All Marketers Are Liars
I just reread All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin. We discussed it together with the dudes in my coaching network on Friday. Here are some highlights that jumped out to me this time around [with my thoughts in brackets]:
- “Either you’re going to tell stories that spread, or you will become irrelevant.” [Fortunately we have a great story to tell!]
- “Stories are shortcuts we use because we’re too overwhelmed by data to discover all the details.” [Think about the parables of Jesus.]
- “People pick and choose. Everyone will not listen to everything.” [So don't try to be everything for everyone.]
- “You can no longer force people to pay attention.” [Think bulletin announcements.]
- “The best marketing techniques are the simple stories that are the most likely to break through, the most likely to be understood and the most likely to spread.” [Think stories of life change.]
- “When we encounter something for the first time, we compare it to the status quo. If it’s now new, we ignore it.” [New is better. Different is better.]
- “If a consumer figures something out or discovers it on her own, she’s a thousand times more likely to believe it than if it’s just something you claim.” [This is counter to the discipleship strategy of almost every church in the country.]
- “If you want to grow, make something worth talking about. Not the hype, not the ads, but the thing. If your idea is good, it’ll spread.” [If it requires an announcement from the platform and a bulletin insert to succeed, then it's probably not "worth talking about" and it probably won't grow.]
- “It’s almost impossible to out-yell someone with the same story.” [Think about the world and not just what's happening at your church...because normal people have a life outside the walls of your church.]
- “Your goal should not (must not) be to create a story that is quick, involves no risks and is without controversy. Boredom will not help you grow.” [If I have to choose between entertaining and boring, I'll choose entertaining every time.]
- “It’s hard to be remarkable when you and your organization insist on not changing the status quo.” [Think denominations.]
Do you agree or disagree with these statements [and my analysis]?
““If you want to grow, make something worth talking about. Not the hype, not the ads, but the thing. If your idea is good, it’ll spread.” – = I love that highlight. I’m not so sure that just because something needs an announcement from the platform that “it’s probably not “worth talking about” and it probably won’t grow.” I see what you’re saying, but I do think there are exceptions.
Ummm. Yeah. Wow. Another book to go on my list. Thanks, Tony.
Stories are powerful and your thoughts are interesting Tony. I agree with much of it.
But should the church have consumers? At least biblically speaking?
Church should be the ultimate place for consumers because we have “the water, if you drink, you’ll never thirst again”! It’s what is keeping all our friends that we invite coming back for more!
Whether the product is a tangible (nut and bolt) or an intangible (insurance), the marketing takes special skills.
Being a liar is not one of them.
I have done both for decades and long ago made one criteria for what I was to market to anyone.
I had to possess the BEST quality.
I had no desire to compete on price. Anybody can come up with a lower price by giving lower quality or lowe service.
And the people who sought a way to solve their dilemmas right the first time, and not come back to do it over, ALWAYS went with quality.
Demonstrations are the best way to convey an idea.
When steel doors on a trolley fall out of the sky and open employee skulls below, engineers were baffled. The bolts holding them up in the sky were huge. They were also low grade steel, quenched in water instead of oil, cut threads instead of rolled with chasers, the wrong grade steel, improperly installed, and more. These are technical details but true. You lose your audience with this stuff.
I asked for a metal hanger in front of all the deciding people (engineers, purchasing,plant manager, CEO).
I bent it back and forth repeatedly until it snapped. I told the gathering that the bolts clamping the trolley from above and below carried heavy steel doors. As the doors turned in their routing through the plant for production, they swung to and fro. This swinging was “in effect” a modified bending of a hanger wire. It would take longer to fatigue a big bolt than a hanger wire, but it would surely snap and fail.
Then I told them the truth of my quality and why their problem could not occur ever again with possessing what I had. Price was no longer an issue. The problem and solution were understood with a hanger.
Jesus used a plank and a speck of sawdust to explain an intangible thought.
Seth Godin would be easily dstroyed by any marketer of faith. The father of Lies is Satan. Seth says: “All Marketers are Liars”. Therefore, they speak their father’s language.
Therefore, it is impossible for God to craft a marketer, given Seth’s parameters. Methinks Seth does not know of what he speaks.
Seth’s statements and your conclusions are vastly out of alignment. If comment space allowed, I would shred them individually, demonstratably.
As for entertainment over boredom, as swift marketing skills, would someone please tell me when Jesus Christ used EITHER method? Pure idiocy to emulate this.
Churches do summersaults trying to get people in the doors.
We are not called to get people into church.
We are called to get us into the world.
Anyone in marketing can tell you that!
should the church have consumers? probably not. does the church have consumers? yes.
people are certainly consumers before they are committed contributors within the scope of ministry.
the better question to ask is what’s your story? whether you like to admit it or not, you’re telling one. you don’t get to force people to listen to it. and, you can’t force people to share it.
tony
danny, according to seth, you are also a liar.
tony
I will think of Seth as an apparent author, and leave the grunge calling to you Tony. I fail to see how you or Seth calling me a liar (again) elevates the discussion., but I note that it is said…….needlessly.
