The Biggest Marketing Secret in the World: Self-Awareness

After months on my Amazon Wish list and a long stint on my To Read pile. I finally got around to reading Seth Godin's book, Purple Cow. I remember why I like Seth's stuff so much--he boils marketing down to principles of personal development. Want your product to take off like gangbusters? You might as well ask how you feel about not being liked by everybody, or if you value being authentic. In the end, it's the people with a strong sense of self who also have a strong marketing sense.

I can see Seth nodding his head skeptically, thinking, "Not sure what you mean, but go on."

Seth writes in Purple Cow:

"If you're remarkable, it's likely that some people won't like you. That's part of the definition of remarkable. Nobody gets unanimous praise, ever."

People on the path to self-realization come to a similar conclusion about themselves. They come to differentiate themselves at the risk of losing universal approval. They risk lukewarm legitimacy for being extraordinary. They understand that legacy isn't popularity, and meaningful products are rarely sold by the truckload.

Godin says about product marketing, but he could be talking about life in general, "In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing."

Have we finally come to a place where effective personal and marketing principles parallel each other? Consider yourself the brand being considered throughout Purple Cow and yes, Godin becomes the Oprah of Marketing.

The overarching feeling I had reading the book was that I knew this stuff already--I just hadn't internalized it. The work reminds me of reading Emerson in college, more specifically his essay, Self-Reliance. Far be it from me to pen such luminous phrases as "consistency is the hobgoblin of foolish minds," but the beauty from it seems to emanate from my recognition of it as truth, from some place that I accessed very rarely while getting shit-faced drunk in a college bar. Still the knowledge existed, and just that brief delight that came forth from reading something that I felt was true was enough to make an impact, which Purple Cow did for me.

Godin uses a wonderful metaphor of the arrow-tip-shaped bird migration formation, a natural, functional design that describes how businesses "draft" off each other to save R&D energy and to mitigate the risk of failure. Businesses that stay behind always remain behind; they may not risk exerting disastrous amounts of energy to stay ahead of the pack, but they run a riskier route of having to try to determine which path to follow--which company to copy. A freedom is open to the bird willing to take the lead--and the risk. It may fall behind in the formation from time to time while it retrenches, but, Godin argues, it takes leaders a long time to fall behind. They can, in effect, draft on the airstreams they forged for a long time while they adjust.

I applied this concept to the career marketer--someone who has to stay ahead to stay employed. Without a personal approach to distinguish her product--which could be herself--she will get lost in the throngs of other specialists. When she does well, plenty will want to usurp the path she laid, some will come forth with larger bags of resources and say, "thanks, I'll take it from here." It's her choice to continue or desist, but not before she's made enough of an impression to establish a lead time that few, if any, others will make up.

Another question to ask yourself, other than, is my product better than the others', is, where do I stand in the formation?

Comments

[Dustin]

Great read Jory.

"Have we finally come to a place where effective personal and marketing principles parallel each other?"

I hope so. You know I used to blog more on spiritual matters as well as marketing observations. It was eerie how the two intertwined. Some good, some bad. It seems as though people and businesses are struggling for authenticity. We want to be successfully authentic, but fear we cannot be successful AND authentic. What we fail to realize is if we are successfully authentic, then our success will be authentic as well. Kapeesh?

[Omara]

Hello Jory,

I am also an admirer of Seth Godin, I think he is fresh, fun, original, intuitive.

I can see, like Dustin has pointed out, that these days the good ones are looking for authenticity. I prefer rather to talk of integrity, because being authentic can bring also some doses of raw sincerity that most people is not ready to handled well. Even in this case there still will be as average 50% who likes you and 50% who don´t; that's due to life's wonderful diversity.

Basically our life are not something as fragmented as we tend to perceive it, at the end all areas of it are fragments of the same whole thing, therefore if one is willing to be effective and consistent in the business area,marketing for instance, it is neccesary, in order for it to be credible, to guide oneself by the same premises in all other areas of life or the contradictions will start to crack the building.

[Troy Worman]

Excellent post, Jory. I recently read Purple Cow, as well. I picked it up at the library and burned through it in a couple of days. This is one of the things I like about Seth. He kicks out books that are quick easy reads. Perhaps, this is because much of what he writes about we already knew, but had not yet internalized.

While I liked the book and most certainly recommend it, I am confused by the statement, “fitting in is failing.” Fitting in is conformity. Is conformity failure? Are the public institutions that beat the artist out of us before we can successfully navigate grammar school operating on a false premise—that conformity is good? If fitting in is failure, then conformity must be bad and nonconformity good.

I was first called a “nonconformist” by my parents. Mom and dad broke the news to me as gently as possible, I’m sure. I don’t really remember. I don’t remember a lot, but one of the things I am most grateful for not remembering is any attempt by either of my parents to curb my individualism. Despite the fact that I was a ridiculous oddball and more off the wall than not, my parents did not criticize or ridicule me for it. Perhaps, they were in denial or maybe they were just plain smart.

I have never had a very clear picture of the road ahead. Perhaps, this is because I can’t stop fooling with the radio dial or looking out the side windows at the passing scenery. But this has never bothered me much.

Having goals, of course, is good, but I believe writing them down and planning how they might be achieved is equally important to the actual realization of the objective. It is in the planning how to that self awareness happens. Integrity and authenticity is achieved in how we do what we do not what we do. The remarkable is achieved when our unique how differentiates the what in the marketplace.

I have not achieved anything truly remarkable, yet. I am still fooling with the radio dial, tweaking my inputs. I am still looking out the side windows, broadening my perspective. I am still waiting for the what. But I know what will come. And I—me—the authentic me—the ridiculous oddball, will be ready when it does.

[janet]

I have skimmed through "Purple Cow" and don't remember anything about self-awareness in the book. Good interpretation! It makes sense and I agree with you. As a person about to get a graphic design degree, one of my worries is about whether or not I will be "remarkable" and "marketable" enough to get a job. I think focusing in sort of a 'zen' of life which mirrors a 'zen' in design has been working well for me so far.

[Anand]

Authenticity and Self-Realization are not incompatible with worldly success, wealth, and power.
Most people think that they have to choose between success(which often involves putting on, what Jung referred to as our "mask") vs being authentic (i.e. expressing one's real self.

There is a way in which you can achieve both. In fact a highly developed and aware ego consciousness is the result of an awareness of one's cosmic consciousness. And I do not mean that in a vague metaphysical way.
Nirvikalpa Samsara Yoga, or NSY for short, is a method of achieving authenticity as well as self-realization: power and success along with peace and happiness.
I address these issues in detail at my discourses, some of which are on my website seductionsalvation.blogspot.com

Namaste

Anand

[Awareness Marketing]

This is really a fantastic! We might try to work a reference to this one into our post about awareness marketing next week is that's cool?

[Jory Des Jardins]

OF course!

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