Posted on | March 9, 2010 | 15 Comments
SETH GODIN was the BIG DRAW at The Art of Marketing Conference held in downtown Toronto on March 2, 2010. Sponsored by Microsoft Dynamics CRM, this Conference drew an audience of 1,600 people to to hear six internationally renowned thought-leaders and bestselling businessbook authors talk about critical cutting edge marketing issues
What Seth Godin DID there was WHAT he has been doing oh so well for the last 15 years: – helping us ALL do a ‘Screen Refresh’ on our Business Brains, this time by sharing his views on Leadership & Creativity in marketing today.
EXEC SUMMARY: SETH GODIN on LEADERSHIP & CREATIVITY
NOW is time to re-appreciate your marketing fundamentals.
MARKETING going forward will be all about focusing on Creating Value for individual customers in individualized ways that are relevant, specific, and special to each.
To do this requires individual and organizational Freedom, Creativity and Courage. This is the only way to commandingly Connect with People today, get them to WANT what you have to sell (if they find it wantable), buy your offerings, and join your TRIBE of loyal followers.
To marketing people and organizations: do this and you will SUCCEED; don’t do this and you will get FIRED!
[* The enduring value Seth Godin delivered at the Art of Marketing Conference was NOT in the 'WHAT' of WHAT Seth Godin said but in the 'WHAT' about WHAT Seth Godin talked about. In this I encourage you to think along the lines of Marshall McLuhan and his statement that “The Medium Is The Message” because marketing success today is not to be found so much in doing what Seth Godin says but in doing things like Seth Godin does. Baffled? Well then I invite you to read on for there is an explanation in the assessment / evaluation commentary section below.]
SETH GODIN in Profile
Hailed as "America’s Greatest Marketer" by American Way Magazine, Seth Godin is best known for:
- Promoting emarketing terms and popularizing concepts like permission marketing among many others;
- writing the most popular marketing blog in the world;
- being the author of numerous bestselling marketing books including All Marketers Are Liars;
- speaking to large groups on marketing, new media and what’s next;
- and being the founder of Squidoo.com, a fast-growing recommendation website.
Seth Godin first gained recognition in his work as a brand manager for Spinnaker Software. Then in 1986, Godin used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions. This book packaging business, that operated out of a studio apartment in New York City and published a variety of books written both by Godin and other authors, became best known for publishing the Beardstown Ladies Investment Guide.
In 1995, Godin launched Yoyodyne which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August, 1996, venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. The site gained significant traction by getting over one million viewers annually visiting the site and by getting companies like America Online, American Express, H&R Block, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Sprint, and Volvo to use its services. It was here that Godin made his name by developing the principle of permission marketing and by authoring the books eMarketing: Reaping Profits on the Information Highway in 1995 and Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers in 1999. In 1998, Godin sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for $30 million and became Yahoo’s vice president of direct marketing, a position he held until 2000.
In total, Seth Godin is the author of 14 books to date. Notable have been how his Free Prize Inside was a Forbes Business Book of the Year in 2004; how in its first two years of release, Purple Cow sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 printings; how The Dip was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller; and how Godin, in publishing his FREE ebook Unleashing the Ideavirus produced the most "popular ebook ever written" according to claims made.
Marketers should take note of how, beginning with Permission Marketing, Seth Godin has consistently used the concepts he promotes in his books to promote whatever latest book he has out. For Permission Marketing, Godin gave 1/3rd of the book away for FREE to anyone who sent an e-mail. For Unleashing the Ideavirus, Godin this time released the entire eBook on the internet for FREE, which led to eventual publishing deals in 41 countries and a public speaking career. For Purple Cow, Godin crated a milk carton container for his book which generated significant attention. For Tribes, Godin launched an exclusive online community for the first 3000 people who pre-ordered the book
Seth has an irrepressible speaking style and no-holds-barred blog, both of which have helped him create a large following around the world. You are invited to read his wikipedia bio, check out reviews of his seminars and see what Google thinks of him.
SETH GODIN on LEADERSHIP & CREATIVITY – ‘WHAT’ He Had To Say
Seth began his presentation by immediately challenging the audience about the nature of the world today and their notion of marketing.
In lamenting how marketing has been far too much about promoting ‘average products’ to ‘average people’, he asked “Where’s the ‘ART’ in that?!?” And because that doesn’t work any more, Seth was clear in saying we need to change and look at our world in a significantly different way. He stated that the goal he had in his presentation was to help us to do just that – CHANGE OUR VIEWS & CHANGE OUR ACTIONS – and he challenged us by asking if by the end of his talk: will we have done that?
