Seth Godin

Vim Fuego

Hi folks, I found Seth Godin's site recently and have been reading through it. Like a lot of people, I would love to break free of the shackles of 9-5 working and be my own boss.

I’m still reading through it but I’ve found his bootstrappers guide to business really interesting. PDF is here:http://www.changethis.com/8.BootstrappersBible

I’m also liking his tips to when you’re stuck in a rut, not specifically relating to Entrepreneurship but still good. From: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/can-you-change-everything.html

Can you change everything?
You might not be as permanently stuck in a rut as you think. The rut you're in isn't permanent, nor is it perfect. There are certainly less perfect ruts, but there may be better ones as well. The certain thing is that you can change everything...
1. Buy a competitor
2. Sell to a competitor
3. Publish your best work for free online
4. Close your worst-performing locations
5. Open a new branch in a high-traffic location
6. Hire the best salesperson away from the competition
7. Join the competition
8. Host a conference for your competitors
9. Connect your best customers and organize a tribe
10. Fire the 80% of your customers that account for 20% of your sales
11. Start a blog
12. Start a digital bootstrap business on the weekends
13. While looking for a job, spend 40 hours a week volunteering and freelancing for good causes
14. Go on tour and visit your best customers in person
15. Answer the customer service line for a day
16. Learn to be a killer presenter
17. Let the most junior person in the organization run things for a day
18. Delete your website and start over with the simplest possible site
19. Call former employees and ask for advice
20. Move to Thailand
21. Listen to audio books in your car instead of the radio
22. Sell your cash cow division to the competition and invest everything in the new thing
23. Find more products for your existing customers to buy
24. Become a gadfly and tell the truth about your industry
25. Quit your job
26. Move your operations to another city
27. Become a vegan
28. Have all meetings in a room with no chairs, and everyone wears a bathrobe over their clothes
29. Open your offices only four hours a day
30. Open your offices 24 hours a day for a week
31. Find every project that is near the danger zone (in terms of p&l or deadlines) and cancel it, no appeals
32. Go for a walk during lunch
33. Get an RSS reader and read a lot more blogs
34. Go offline for longer than you thought possible
35. Write five thank you notes every day
36. Stop sending spam
37. Do your work somewhere else. Set up your chiropractic table at the mall
38. Have everyone at work switch offices
39. Give your most valuable possessions to a stranger
40. Go see live music
41. Start a company scrapbook and take daily notes
42. Hire a firm to make a documentary about your organization
43. Buy some art
44. Make some art.
45. Do the work.

shoutman

If you are into that kind of reading you should have a read of 4 hour work week by Timothy Ferris.

Seth Godin has a great blog, always questions the way you think.

Vim Fuego

shoutman wrote: »

If you are into that kind of reading you should have a read of 4 hour work week by Timothy Ferris.

Funny you should mention it, I've just finished reading it. It's an interesting book for certain and I like the thought of his plan. In fact, it's prompted me to this forum, looking up drop-shipping and just generally getting out of 9-5 but his claims are a bit far-fetched.

Still, I think there's a lot of good stuff that can be implemented. I am playing with the idea of employing brickwork to take some of the drudge out of my day and certainly with setting up an online retail business servicing Ireland and the UK, just need to find that niche/muse...

RoadKillTs

Love his blog. He has a great way of explaining marketing / advertising.

fmcc

Are any of you Seth fans on Triibes ?

ellie2528

ellie2528 wrote: »

Purple cow idea will never get old.

Still cant finish Timoty Ferris's book - theres something about the way he writes, its too fluffy or something... Plus he already had an established business when he started working 4 hours a week.

However, I did like the the way he challenges the concept that in order to get places you have to work 24 hours a day - although it contradicts everything most entrepreneurs say... its worth a try to outsource the stuff you dont like doing and that takes you the longest.

Purple Cow idea is quality isn't it? Agree with you also re: Tim ... writes a bit fluffy but still an excellent read as it's just all positive etc

byrne0f56789

I wish more people in the Irish start-up community would listen to Seth. From my experience what he preaches actually works. The sad thing is, that most of the advice given in start-up and incubator programmes goes against what Seth advocates.

It's like the advice given to Irish entrepreneurs is 10 years behind. We all should listen to people like Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki.

shoutman

Having never been involved in start-up/incubator programmes what kind of advice do these give compared to Godin?

byrne0f56789

I was involved in one in 2005 and I found that there was a large emphasis on the traditional "hard sell" as opposed to the "permission marketing" approach that Seth Godin puts forward.

Also, a conservative approach to product development and marketing was promoted. In other words, that you should develop ordinary products for ordinary people. This goes against the main idea behind "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin. As a start-up you should be remarkable instead of typical.

Perhaps these programmes have changed since 2005. Anybody been on one recently?

shoutman

I have a €40 voucher for Waterstones, guess i'll pick up one of Godin's books, any reccommendations?

fmcc

Latest is triibes but also have purple cow. I dont always like the style he writes but do like what he writes about if that makes sense.