Seth's Blog : Not all who are lost, wander

Not all who are lost, wander

Going faster doesn't make you less lost. It's okay to ask for directions. 

(Knowing you're lost is half the battle.)

       

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More Recent Articles

• Pain and money and b2b selling
• Do-able
• Taking names
• What is a sale for? (48 hours)
• Degrees of freedom

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Seth's Blog : Pain and money and b2b selling

Pain and money and b2b selling

When you sell to someone at a business, it's worth remembering that the pain their problem is causing belongs to them, while the money they have to spend, doesn't.

Any time you can cure their pain in exchange for their boss's (or the shareholder's) money, that's a compelling offer.

The challenge is actually being able to cure the pain, because too often, when an organization moves forward, the fear of failure and the pain of change is worse than the problem they started with. Asserting it can be done is insufficient.

       

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More Recent Articles

• Do-able
• Taking names
• What is a sale for? (48 hours)
• Degrees of freedom
• The do over

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Seth's Blog : Do-able

Do-able

Lean entrepreneurs can talk about the minimum viable product, but far more important is the maximum do-able project.

Given the resources you have (your assets, your time, your patience), what's the biggest thing it's quite likely you can pull off?

Our culture is organized around the people who get on base, who reliably keep their promises, who deliver. "Quite likely," is a comforting story indeed. [HT to Bernadette.]

Domino's could have offered five-minute pizza delivery, and sometimes, without a doubt, they could have pulled that off. But promising something they could do virtually every time earned them a spot on the speed dial of millions of phones.

Aiming too high is just as fearful a tactic as aiming too low. Before you promise to change the world, it makes sense to do the hard work of changing your neighborhood.

Do what you say, then do it again, even better.

We need your dreams, but we also need your deeds.

       

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More Recent Articles

• Taking names
• What is a sale for? (48 hours)
• Degrees of freedom
• The do over
• We are all social entrepreneurs

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Seth's Blog : Taking names

Taking names

Should you keep track of the people who say you're going to fail, who actively work against you, who troll your best work? Should you try to win over the haters and those that so cruelly root against you?

I wonder if it makes more sense to spend as much (or even more) time with the fans and supporters and sneezers who work so hard to help you succeed.

It seems to me that this is more productive, more fun and likely to make more change happen...

Yes, take names. Of the good guys.

       

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More Recent Articles

• What is a sale for? (48 hours)
• Degrees of freedom
• The do over
• We are all social entrepreneurs
• When you do work that matters, the crowd will call you a fool

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Seth's Blog : What is a sale for? (48 hours)

What is a sale for? (48 hours)

When things go on sale, (while supplies last, our annual savings event, end-of-season markdowns) it is a combination of scarcity and abundance.

Abundance because there's more here for the person who takes action. More variety, more for your money.

And scarcity, because sales never last forever.

We can get a lot of mileage out of telling ourselves and our friends that we bought it on sale.

Sales are effective for two kinds of mindsets:

The person who is wired to enjoy the sport of the sale. You'll find people clipping grocery coupons who charge an hourly rate far higher than the money they're saving on coupons. They're not doing it for the money, necessarily, they're doing it because of how it makes them feel (like an active participant, like someone ahead of the pack). This person is attracted to the potential abundance of buying on sale.

And the person who was interested but had no real reason to take action. If what's on offer today is going to be on offer tomorrow, better to just wait. The scarcity that a sale creates means that the feeling of missing it, of being left out, is compelling enough that it's better to take action now than it is to wait.

It doesn't matter what the sale is ostensibly for. The sale is a signal, a chance to sit up and take notice and possibly take action.

[And today, in honor of the last day of the production of the Model T, as well as Harlan Ellison's birthday, two sales, each for just 48 hours, each limited to just 1,000 orders...]

40% off my freelance course via Udemy. Use code HarlanEllison.

40% off the party pack of my latest book, What To Do When It's  Your Turn, also use code HarlanEllison. The three-pack actually includes 5 books, meaning they are less than $9 a copy.

       

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More Recent Articles

• Degrees of freedom
• The do over
• We are all social entrepreneurs
• When you do work that matters, the crowd will call you a fool
• But do you want to get better?

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Seth's Blog : Degrees of freedom

Degrees of freedom

Does a college degree confer the ability to choose, to open the door to find a way to matter?

Three years ago I gave this TEDx talk about the future of education.

And the students who graduated from college this month each have an average of $35,000 in debt. For many people, this debt is debilitating. Instead of opening doors, it slams them shut.

Talented teachers and passionate students are the victims of an industrialized educational system, one that cares a great deal about standardized tests and famous brand-name institutions.

It's time to ask why. And to keep asking why until we figure out what school is actually for.

The education system continues to head in one direction, but each day, more of those it proclaims it seeks to serve (students, parents, taxpayers) are realizing that the system ought to be doing something quite different. And differently.

       

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More Recent Articles

• The do over
• We are all social entrepreneurs
• When you do work that matters, the crowd will call you a fool
• But do you want to get better?
• How to win an argument with a scientist

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