Traditionally, Seth said, TV has been the best way to market and reach the MASS audience. But companies can’t advertise enough today because there are TOO many channels all sending out endless SPAM, which makes TV no longer the way to succeed.
“Advertising hasn’t and can’t build a brand today”
The better example for how to achieve marketing success today, Seth told us, can be found in the story of the Candy Shoppe that located on Ontario’s Highway #11, a bit north of Orillia, on the road that leads to the Muskoka cottage country.
There, you can find this nondescript small retail outlet that found a way to stand out from the crowd and succeed despite all the competition coming from the dozens of similar looking stores that dot both sides of this busy north / south major route. How did they do that? Well, they did it by developing an idea that SPREAD, namely offering an incredible range of nostalgic and contemporary candy and treat items from all around the world.
“Ideas that spread, WIN”
As a result, the owners have been able to earn $150,000 a year by creating two stores on either side of the highway where the average sale per customer visit is $60. This they achieved by providing visitors who stopped in to see their shop with a trip down memory lane, for everywhere they turn, shoppers are tempted to buy from a vast, truly visually-overwhelming assortment of candy treats. The Candy Shoppe offerings includes Betty Boop, Elvis, John Deere, Disney, Nascar and other character tinware, American and British candy and chocolate bars, Dutch and salted licorices from Britain and Australia, collectible PEZ dispensers, gummies of all colours and shapes and an incredibly large range of treats that appeal to sugar lovers and diabetics alike, such as black balls, mojos, Thrills gum, wax tubes with liquid, gold mine nugget gum, chocolate cigarettes, and pink elephant popcorn. And you can even buy online too at www.candyshoppe.ca.
“People in North America have all they NEED today /
We need to sell them what they WANT”
The key today to selling more is the strength and value of the customer connections we make, not the numbers. This is why what you need to do is create and build your own TRIBE, which means you need to show up and lead those interested in what you are interested in.
People want to interact with and buy from BRANDS that STAND for SOMETHING. Your job is to decide what you want to stand for.
To illustrate this point about the tremendous motivational and transformative power that can come from people who decide to stand up for something communities value, Seth told us the story of Nathan Winograd. This former California district attorney with a special passion for feral cats joined the San Francisco SPAC (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) as Director of Ethical Studies in 1995. There he soon became appalled to learn just how badly the American animal shelter system had lost its way. Over time they had morphed from having a mission of compassion to becoming an organization bent on coldly enforcing public order by killing almost every abandoned or stray animal they took in.
In response, he found a way to revive the concept of showing compassion to stray and abandoned adoptable pets by winning over political authorities through harnessing social networks to get the community to rise up and rally behind him in support of the “No Kill” movement he organized and led. Since then, he went on take over the leadership of an SPCA in upstate New York where he similarly turned things around, eliminating the killing of adoptable pets virtually overnight. Lately, he provides consulting services to animal shelters, rescue groups, and municipalities that embrace No Kill Solutions
Seth said that if Nathan could mobilize communities to once again show love and compassion for abandoned and stray animals, you should be able to do something similar for donuts or whatever you have responsibility for by finding ways that get interested communities to really care for these products once again.
This led Seth to emphasize how marketers need to realize that marketing today is about individuals and about showing leadership. To see this reality, Seth reviewed how we got here. He said that 100 years ago, Henry Ford succeeded by building a revolutionary new business system, one that was beyond any one person and which became in time the foundation of America’s wealth. Ford’s modern factory was based on the concept of standardized, interchangeable parts being continuously assembled into products by interchangeable people doing standardized, repetitive work.
“marketing was invented to insure factories could continuously produce
by getting people to continuously buy.”
Today, we are at a fork in the road. This is because things today are no longer like what we were taught, or what we grew up with
Human history has been a developmental progression:
- Hunters;
- Farmers;
- City Factory Workers;
> to where we are & need to be today >
What is an ARTIST? Well, take Pablo Picasso as a prime example. Picasso painted what he saw, not what was, and people loved his work and bought a lot of it.
To be an ARTIST worker, the key is in being able do something that is a first, and to do it without needing or being forced to resort to a manual. ARTIST workers must have FREEDOM and be able to act without instruction if they are going to be able to succeed. This is something that does not fit well into today’s factory concept of work where the focus is on controlled production while constantly cutting costs. The problem is: once you focus on making a standardized product for average people, anyone and everyone can and will make it cheaper!
