Seth Godin at U of MD-REMARKABLE!

Thanks to those of you who turned out for Seth Godin's talk at the U of MD business school on Friday.

As expected, it was a mind-opening affair and it's going to go a long way to shaping how the Mid-Atlantic team is going to go to market with partners.

I'm inviting all of you in attendance to please share your "key takeaways" from the morning.

Here are some of mine.

1. The "sales funnel" is dead. Flip it and give your best customers a megaphone!
2. Average doesn't cut it. Figure out how to "be remarkable."
3. Ideas sell...what's your big idea? How do you communicate it?

Here's Seth's Blog

 

OK, folks, share yours in the comments section! (I know who was there)

 

(And yes, feel free to praise the guy who introduced him!)

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 12, 2007
  Kudos to Jeremy for a very interesting introduction-- he took it way out of boring and was... remarkable! Seth was, as always, thought provoking.  In addition to turning the funnel on its ear, and getting our customers/champions to sell for us, another key takeaway I realize stayed with me all weekend was the 'broken' issue-- is what appears broken done on purpose, or do we need to take action? Overall, though, I realized that being re-energized to view our market and marketing differently was my biggest benefit.  So often we get immersed in "doing" that we get buried in stuff and lose sight of the benefits of remarkable.

• Anonymous
  February 12, 2007
  I think my biggest take away was focusing on the story -- what story do we need to tell out customers, and how do we want to make that a complete, single "one thing" we do remarkably.

• Anonymous
  February 12, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 12, 2007
  I really enjoyed being introduced to Seth Godin. I think there are a lot of gold nugets to mine from his books and blog, etc. Jermy's passion introducing Seth rivals Christina Aguilera doing James Brown at the Grammy's. Although Christina is a better looking. My take aways: "Small is Big" I like the idea that a Small Business can compete with larger businesses based on expertise, quality, responsiveness, etc. and that the trend is to seek out those small-mid sized businesses that have the ability to provide the right solutions. Also: "Make your message remarkable" - I heard Jeremy say this in another meeting. Seth really put that into focus. Finally the concept of creating a community of interested people who will help you spread your story on the web through Blogs is very powerful. This is definitely an area my company has overlooked. We will need to look into this and utilize this technique.

• Anonymous
  February 12, 2007
  yeah, but am I better looking than James Brown?

• Anonymous
  February 12, 2007
  Refreshing--that's how I would characterize Seth's thoughts and presentation. After the fact, it seems pretty obvious but it reminds me how easy it is to get offsync with performing marketing mechanically and what the real drivers should be--people and what interests and is important to them. My biggest take away was how Seth's ideas and social sites more generally are trying to recreate on the web what great marketers have been doing for years--attracting prospects with real value and using word-of-mouth to genearte interest and sales. But I am not over-enamored after digging into some of the sound bytes.

1. Of course, everyone, should try to offer remarkable products, but it's not that easy. So nothing new here. That doesn't mean don't try.
2. The sales funnel still makes sense to talk about and track potential customers and I think that Seth's ideas talk more about attracting prospsects in more innnovative ways with real value and using viral marketing, but don't throw the funnel out.

• Anonymous
  February 12, 2007
  For those of you who were at the Seth Godin event , this article will ring very true

• Anonymous
  February 16, 2007
  Sometimes things just don't go your way... Karen, one of our best marketers , was the victim of the snow

• Anonymous
  February 19, 2007
  If you are planning on joining the Event Best Practices call on Friday morning, I'm going to ask you

• Anonymous
  February 20, 2007
  Thanks to Jeremy for a terrific event that was exceeded only by the witty, thoughtful, and expert introduction of Seth Godin. The take aways for me were the social networking power and paradigm shift that is happeing at an ever increasing pace.  Since then we have been focussing on the Purple Cow experience that we want to offer.  Creating an exceptional product and service is not easy or everyone would do it.  If properly achieved, however, the results will be well worth it.  Our marketing and sales team are working hard to achieve this and to implement a Purple Cow program.  The road will be long and we are looking forward to it.

• Anonymous
  February 20, 2007
  Thank you Jeremy for a terrific opportunity and event that was only exceeded by the erudite, suave, thorough, and tremendous oratory of the young man who introduced Seth Godin (who was that masked man?).   There were two “take aways” for me:

1. While it is not easy to create a Purple Cow, meaning a superior product or service that starts up a social network buzz, it has always been our goal.  Seth awakened me to the power and growing influence of social networking.  Since the event I have been working with our sales and marketing team to build a Purple Cow.  It will be a long road, and a few results will be evident when we present at the next event on February 28.  We are already realizing that the look and feel will be in continuous change.
2. Seth nailed it when he wrote the book that “Small is big”.  With Microsoft tools and restructured thinking, small and midsized businesses can produce like big companies.  Having come from large industry, I enjoy the flexibility and responsiveness of a small or mid-sized company’s capability.  We are small and our clients enjoy being able to get what they want, when they want it, the way they want it.  With a flat organizational chart, we are only one person away from the final decision maker.  That rocks! Thanks again for a terrific event that will change how we look at our business development for many moons to come.  

• Anonymous
  March 09, 2007
  Ok, so my marketing hero isn't 100% wrong about " interruption marketing " but he's a bit wrong. When

• Anonymous
  May 09, 2007
  The average American has over 3000 customer experiences daily . And Joey Coleman of Design Symphony understands

• Anonymous
  June 15, 2007
  Had a chat the other day with one of Microsoft's leading (if not, the leading) community builder/marketer,

• Anonymous
  September 24, 2007
  I had the honor of introducing my marketing hero (aka professor) back in Feb. at the U of MD . Namely,