Having Dessert With Seth Godin

Okay so I didn’t actually have dessert with him…  But I did just finish his book Meatball Sundae.

I finished Meatball Sundae two days ago and I am still trying to digest everything.  (Bad pun intended.)  In his book Godin outlines 14 trends that as marketers and small business owners, we need to pay attention to.

I think the biggest “Aha!” moment for me while reading this book occurred within the first 10 pages.  It came with these realizations.  Whether they know it or not, when a company builds a factory, they have just made a marketing decision.  When they hire a salesforce or lease space for the outlet store, they have made a marketing decision. By doing those things first they have determined how their products will need to be marketed in order to make the foundation of their business work.  If you have factories and outlet stores you have to sell massive amounts of product to support them.  In order to sell massive amounts of product they will need to mass market, ie TV, radio, etc.  Their marketing was decided by the way they set their business up.

On the other hand if you first look at how you will market your business, then you can lay the foundation of what you will produce and how you will produce it in a way that is conducive to that marketing model.  The most obvious example of this would be an Internet business.  Once a company decides that it will market it’s products online, and to take advantage of the new marketing, they are now free to make the decisions on how to lay the foundation.  This would include staffing, salesforces, manufacturing, distribution, etc.  This company is going to be more nimble and flexible because it has based it’s business on it’s marketing instead of the other way around.

We as small businesses are in a position to act quickly and decisively in response to changes in marketing trends.  In Meatball Sundae Godin outlines 14 trends that are currently changing the way business gets done in the world today.  Having explored these trends, I am forced to ask myself some questions about our own business.

Are we doing everything we can to position ourselves to take advantage of the changing marketing environment?

Are we establishing open communication with our customers before and after the sale?

Are we practicing what we preach?

Are we giving our customers something remarkable?

Are we focusing on the ‘who’ or the ‘how many’? 

How about you?  How do you see the new trends in marketing changing the way you do business?

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