Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (Book Review)
One writer I’m always interested in reading their new work is Seth Godin, entrepeneur and what I’d term new-paradigm marketer. By that I mean he’s not just touting the Four P’s of the Marketing Mix: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The world has changed and successful businesses have had to flip a lot of their old school thinking to achieve results. And his latest book, released this week, called Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us carries on from his ideas about Purple Cows, being remarkable, permission marketing and unleashing an idea virus. I wasn’t disappointed, especially as the copy I enjoyed was a promotional free version of Tribes from Audible.com. Which is a savvy move - as a tribe member I’ll read it, pass it on and you can read the tangible marketing benefit in this positive review on my blog. It’s win win.
We’re human and it’s our nature to be in tribes. Tribes need leaders. But we’re all thinking that we’re not quite remarkable enough to be a leader and it’s best to stay safely as a follower. We feel we lack charisma. But, Seth points out, leadership creates charisma not the other way around. We can all be leaders if we’re passionate enough, if we treat our followers with the respect of a tribe. When it comes to your business a tribe will take your message or product out into the world of their own volition and pass it on and remark on it. The book not only explains how tribes function but offers a number of excellent examples of where someone created a tribe around their core beliefs (like the dog catcher who wouldn’t kill dogs simply because it was how we historically deal with lost and abandoned pets). Passionate people with passionate ideas who believe in themselves tend to get followers. This is very much a book about leadership (not about management).
If you’re a budding entrepeneur, a bootstrapper trying to get your company going on a shoestring budget, or someone who wants to understand the new paradigm of marketing you might enjoy reading any number of Seth Godin’s books. I guess that means I’m in Seth’s tribe. I pass on his ideas because I believe in them as well. And one of my big bugbears of society is mentioned in Tribes, something that makes me jump up and down passionately with regular abandon… the way people seem to maintain a solid belief that everything will be the same tomorrow and in ten years. That the tide won’t come in, that there will be Tasmanian Devils and Polar Bears, that we’ll be flying in passenger planes around the world reasonably cheaply and that there will be abundant water resources. Change scares us. But it shouldn’t. As entrepeneurs we’re excited by change, and by opportunity. The question is what are you going to do about it? What am I going to do? I hope you enjoy Tribes and read more of Seth’s ideas.
I’ve been meaning to get hold of Meatball Sundae and The Dip, so expect more reviews on his work to come. For me, one of Seth’s most resonating quotes over the last few years would be:
Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths… whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it’s over.Seth Godin
If you’re interested, another great read along the lines of how society has changed is the Clay Shirky book Here Comes Everybody: the power of organizing without organizations.
Update: 22 October, 2008
At the end of the Audible version Seth recommends you go to http://triiibes.com and join their group. Which is very odd because the statement says the triiibe voted to stay closed - which equaled quite a disappointing experience. The triiibe therefore sucks in my opinion as an elitist group of segregationist bullshit. But hey, what do I know. Don’t invite me over and then lock me out if you don’t want me to be disappointed. It makes me feel not good enough. Y’know?
