Seth, Scarcity, and How to Value Your Fans

Filed Under Marketing, Successful Blog | 17 Comments

Thanks, Brian!

The Living Web

Got up early. Got my coffee. Switched on Twhirl (twitter app). Brian Kress had tweeted Seth’s post this morning on Scarity. I went over.

One day, you may be lucky enough to have a scarcity problem. . . . We can learn a lot from the abysmal performance of Apple this weekend. They took a hot product and totally botched the launch because of a misunderstanding of the benefits and uses of scarcity.

Go read Scarcity now!!

What Seth lays out is a solid definition of scarcity and how to use it to build and value the people who value your business. Seth points out that Apple might have used the scarcity to reward and value it’s iPhone 3G evangelists had it used a core customer strategy and the Internet to remove the risks and downside of the real-time release process. He puts the strategy forth in five principles. I say them in my own way here.

  • Use a virtual queue. Waiting in line isn’t an honor or a badge. People can order online and still “get there first.” It can still “sell out” in minutes.
  • Reward early adopters in visible ways. Imagine if the first 100K 3G phones had a gold back rather than the black or white . . . 3G first adopters edition. Sports cars do that all of the time.
  • Treat VIP customers as VIPs. Invest most in the folks who invest most in you and your products.
  • Use the Internet to lower real-time burdens and risks. You can manage and respond to what happens online easier than in real-time geographic locations.
  • Give customers the stage. Plan the release as a way for your customers to share the experience. Showcase their knowledge rather than your products. Isn’t that what we keep saying it’s about?

Thanks, Seth. I hope more than Apple are listening.

The idea of valuing key customers isn’t new. That’s why they’re called “key.”

Ben Affleck Called And He Would Like His Fame Back (or How To Stay Famous In Today’s Hyper-Media Culture)

Only think about your core fans . . .

Only care about your core fans. They are the only ones who give a damn about you–if anyone at all does. They are the ones who will drive 100 miles to see you and then tell [their] friends why they should [c]ome along the very next night when it happens again.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Social Networking: Make It Imperfectly Human for Me

Filed Under Marketing, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 31 Comments

New York City, Seth Godin, Ann Michael, and a Paper Flower

Favorite Paper Flower by Liz Strauss

In August 1998, I was wandering the streets in New York City. Later that evening our company sales conference would start. As I turned the corner somewhere near 33rd and Park, I was enjoying the view in a florist window. I walked two stores past. Stopped. Something I’d noticed had taken me. I literally backed up ten paces and went into that flower store. I came out grinning.

What had stopped me were handmade paper flowers — taller than I am. I had found a new friend for my presentation the next day. I left the florist with giant flower with a stem down to my ankles and greeted New York like a giant kid with a huge balloon. The flower has shared my office ever since. On occasion, it even sits in my desk chair.

In 2006, I returned to that same New York neighborhood for a Seth Godin seminar. I met Ann Michael. there for the first time. As we walked around the city, I’m sure I told her the story of that flower and the people who opened doors for me — the strange tall woman with a bag in one hand and unhelpful flower friend in the other.

I keep a white silk flower in a blue glass vase on a shelf in my living room. I bought the vase from a catalog. Then I bought the flower. They look stunning together, but they have no story.

This morning at Seth’s Blog something he said in May made me stop, like I did that day in New York City.

If you want to get noticed, don’t be so polished. . . . When in doubt, scrawl make it human.

White rose in a blue vase by Liz Strauss

I looked around for examples in my life — and I found two flowers . . .

That white rose in the blue vase is elegant, but that that paper flower connects me to people — people who’ve seen it in my office or heard the tale of how it got bought. That paper flower calls up so many stories, it could fuel a blog.

When you make a blog, a social network, or product for me, could you make it imperfectly human? It’s human touch that lingers and connects.

What do you have that’s like my paper flower?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Get your best voice in the conversation. Buy Liz’s eBook., now!

Images: Liz Strauss

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See Seth in Silicon Valley Tomorrow — May 23rd!

Filed Under Business Book, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

Meet My Friend, Deepika Bajaj, and See Seth Godin

Deepika Bajaj, President, is proud to announce that Invincibelle, Inc is bringing Seth Godin to the bay area, on May 23, 2007. Seth will share insight in marketing & talk about his latest book ‘The Dip’.

This is a one of a kind event as Seth has been very selective in making
public appearances (especially in CA) in recent years. This is one event you
don’t want to MISS!

