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Seth Godin’s Marketing Secrets to Changing The World

Jun 16, 2020

Guest

Seth Godin

In this discussion, marketing guru Seth Godin, known for his impactful books and groundbreaking ideas, delves into the flaws of Ron Johnson's leadership at JCPenney, highlighting key lessons on understanding customer worldviews. He warns against projecting personal perspectives onto audiences, emphasizing the importance of observing customer behavior both in-store and online. Godin also shares strategies for testing marketing changes on a small scale and urges marketers to define specific changes they seek to create for their audiences.

42:20

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ANECDOTE

The JCPenney Failure

Ron Johnson removed JCPenney's discounts aiming for dignity and fixed pricing.
Within a year sales collapsed and the chain nearly died because customers played a different game.

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INSIGHT

Customers Play A 'Shopping Game'

Customers at JCPenney saw shopping as a sport to beat the system and gain status.
Changing prices removed that game, so the store lost the very motivation that drove visits.

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ADVICE

Don't Project Your Worldview

Don't assume people share your worldview when you change products or policies.
Test small changes and observe whether the customers' motivations still align before scaling.

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Why Ron Johnson's JCPenney Bet Failed

01:21 • 4min

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Mistaking Your Worldview for Universal Truth

05:33 • 4min

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Observe Customers: In-Store Signals Reveal Worldview

09:29 • 21sec

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Analyzing Store Details to Read Customers

09:50 • 2min

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Test Small Changes Before Big Rolls

12:04 • 3min

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Translating Observation To Online Behavior

14:43 • 2min

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Define the Change You Seek to Make

16:59 • 2min

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Serve a Smallest Viable Audience

18:35 • 1min

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Build Empathy by Trying On Others' Shoes

19:47 • 3min

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Learning Through Repeated Failure

23:00 • 3min

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Ship, Measure, Iterate—Practical Empathy In Action

26:07 • 2min

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Systems Thinking: Look Beyond Individual Elements

28:17 • 4min

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Shifting Culture Beats Persuading Individuals

32:05 • 3min

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Grow Role Models To Change Industry Norms

35:14 • 4min

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Recommended Listening and Resources

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Ogilvy on Advertising

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I've just launched a new YouTube channel!! The concept? I take real businesses struggling to stand the f*ck out, provide my positioning/branding/lead gen help, and record it all for YouTube. The first mini-series features three freelance marketers (copywriter Rob, ecommerce designer Laura, and non-fiction book coach Vicky).

I hope you'll set aside half an hour to watch it through. Maybe with your morning coffee? Or lunch break? Or evening onion soup? And then, the usual "Subscribe, Like, Share" would go a long, long way too.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdNXaHHVnVntg5gpveB-5_Q

***

Seth Godin is back.We begin with the story of Ron Johnson and how his disastrous stint as CEO of JC Penney almost destroyed the chain.

The reason behind this massive failure will give you the key to understanding your audience so you can change the World around you for the better.

Topics covered:

What we can learn from the mistakes that Ron Johnson made
Don’t use your own worldview in marketing as it will be very different from someone else's worldview
Acting as a customer to understand how and why people buy
Why you should test changes in small areas before making big company-wide changes
Applying the same strategy of watching people in stores to how people behave when they shop online
Why you have to be specific about the worldview of the people you are seeking to reach and the change you seek to offer to get results
What you can do to truly understand your audience and build empathy
Try to imagine what it's like to be the person you seek to serve

Resources mentioned:

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander
This Is Marketing by Seth Godin
The Marketing Seminar
altMBA
The Mystery Show
Zig Ziglar on YouTube
Bandwidth by Eliot Peper
How to Compete With Big Brands Even With Very Few Resources

***

→ Buy my book: book.stfo.io
→ Watch my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdNXaHHVnVntg5gpveB-5_Q
→ Take my 60-second quiz: stfo.io/q
→ See my pretty face on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisgrenier/
→ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3p4wL4r
→ Leave a review on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7iEF1qovZZiaP1iRtxGARo

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