And, it was not appreciated.
As for your first observation on forcing people to listen, or forcing them to share, our world is filled with people whose lives are not working. They are in sin, in despair, in quicksand and have no clue how to solve their dilemma.
When the church follows Christ, and people SEE that those folks seem to be leading lives worthy of emulating, they will do precisely that.
But the church spends an inordinate amount of time in the entertainment business and “keep people busy, busy, busy “. Jesus did not.
The idea of becoming a lighthouse is to position yourself to give a path for ships in despair to come home.
The idea of becoming salt is to be a preservative of souls that are in the process of perishing forever.
Here is a bullet thought you noted that is worth noting:
“If a consumer figures something out or discovers it on her own, she’s a thousand times more likely to believe it than if it’s just something you claim.” [This is counter to the discipleship strategy of almost every church in the country.”
The discipleship process is what you say, …a telling process.
But when a Christian mom who lost her child meets up with another worldly mom who lost her child, no one is better at explaining how to overcome this dilemma.
Divorced help divorced.
Cancer overcomers help their peers.
All those women in church pews who have had abortions are far more likely to be effective with those in the world contemplating the same choice in their life, rather than sign protesters at a clinic.
The “consumer” can figure out how Christ resolved a Christian’s setback, and employ that to resolve their own.
Better than that, this new person becomes another “teller” of truth……not lies as Godin states.
Marketing as Seth and you state is manipulation, a trait the churches excel at, and lose their audience as a result. It works for older people for that is how they were raised.
The newer generations have been marketed before exiting their mama’s womb. You will not fool them or even get them to glance.
I glanced at a Twitter made by Derek Sanford with you last week that said:
“crazy discussion right now about how people grow spiritually – the church basically sucks at helping this to happen in people.”
I could not have said it better myself.
Follow Christ by finding others who do so,as they enter the real world. Grow spiritually as they do. Then, repeat for others you meet. Back to basics and so long to bells and whisles.
Or watch the pews grow emptier until a new generation of genuine followers of Christ is produced.
“If you want to grow, make something worth talking about. Not the hype, not the ads, but the thing. If your idea is good, it’ll spread.” [If it requires an announcement from the platform and a bulletin insert to succeed, then it's probably not "worth talking about" and it probably won't grow.]
That statement resonates with me the most. The thing I struggle with, is trying to create that culture within an announcement-hungry staff. I think we’ve created monsters and I’m not sure what to do!
Danny,
Entertaining: when Jesus turned water into wine that was better than the best wine the sommelier had already tasted.
Boring: ending the wedding celebration early because there was nothing to drink.
Entertaining: Jesus Spitting in the mud and rubbing it on a blind guy’s eyes and telling to him to find the pool to wash it off.
Boring: Benny Hinn style healing at every Jesus event.
Entertaining: Jesus walking on water during a crazy storm in the middle of the sea.
Boring: Jesus paddles his whitewater canoe out to scold the disciples for not trusting his sovereignty over everything.
danny, first of all, seth also said i was a liar. (you really should read the book before you start attacking it.)
secondly, i’m not posting your response to gizzard because your comments are too long. you’re breaking my comments rules. if you have that much to say, start your own blog and say it there.
tony
The struggle for all of us in the marketing profession is that we adore Seth and yet he reveals the uncomfortable truth about ourselves! :) Seriously, some of it comes down to how you define what marketing is. Typically it’s heavy into PROMOTION and PUSH. Not much different in the church. And perhaps this style does work for a short while (conversion/baptism), but long-term loyalty (rooted and multiplying disciple) is not convinced or coerced but rather compelled to change and share (2 Cor 5). TRUST building is the key and I think Jesus establishes this as a core motivation for following him. (faith)
I was thinking about the last one and I am not sure its that applicable to denominations, especially since multi-site has less flexability and options for change than a denomination. Denominations formed because people had similar beliefs or strategies and they bonded together, they also had an intense desire to see people converted to Christ so they sent out huge numbers of pepole and resources to make it happen. Now they have gotten bigger and have their draw backs, but they can also implement one thing over a very wide area and in relative short amount of time compared to a non denominational church. I guess I just often pick up an anti denomination slant and find its more of the pot calling the kettle black. I would like perhaps to hear Tony a post of Denomination vs multi site, differences and plan to not become a denomination if they are viewed negatively.
I agree with most of the others, but I was thinking also about the entertainment vs. boring and how Tony you drew that out of the story comment by Seth, seems to me the story of Jesus isn’t boring, it doesn’t need entertainment, often all the entertainment over shadows it. We at out church have started an amazing thing called the Story of God, verbally retelling the stories of the bible, with no commentary and then people discuss them and talk through them. These go for 2-3 hours and people discover the truth on their own and draw it out, no need to “entertainment”. This also lends to greater life change, because people begin to verbalize their problems and see the need for change their own, not from the prompting of other people and this has a much higher lever of motivation than traditional preaching or teacher student type of environments.