Because of that fact, we need to focus on creating work and work products that cannot be measured or replicated because otherwise, the competition can start to challenge you.
It used to be in that the old times there was Battle of IDEAS between people who backed Adam Smith who argued how it was best when you owned a machine and people who backed Karl Marx who argued how it was best to looked after the needs of the workers. Now, a third group has emerged. One that works AND owns their own machines – computers. These people are no longer hostage to big money capitalists who own the factories.
Because of that, the reality now is that factories – and the factory mentality – no longer rules the day and leaders can’t rely on worker blind obedience any more. Unfortunately, however, for a majority of workers and Chief Marketing Officers today, too many companies still expect them to follow a predefined set of instructions. But the true needs today are for workers who can focus on and have the latitude to Create and Invent for this is the ART of Business, and it is where the highest Business Rewards are.
“be an ARTIST”
No one can give you – the worker or Chief Marketing Officer – a road map that can tell you how to become an ARTISTin your own right in your own world. If it was available, then someone else would either be already doing it, doing it better, or doing it cheaper than you.
What WE need to do is teach ourselves and our organizations to: (A) solve interesting problems; and (B) lead people. This is the WAY to become a good marketer by becoming an ARTIST. Don’t fear failure. Best you start off by giving yourself either an ‘A’ in order to boost your confidence or a ‘D’ to eliminate your fear of failure by eliminating all your down side risk.
You better start making ART now because not doing so will cause you to loose your job, that one you were bound to loose anyway sometime sooner or later => better you STAND UP & BE A LEADER and see the world as full of opportunity even if we are in a recession.
“just because the tide is out doesn’t mean the ocean has any less water!”
Seth told the STORY of one person who was allowed by their organization to do ART, not just what they were told. “A woman whose mother died leaving lots of unopened shoes from Zappos called to the company’s call center to ask about returns even thought she didn’t have all the purchase receipts for the items. Happily for her, she spoke to a woman there who decided on her own to send this grieving woman a large Zappos box to help with the returns and a bouquet of flowers with a condolence card. Now, that is a prime example of WORK ART.”
Seth also told the STORY of a coffee shop owner who sent his customers a Dis-Loyalty Card that offer them a FREE coffee if they sampled nine different competitors’ offerings and got their card stamped each time. Another great example of WORK ART and how to build your own TRIBE
Seth cautioned the audience that acting in such ways is HARD, for the Lizard part of our Brain will often kick in, causing us to become scarred by inciting FEAR. This is why the traditional COMMAND & CONTROL organizations can’t handle ARTISTS, ART, and ART creation well. They tend to get too scarred and kill off any initiative going in this direction.
As an example of doing MARKETING ART, Seth told the story of a truly REBELLIOUS new product idea called ‘socks that don’t match’ from MissMatched Inc. of New York. To Seth, LittleMissMatched Socks is a fine example of an ARTIST PRODUCT, one that found a new and controversial way to get people taking about it and interacting around it, both online and in the real world. He said that because this product so outrageously broke the rules on conformity, if someone in a traditional marketing organization had come up with this idea, surely they would have been quickly killed it early in the planning stage. Of course, its appeal (and its market) is in its NON-CONFORMITY.
The reason why ground breaking concepts and product too often get killed off before they get a chance to fail with the only audience that matters is: RESISTANCE. Resistance gets in the way of ART and it comes from the fear of ridicule (and of risk). What this causes is pressure on most people to try to be AVERAGE and FIT IN. But what we need to do is, focus on:
“NOT being SHEEP”
Seth’s view is that it is vital we replace fear of the unknown with CURIOSITY because the only people succeeding today are those who are trying to do things differently and better, even though they get booed off the stage every once and a while. This means we need to manage our ANXIETY, the emotional response that is nothing more than our experiencing failure in advance. In this we will NOT find salvation in reassurance. What we all need to do is FIGHT our Lizard Brain on its own terms by learning to accept that work has changed and does change. Furthermore, we need to react by working find and solve INTERESTING problems. When as a part of our work we connect with people and try to solve their interesting problems, we are doing what modern workers should be doing and get paid to do => undertake EMOTIONAL LABOUR. If you are finding you are not engaged in and expending emotional labour, then you’re just keeping the office seat you have warm for the person who will replace you!
Seth encourages you to embrace your FEAR and put it into proper perspective. What organizations need to do is focus their offering so that it solves an interesting problem in a novel way. Don’t fear alienating some people. Rather concentrate on those who appreciate what you do offer. If you are ONE doing this, great, because it is THE way to get you started on the ROAD becoming an INDISPENSABLE LINCHPIN in to your TRIBE and to your organization.
