18 books and counting, including several Business Week and New York Times Bestsellers, demonstrates Seth clearly has an army of fans of his work - this is one of our favourites though.
In many ways, a counter argument to Byron Sharp’s ‘mass media’ approach to advertising - instead insisting we should focus on consumers wants and desires and create ‘tribes’- further split between adopters (those who like new things) and adapters (those who like familiarity but will come around eventually). There’s nothing wrong with tight segmentation according to Seth - you should start by isolating your smallest viable market and grow from there.
From there, create something worth buying by making sure it fulfils an underlying human need. (The take out for marketers is that we need to engage the entire business - from product design, to manufacturing, to customer service)
Finally, when it’s time to grow, use the network effect of our ‘tribe’ - if the product or service has fundamentally fulfilled a need for them, they’ll become your biggest advocates.
A parallel to a lot of Simon Sinek's “Start with Why” you aren’t selling a ‘what’ you’re selling a ‘why’ - it’s problem-solving stuff, not simply trying to position your already designed and manufactured product in front of who you think should want it.
One to stick on your reading list!
