If you judge his book "All Marketers Are Liars" by the cover, you'll think Seth is promoting irresponsible marketing practices. Getting past the title and into the pages, you'll learn...
"The only robust, predictable strategy is a simple one: to be authentic. To do what you say you're going to do. To live the lie, fully and completely." - pg. 101
The Executive Summary could be:
"The public demands that you tell them a story. The story is part of the product or service that they buy - in many cases, the story is what people set out to buy. But at the core of a story is the thing, the real thing, the essence of what you've built. And if you try to build on a rotten core, you'll succeed for a bit but then you'll lose." - pg. 104
My reading of "Liars" elicited a solid Dog Ear Score of 17% (30:173).
I appreciate how Seth gives you thoughts to ponder and nuggets you can immediately use... Here are some of my favorite quotable quotes from "Liars.
- In his section THE MOST IMPORTANT WORLDVIEW, Seth talks about influencing that "small subset of the population" that helps to spread word of mouth. He states...
"Not only will some people spread your story more than others but often they'll compete with each other to see who can do it more prominently." - pg. 57
I find this an interesting way to categorize some blogging communities... Seems we each spend a lot of time not only trying to get the scoop on a new business trend, or even label a business trend, but also try to out blog each other.
- In his chapter FIRST IMPRESSIONS START THE STORY, Seth reinforces a concept that Marketing Medic John and I talk about a lot - EVERYTHING MATTERS. It's not simply the quality of the product... or the way it's promoted... or the way customer service answers the phones... or how knowledgeable your front-line employees are... it's ALL of it. All the ways that customers experience your brand. (In jargon-speak they're "customer touchpoints"). Seth puts it this way...
"Spending an inordinate amount of time and money on your sign or your jingle or your Web site is beside the point. It's every point of contact that matters. If you're not consistent and authentic, the timing of the first impression is too hard to predict to make it worth the journey. On the other hand, if you can cover all the possible impressions and allow the consumer to make them into a coherent story, you win." - pg. 74
- Marketing ≠ Advertising. Marketing = Story Telling
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