158 Crossing the Chasm & 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Through the Category Lens with Matt Johnson of the One Book That Changed My Life Podcast

On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Matt Johnson and I have a conversation about the book that changed my life. In my case, it was two books in particular that changed my life. We look into them through a category lens perspective in Matt Johnson’s new podcast, One Book That Changed My Life Podcast. Matt Johnson is the founder of PursuingResults.com. Matt and his firm were the original producers of my original Oddcast back in the Legends and Losers days, and he's taught me a ton about podcasting. He's got a legendary podcast called MicroFamous. Of late, he started a new podcast called one book that changed my life. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Matt Johnson & Christopher Lochhead on how the two books made a difference After a brief introduction of who Christopher Lochhead is and his works, Matt Johnson starts the discussion on the book. Particularly on the topic of what the situation was when he was reading the books for the first time, and how it affected Christopher and his views. Christopher then talks about his background when he was first starting out his business as an entrepreneur and still learning the ropes. While there were a lot of books on marketing available, there was something about the 22 Immutable Laws the made him think, “this is the one.” “I started to read them early on, and, and it immediately spoke to me. What their work really spoke to was, if you want to stand out, if you want to be super successful, and you want to make a big difference, you got to do it by being kind of radically unique in some way.” – Christopher Lochhead Matt Johnson & Christopher Lochhead on the 22 Immutable Laws Of the topic of the 22 Immutable Laws book, the one law that really stood out to Christopher was the 2nd law, which is the Law of Category. It states that, “if you can't be first in the category, then set up a new category that you can be first.” Looking back, that law describes Category Design quite nicely. Christopher also brings up the idea of the importance of solidifying and codifying your ideas and defining them as a category, rather than just sharing new thinking without establishing it first. Because it leaves others the chance to improve upon it and move into the category before you, and by then you’ve lost the category despite being the actual first to think about it. Matt Johnson & Christopher Lochhead on Crossing the Chasm As for Crossing the Chasm, Christopher explains that the book presents a great framework for understanding how new markets in tech, and in these days, pretty much all digital-related markets. The book explains how new market categories develop. It has a standard kind of bell curve which introduces a non-obvious problem that anybody who's introduced a new tech category has experienced, but had no lens or way of understanding the concepts. On the side of the rising bell curve, you have the few innovators, followed by the slowly increasing number of early adopters. At the peak, you have the early majority, who mostly benefit from the experiments and not repeating the same mistakes as early adopters might have incurred. Then you have the downward slope, which features the late majority and the laggards who are late to the party. To hear more from Matt Johnson and the rest of the podcast, download and listen this episode. Bio Matt Johnson is a marketing agency founder, podcaster, and musician. He runs a podcast launch & production agency based in San Diego, an international team that helps business coaches, consultants and thought leaders use done-for-you podcasting to attract an audience, build influence & become MicroFamous. Matt is the author of MicroFamous and currently hosts the MicroFamous podcast. He is a frequent podcast guest and event speaker to audiences around the US, Canada, and Australia. Links Connect with Matt Johnson! PursuingResults.