Meet with CEOs Entrepreneurs, Publishers, Advertisers, Affiliate Managers, Service Providers, Affiliates, Search Marketers, Webmasters, Media Buyers,
Internet Marketers, Brand Managers, Marketing Executives, Directors of eCommerce, Networks and Technical personnel.

To get all of the details click the logo below.

Invicibelle


Although Seth needs no introduction, for those who would like to know more
about this celebrity, please visit Seth’s blog.

If you meet Deepika, please tell her “hello” from me.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Why Am I Giving You Directions to the Bar at the Top of the Hancock at 7 a.m.?

Filed Under Business Life, Marketing, Successful Blog, Survival Kit, Tools | 2 Comments

All You Have to Do Is Ask

askcitylogo

I’m a believer in Permission Marketing. I’m with Seth — it’s not hard to ask. As a customer, I find it easier on everyone when I ask my question. As a service provider, I like asking what people think and how they do things. As a teacher and a person, I get jazzed when people ask me to help.

One thing I don’t ask for is directions online — I’ve had MapQuest take me to the wrong side of too many towns too many times.

Yahoo Maps, well, Yahoo! invaded my computer by loading their toolbar on my machine without including me in that decision.Sorry, I like to think for myself. I didn’t include them in my decision to delete it.

I get my directions from websites or people who know the way.

Until today . . . when I read the TechCrunch review of AskCity, and played, yeah played, with their maps.

It’s so cool!
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Qualitative, Intuitive Thinkers vs Quantitative, Data-Based Thinkers: How Not to Make Each Other Crazy

Filed Under Business Life, Perfect Virtual Manager, Productivity, Strategy, Successful Blog | 25 Comments

I've been thinking . . .

It was a chain of thoughts this morning, that started with a post at Seth’s blog. I so agree with what he said, but I should warn you, this post is not about his content. His post title got me thinking about the ways that people think.

This must be hard

Seth’s title, “This must be hard,” reminded me of a woman I once worked for. Joan believed that all good things must be difficult. She often said that anyone who achieved a 3.9 grade point went to an easy school — no exceptions.

Joan sought out the hard road. She liked hard data. She strove to have her “ducks in a row.” Her details never fell through the cracks. Her entire knowledge of gut feeling was how to spell it. Working smart in Joan’s world meant taking the easy way out.

Joan was mostly a quantitative, black and white, data-based thinker.

I was an intuitive, “seat of the pants,” qualitative thinker. At times, Joan’s boxes, details, and ducks all lined up made me crazy.

Thoughts of Joan led me to remember a comment made on Bloggy Question 31. in which Chris Cree said, ” . . . Life doesn’t always fit into a tidy calculated box.”

Chris made the comment of a qualitative, intuitive thinker.

That single sentence would have made Joan crazy. No facts, no concrete to support it. She’d say it was too easy.

Folks who prefer one way of thinking often frustrate folks who prefer the other. Gosh wouldn’t it be nice if everyone thought like we do? Well, not really. Both kinds of thinking are important to making great decisions.

No one seems to dispute the fact that every person has a preference, or that we all can do both — we just don’t like one nearly as much as the other. Still we need both.

How Not to Make Each Other Crazy

The trick is knowing when to be intuitive and when to get to hard data. It’s figuring out how to work together without driving each other crazy — knowing when a situation calls for folks who are good at one or the other.

It works a lot like writing — go for ideas, then edit and test them.

Qualitative thinking is a valuable skill when we need ideas, possibilities, and solutions. Creativity needs the room that qualitative thinking allows. Even qualitative numbers — somewhere around a billion — work when we’re trying to imagine or wonder our way out of old assumptions into new options.

Once we’ve gathered possibilities with potential — likely suspects — that’s when we turn to the switch to quantitative thinking. Move over to the black and white, gather folks who think well in concrete, hard data terms.

Quantitative thinking in binary black and white is a valuable skill when we need to test and validate ideas, assumptions, and action plans. Getting grounded in reality needs the “yes or no,” the “go or no go” of solid numbers and “best and worst case” scenarios.

Two kinds of thinking challenge each other to make an idea and test it. One to imagine, one to validate — that gets the best of both minds, both kinds of thinking.

When I figured that out, I began to value folks who think differently than I do, It became a pleasure working with them. They like to do the things that I find frustrating and painful — herding ducks into a row.

Imagine or calculate it. It doesn’t have to be hard. Two kinds of thinking beat one.

Take a look at who makes you crazy. What does that person do well that you really hate to do?

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