So, if you want to get paid WHAT you think you are worth, then you need to find ways to STAND OUT, exert EMOTIONAL LABOUR, and use the following 7 WAYS to become a LINCHPIN.
- Make connections
- Be really creative
- Manage projects of great complexity
- Be good at teaching customers
- Inspire staff
- Build deep domain knowledge (Google your way to this if need be)
- Work with passion and vision while not worrying about or aspiring to be the best
Doing these 7 things to become a LINCHPIN will help you focus on your SHIFT POINT by concentrating on BIG issues first, not last. And if you were wondering what a LINCHPIN looks like, consider this example: the best sports person the world has ever seen, Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman. Bradman’s career Test batting average of 99.94 is claimed to be statistically the greatest achievement in any major sport because his batting average is 4.4 standard deviations above the average of other Cricket players, with the great Pelé coming in second on that list at 3.7 standard deviations above the mean for goals per game. That’s staggering. That’s indispensable. That’s a LINCHPIN.
Importantly, don’t be just warming up your seat at work for your replacement. Avoid that by creating ART by treating your WORK as a PLATFORM for ART CREATION. In Seth’s eyes, a GENIUS is a human being who either solves a problem for others that has never been solved before or finds a new, creative, different way to solve it that adds value and options. The world well rewards Geniuses who can do this. As for the others, they are just hanging around waiting to be led (and / or to be replaced).
The QUESTION Seth concluded his presentation with was this:
WILL YOU BE THE ONE TO STEP UP TO THE ‘MAKE ART’ CHALLENGE ??
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SETH GODIN PRESENTATION – Assessment / Evaluation:
Seth Godin’s March 2, 2010 presentation at The Art of Marketing Conference in Toronto March 2, 2010 was GREAT – BUT it left me scratching my head for days wondering:
WHAT did I LEARN?
HOW can WHAT I heard CHANGE my WORK LIFE for the BETTER?
and
WHAT should I DO differently NOW?
Ultimately I came down to this question: WHY should I be paying attention to a short, bald guy from the US with a name that’s from somewhere else, no matter how great the following he has among the social media generation today?
The ANSWER to that is: the VALUE of Godin’s message is not in the realm of the ‘HOW TO’ even though he did give some great direction in that way – rather, the GOLD in the Seth Godin message is in the ‘WHAT about WHAT’ he had to say about marketing. Let me explain.
I encourage you to see Seth Godin for what he is (and says he is), a MARKETING GENIUS with offerings to sell – one who sets a great example about WHAT we need to do to enjoy success similar to his in today’s social media dominated world. Certainly, ‘WHAT’ I saw Seth Godin do in his presentation at The Art of Marketing Conference in Toronto was DEMONSTRATE the ‘WHAT’ about WHAT he has been doing with great success for years now:
1) marketing Seth Godin ideas, and
2) marketing Seth Godin.
In this, Seth Godin SUCCEEDED WILDLY because:
- He got people to eagerly put their BUMS IN the conference hall SEATS,
- He got people to happily PAY money to the conference organizers,
- He got his audience to eagerly GOBBLE UP WHAT HE HAD TO SAY,
- He got people to BUY SETH GODIN BOOKS so they could get them autograph by him then and there, and
- He attracted more new followers to the SETH GODIN TRIBE helping it to grow even more.
SETH GODIN on MARKETING: The ‘WHAT’ about WHAT He Had To Say
The main reason 1,600 people attended The Art of Marketing Conference in Toronto on March 2, 2010 was this: to be led in marketing by Seth Godin. But the Conference take home question is: did they learn enough there to become leaders in their own right?
Certainly, Seth boldly challenged them to do so, BUT he really DIDN’T tell them HOW TO DO IT. No, WHAT Seth Godin did was DEMONSTRATE ways people can wildly succeed in marketing today.
However, I wonder WHO in the audience really absorbed this lesson? Will the audience become better, more successful marketing leaders in their own right now that first hand they have heard what SETH GODIN, ZEE BEST eMARKETING GURU TODAY, had to say, or will they continue to be SHEEP, mindlessly following him in whatever direction he goes?
