baseball. I believe you will be a much more compelling speaker when you find a way to weave topics you are passionate about into your presentations.
Become a TEDhead – If you’re not familiar with TED, then I am thrilled to be the one to introduce it to you. TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. It has grown to be a worldwide phenomenon and one of the best places for you to learn how to be a better speaker.
TED speakers are chosen because they are fascinating and have passion for a big idea. The format challenges them to present that idea within 18 minutes and most use very little in the way of slides or media. Every TED Talk is recorded and housed on the site. Make this your classroom and you will have access to a tremendous collection of speakers that will inspire and teach you how to be better speaker. Watch everything they do. (Start with Dan Pink on the Science of Motivation)
Shoot Your Free Throws – Legend has it that Larry Bird, the great NBA star, shot 100 free throws every day, even after he became a superstar. He also led the league in successful free throw shooting year after year. In order to be a better speaker you’ve got to practice. You may choose to spend a lot of time in front of mirror going over your presentation, but I suggest you get in some pickup games pretty quickly too.
Hunt down a Toastmaster’s Chapter in your area and start forcing yourself to present and receive critical review from a peer group. Seek out opportunities to present your ideas wherever you can. Speaking to the knitting club monthly lunch may not get you in front of the audience you ultimately desire, but it will get you live feedback and help you get better. Another thing about practicing in front of an audience is that it almost always leads to other speaking opportunities. Don’t let weeks slip by without rehearsing and presenting live, keep refining your ideas and approach by listening to your audience.
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Referral Flood by John Jantsch
Referral Flood - How to create a flood of new business without spending one dime on advertising - by John Jantsch
Technology has allowed us to move past the days when we simply drove a prospect to our website, captured their name and email address, and started them in a drip system in hopes that at some point they would click on a link in one of our emails and buy something.
If you’ve read this blog or, for that matter, anything I’ve written you know that I believe a business is a system and marketing is perhaps the most important component system in any business. While this notion resonates with most of the small business owners I speak with, the practical application can be rather difficult to master.
Facebook announced what can clearly be called a 
Speaking, or, at the very least, effectively presenting an idea, whether to two or two thousand, is an essential business skill. I would argue that marketers should have one or two core presentations that they make routinely as a way to share their companies’ unique point of view or story. Small business owners should think of presenting information in online and offline seminar formats as an important lead generation and conversion tactic.
