Seth Godin (b.1960) is an American entrepreneur and management consultant. He is a popular author and public speaker on branding and the psychology of marketing.
Godin is famous for his storytelling and his brilliant sound bites in his numerous books, articles, and speeches. His bestsellers include Purple Cow (2003,) Free Prize Inside (2004,) The Dip (2007,) Tribes (2008,) and Linchpin (2010.) Purple Cow, specified how brands and individuals could make their stories seem noteworthy.
Tribes argued that one could create social change if one could find one’s “tribe” (those with whom we share our ideals.) Linchpin urged readers to apply “emotional labor” for others, to “give gifts” of time and energy to facilitate becoming the indispensable employee no organization would ever consider firing.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Seth Godin
You can raise the bar or you can wait for others to raise it, but it’s getting raised regardless.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Mediocrity
If you can’t state your position in eight words or less, you don’t have a position.
—Seth Godin
Doing justice to the work is your task, not setting a world record.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Greatness
When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Greatness
If it’s worth doing,
it’s worth doing well.
—Seth Godin
Make a decision. It doesn’t have to be a wise decision or a perfect one. Just make one.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Business
We notice what we choose to notice.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Choice
When the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Greatness
Relying too much on proof distracts you from the real mission—which is emotional connection.
—Seth Godin
If you can’t make money from attention, you should do something else for a living.
—Seth Godin
Go ahead, do something impossible.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Greatness
One way to think about running a successful business is to figure out what the least you can do is, and do that.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Business
If you have no wish, how can it possibly come true?
—Seth Godin
Topics: Passion
You can’t shrink your way to greatness!
—Seth Godin
Topics: Greatness
If you want to dig a big hole, you need to stay in one place.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Change
You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Ideas
Most of the time, creative entrepreneurs lose interest long before their marketing message loses its power.
—Seth Godin
Ideas in secret die. They need light and air or they starve to death.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Ideas
No, everything is not going to be okay. It never is. It isn’t okay now. Change, by definition, changes things.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Change
You can be right or you can have empathy. You can’t do both.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Relationships
Sometimes we spend more time than we should defending the old thing, instead of working to take advantage of the new thing.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Change
The best time to do great customer service is when a customer is upset.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Business
The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate.—When people ask you to tell them what to do, resist.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Leadership, Management
Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing though, that’s efficiency.
—Seth Godin
Put aside your need for a step-by-step manual and instead realize that analogies are your best friend.
—Seth Godin
Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it’s a lot easier to launch work that matters.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Mediocrity
A long walk and calm conversation are an incredible combination if you want to build a bridge.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Relationships
Don’t try to please everyone. There are countless people who don’t want one, haven’t heard of one or actively hate it. So what?
—Seth Godin
Little changes cost you. Big changes benefit you by changing the game, but only if you go first.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Change
If you can’t sell to 1 in 1000, why market to a million?
—Seth Godin
Don’t have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve.
—Seth Godin
Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Leadership, Management
If there’s time for an emergency, why isn’t there time for brilliance, generosity or learning?
—Seth Godin
Topics: Choice
Leadership on the other hand, is about creating change you believe in.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Leadership, Management
Everyone is not your customer.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Business
If there isn’t a good reason, go home. If there is, then do something … loud, now, and memorable.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Greatness
Knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Change
Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.
—Seth Godin
Topics: Change
Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.
—Seth Godin
If you’re a marketer who doesn’t know how to invent, design, influence, adapt, and ultimately discard products, then you’re no longer a marketer. You’re deadwood.
—Seth Godin
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