Drawn from Seth Godin’s body of presentation material, his ideas, his books, and the hallmarks of his success to date, here is what I see is Seth Godin’s SEVEN STEP GOLDEN RECIPE for marketing success in today’s social media dominated world:
- Determine what you can produce or do for others (your ‘offering’) that could help them be better off,
- Determine the most compelling relevant needs others have today or will soon have that are related to your offering,
- Rework your offering as needed to closely align it to what are most compelling evolving needs others have,
- Find vital, compelling terms, descriptions, concepts and stories to describe your offering and what it can and will do for others in practical, situationally relevant terms so they engage with you and your offering,
- Start communicating about your offering in every effective personalized way available, trying to connect with others and turn them on to the point they BUY what you have to sell,
- Keep working and reworking your communication methodologies to enhance and project the power and benefit of your offering so your legion of fans grow into a TRIBE of loyal followers all eager to buy more of the offering(s) you have to sell,
- And above all, keep producing, delivering and reinventing both your message(s) and your offering(s) so that they stay fresh and relevant to your TRIBE’S evolving interests, concerns, needs and wants.
WHAT Seth Godin has done to create the tour de force in marketing that I think YOU can and should learn from. Look to replicate it in your own way if you want your own success. Certainly, this is WHAT I am and will be trying to do going forward. Hopefully, others will see and value my WORK ART and BUSINESS ARTISTIC ABILITIES allowing me to sell more and build my TRIBE of followers who REALLY appreciate of WHAT I can do and do for them. God willing, I’ll SUCCEED thereby. I encourage you DO THIS TOO.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Related Material:
Seth Godin’s 2003 TED video talk: ‘on sliced bread’
– an excellent, entertaining talk about how to stand out from the crowd
Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce
– another excellent, entertaining talk about why average products fail today and why asking people what they want in a product won’t get you the information you really need
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Article by –Tony Johnston
© Blog.TonyJohnston.biz & Compass North Inc. 2010
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
And if I can help you or your organization create WORK ART in the FINANCIAL DIMENSION by creating conditions and systems that enable you to realize better results or get important major transactions done on a better basis, check out my management & advisory firm, Compass North Inc., email me, or call me at (416) 342-5652.
Tony Johnston
Tony makes business results happen for companies facing challenging business goals !! Here’s how:
> by energizing and fine tuning organizations so they grow faster,
> by getting timely financing and better ownership deals done,
> by orchestrating activities so new businesses come to life, and
> by thrilling vital communities inside and outside companies so their
legion of fans multiply!
If you are a decision maker in a company with ambition and a challenging goal to achieve who would appreciate senior level support from insightful results producers with deep domain expertise, give Tony Johnston, President of Compass North Inc. a call at 416-342-5652.
Bottom-line: Tony and Compass North Inc. help company owners:
- maximize what they earn while they own their business and
- maximize what they bank when they sell.
Tony Johnston, CMC, CGA, MBA, BA (Econ)
President
Compass North Inc.
18 Balding Court
Toronto ON
M2P 1Y7
Office: 416-342-5652
Mobile: 416-346-4140
www.CompassNorthInc.com
www.CNiRapidResearch.com
> Follow Tony on Twitter @CompassNorthInc
Comments
![[RES]](res.bmp "RES feed")
![[RSS]](rss.bmp "RSS feed")
March 9th, 2010 @ 11:58 pm
Seth Godin @ The Art of Marketing | Biz Money Matters |…
SETH GODIN was the BIG DRAW at The Art of Marketing Conference in Toronto on March 2nd. The value in WHAT he had to say on Leadership & Creativity was not in the ‘WHAT’ of WHAT he said but in the ‘WHAT’ about WHAT he talked about. Read more to find…
March 10th, 2010 @ 5:16 pm
[...] Seth Godin talks “Creative Value.” Learn more about what he had to say at the recent “Art of Marketing Conference” in Toronto. Biz Money Matters [...]
March 10th, 2010 @ 5:45 pm
[...] Seth Godin talks “Creative Value.” Learn more about what he had to say at the recent “Art of Marketing Conference” in Toronto. Biz Money Matters [...]
March 10th, 2010 @ 6:07 pm
[...] Seth Godin talks “Creative Value.” Learn more about what he had to say at the recent “Art of Marketing Conference” in Toronto. Biz Money Matters [...]
March 10th, 2010 @ 7:02 pm
[...] Seth Godin talks “Creative Value.” Learn more about what he had to say at the recent “Art of Marketing Conference” in Toronto. Biz Money Matters [...]
March 10th, 2010 @ 8:00 pm
[...] Seth Godin talks “Creative Value.” Learn more about what he had to say at the recent “Art of Marketing Conference” in Toronto. Biz Money Matters [...]
