Top 3 Takeaways from "This is Marketing" by Seth Godin
My top 3 quotes from the book.
It’s been months but I’ve finished “This is Marketing” by Seth Godin.
I started this book back in January but kept procrastinating on reading it. I restarted it around June and have been trying to read it consistently. I read it on and off but have managed to finish it now.
If you’ve been seeing my LinkedIn posts, you know that I’ve been posting a TON of quotes from Seth Godin. I’ve gotten all of them from this book. (Go to this Notion page to find every single post I’ve made from a quote from the book.)
To be specific, I’ve made about 25 LinkedIn posts in total that are all quotes from this book. So since you won’t want to go back to find 25 different posts, I’ll share my three favorite quotes and why they stand out to me. This is not in any order by the way. These were hard to pick because all of the quotes are super helpful.
Quote 1: “Always be seeking, connecting, solving, asserting, believing, seeing, and yes, testing. The other way to read this is: to always be wrong. Well, not always. Sometimes you’ll be right. But most of the time you’ll be wrong. That’s okay.”
➡️ It’s ok to be wrong! You will make mistakes plenty of times. At some point, you’ll get it right, but only after being wrong. This is kind of freeing to me. This stops me from being a perfectionist or being afraid to post. I know if I keep posting bad content eventually it’ll get good.
Quote 2: “Sonder is defined as that moment when you realize that everyone around you has an internal life as rich and as conflicted as yours.”
➡️ Every single person has been living their life until the moment you meet them. Just like you, they’ve had childhood, experiences, family, and friends, that have all shaped their internal narratives, psychology, and world views. Everyone has noise in their heads so creating a connection with them is much more effective than convincing them to help you.
Quote 3: “It’s easier to make products and services for the customers you seek to serve than it is to find customers for your products and services.”
➡️ Audience first, product second. It’s better to have an audience first before a product so that you know their needs and can make a product to solve their problems. Take Notion templates for example. You wouldn’t create a random template for anyone. Creating a system for a specific type of person or business to solve a specific problem is much more effective, and much easier! When you know what problem you’re solving, you know what to put in the system.
Being a marketer is about making change. It’s about creating a community, unifying people, and providing value. You have to truly understand people and their internal narratives about status, fear, exclusivity, or anything else they care about. And this book helped me see marketing in a whole new light.
I guess one more quote can finish off this post:
Quote 4: “Marketing is the generous act of helping someone to solve a problem. Their problem. It’s a chance to change the culture for the better.”
➡️ Help someone. Solve their problem. If you do this, you’re a marketer!
Have you read this book? What’s your favorite piece of advice from Seth Godin?