I can’t tell you how many people have stopped me while I was reading Seth Godin’s new book Meatball Sundae. The title is clever. The cover is unusual. Then, of course, you also have Seth’s picture on the cover. With that mugshot, who wouldn’t be intrigued.

The other day, I got a brochure in the mail from a local bank. They were offering to give me a free duffle bag if I open a new checking account. It was tempting. I’ve been hoping to get a new duffle bag, but I decided not to open the checking account. (The bank execs need to read Meatball Sundae.)

Here are some of my favorite thought-provoking lines from the book:

  • “My short books sell better than my long ones.”
  • “The very advantages our organizations are built upon are fading, and no amount of flash is going to help sell these meatballs.”
  • “Making noise has always been the fun part of marketing, but making noise is not where the highest returns lie.”
  • “A typical direct-mail campaign earns a 1-percent response rate…Opt-in permission-based e-mail can get twenty or thirty times the response of direct mail. And the cost of stamps is gone.”
  • “Start making products, services, and stories that appeal to the reachable. Then do your best to build that group ever larger. Not by yelling at them, but by serving them.”
  • “I don’t care about you. Not really. I care about me.”
  • “Complex messages rarely get through.”
  • “The Web is the biggest haystack in the history of mankind, and you’re just a tiny little needle. You might be sharp and you might be shiny, but without help, no one will ever see your Web page, listen to your podcast, or watch your video.”
  • “If you want to thrive, you need to do two things: Make something worth talking about; and make it easy to talk about.”
  • “Easy beats hard. Not only are consumers overwhelmed with choices, but they’re too busy to take the time to learn irrelevant details. What’s irrelevant? Whatever the person decides is irrelevant.”
  • “A movement–an idea that spreads with passion through a community and leads to change–is far more powerful than any advertisement ever could be.”

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