March 10th, 2010 @ 11:01 pm
[...] Seth Godin talks “Creative Value.” Learn more about what he had to say at the recent “Art of Marketing Conference” in Toronto. Biz Money Matters [...]
March 11th, 2010 @ 4:54 pm
Comment submitted by ShawnHessinger on Mar 10, 2010 at BizSugar.com
Thanks very much for the summary of the event, Tony. Much appreciated.
> My Reply Comment was: You’re welcome – it’s was a pleasure providing it.
March 11th, 2010 @ 5:50 pm
Comment submitted by Bruce Berger, Managing Member of Recapitalization-Partners on Mar 11, 2010 at the LinkedIn Workout/Restructuring Group News Discussion page:
thanks for posting – that was a wonderful article
> My Reply Comment was: getting feedback like yours is greatly appreciated – thank you for taking the time to connect and comment
March 11th, 2010 @ 10:38 pm
Comment submitted by Eric Mitchellette, President of – Strategic Business Coach, Inc. in the Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area on Mar 11, 2010 at the LinkedIn Restructuring & Turnaround Consultants Group News Discussion page:
Thank you Tony; this is best summary and interpretation of Seth I have read. Your effort is very much appreciated.
> My Reply Comment was:
Eric,
Many thanks for the feedback. I take real pleasure in helping businesses and people in business succeed. I am very glad therefore that you appreciated my Seth Godin presentation summary and article comments. Many thanks for taking time to connect and comment.
- Tony Johnston
March 12th, 2010 @ 8:05 am
Comment submitted by Pj Rashid, Partner at Popskull in Greater Chicago Area on Mar 11, 2010 at the LinkedIn Private Equity Networking Private Equity Networking Group News Discussion page:
I highly recommend that anyone interested in growing their business should pay attention to Seth. His insight into how marketing and advertising has evolved is invaluable.
> My Reply Comment was: Thanks for your recommendation promoting my article and for taking time to comment.
March 16th, 2010 @ 8:17 pm
[...] in the figurative and literal sense of both of these words. Not convinced? Well then, listen to Seth Godin talk about this is the following 17 minute video clip from [...]
March 17th, 2010 @ 1:07 pm
Comment submitted by Megumi Oyanagi, Marketing Versatilist with Management Literacy, Marketing / Corporate / Employee Communication Professional in Japan on Mar 17, 2010 at the LinkedIn Corporate Planning & Global Industry Segmentation Group News Discussion page:
Thank you for sharing an interesting post. As a marketer, I have read some books by Seth Godin, as well as traditional marketing books. I feel this article would be good for marketers today.
Regards,
Megumi Oyanagi
http://twitter.com/MegOyanagi/
> My Reply Comment was: Hi Megumi in Japan, thank you very much for your comment. I hope that in addition to marketers finding worthwhile ideas in my article, CEOs and business owners can also find powerful ways grow their businesses too, for in many important ways it is they who really control so much of what marketers do or do not do.
March 17th, 2010 @ 1:19 pm
Comment submitted by Judy B. Margolis, MA, Business Writer, Editor and Blogger | Marketing Communications | B2B | Business Development in Toronto Canada on Mar 17, 2010 at the LinkedIn Canada Business and Professional Network Group News Discussion page:
Great material for marketers. Thanks, Tony.
> My Reply Comment was: Judy, you are most welcome, and thanks ever so much for you comment and compliment. For my part, I certainly hope marketers get a lot out of the article. But I hope CEOs and business owners get even more because they really are the ones who control how much or how little good stuff gets done in the Sales & Marketing parts of their businesses.
March 17th, 2010 @ 8:12 pm
Follow-on comment submitted by Megumi Oyanagi, Marketing Versatilist with Management Literacy, Marketing / Corporate / Employee Communication Professional in Japan on Mar 17, 2010 at the LinkedIn Corporate Planning & Global Industry Segmentation Group News Discussion page:
Dear Tony,
Yes, I agree absolutely.
With contents of thought leadership, business development, market creation, strategy etc. as well unlike many other marketing articles, CEOs and business owners will be able to learn/find clues to grow their business.
Regards,
Megumi Oyanagi
http://twitter.com/MegOyanagi/
> My Reply Comment was:
Hi Megumi,
I am glad in this we have consensus in the best honourable tradition of your home land. Tell me, if you might, what impact do Westerners like Seth Godin and Western ideas have on marketing practices in Japan today?
Regards,
Tony Johnston