Seth Godin: Unforgivable Manifesto

Creator: Seth Godin, marketing extraordinaire was asked by cartoonist Hugh Macleod to submit a manifesto.

Purpose: To change things.

Unforgivable Manifesto

Does it take 500 words to change things?

Probably not. It probably takes less than a hundred, plus a secret ingredient.

The secret ingredient is your desire to actually do something about it. To take action, to believe that it’s worthwhile, to confront what feels like a risk but really isn’t. The secret ingredient is to ignore excuses, abandon procrastination and stop looking for proof.

So, where’s my manifesto?

1. The greatest innovations appear to come from those that are self-reliant. Individuals who go right to the edge and do something worth talking about. Not solo, of course, but as instigators of a team. In two words: don’t settle.
2. The greatest marketers do two things: they treat customers with respect and they measure.
3. The greatest salespeople understand that people resist change and that ‘no’ is the single easiest way to do that.
4. The greatest bloggers blog for their readers, not for themselves.
5. There really isn’t much a of ‘short run’. It quickly becomes yesterday. The long run, on the other hand, sticks around for quite a while.
6. The internet doesn’t forget. And sooner or later, the internet finds out.
7. Everyone is a marketer, even people and organizations that don’t market. They’re just marketers who are doing it poorly.
8. Amazing organizations and people receive rewards that more than make up for the effort required to be that good.
9. There is no number 9.
10. Mass taste is rarely good taste.

So, decide. Decide before the end of the day. If you reject the aphorisms above, replace them with your own. But don’t settle. That’s unforgivable.

Source

The complete manifesto on Hugh Macleod’s Gaping Void

Seth Godin on Wikipedia

Image from Ted.com