Seth Godin on “just being human”

The hopelessly clueless should avoid letting Seth Godin know:

“You can contact just about anyone you want. The only rule is you need to contact them personally, with respect, and do it months before you need their help! Contact them about them, not about you. Engage. Contribute. Question. Pay attention. Read. Interact.

Then, when you’ve earned the right to attention and respect, months and months later, sure, ask. It takes a lot of time and effort, which is why volume isn’t the answer for you, quality is.

That’s a great way to get a job, promote a site, make a friend, spread the word or just be a human.”

More Seth Godin: “Build trust before you need it.”

“The best time to look for a job next year is right now. The best time to plan for a sale in three years is right now. The mistake so many marketers make is that they conjoin the urgency of making another sale with the timing to earn the right to make that sale. In other words, you must build trust before you need it. Building trust right when you want to make a sale is just too late.” [Full post]

The only sales I’ve ever done was in the form of affiliate relations for our networks. Whenever a new GM took over at a radio station, I felt like the clock started ticking. My challenge was to meet, get to know and earn the trust of the new boss BEFORE I needed something from him/her. There’s just no shortcut to building trust.

Seth Godin: “Write like a blogger”

I quote Seth Godin so often I gave him his own tag. And sometimes he writes/thinks something so dead-on that I have to quote the entire post. Every word is gold:

"You can improve your writing (your business writing, your ad writing, your thank you notes and your essays) if you start thinking like a blogger:

  1. Use headlines. I use them all the time now. Not just boring ones that announce your purpose (like the one on this post) but interesting or puzzling or engaging headlines. Headlines are perfect for engaging busy readers.
  2. Realize that people have choices. With 80 million other blogs to choose from, I know you could leave at any moment (see, there goes someone now). So that makes blog writing shorter and faster and more exciting.
  3. Drip, drip, drip. Bloggers don’t have to say everything at once. We can add a new idea every day, piling on a thesis over time.
  4. It’s okay if you leave. Bloggers aren’t afraid to include links or distractions in their writing, because we know you’ll come back if what we had to say was interesting.
  5. Interactivity is a great shortcut. Your readers care about someone’s opinion even more than yours… their own. So reading your email or your comments or your trackbacks (your choice) makes it easy to stay relevant.
  6. Gimmicks aren’t as useful as insight. If you’re going to blog successfully for months or years, sooner or later you need to actually say something. Same goes for your writing.
  7. Don’t be afraid of lists. People like lists.
  8. Show up. Not writing is not a useful way of expressing your ideas. Waiting for perfect is a lousy strategy.
  9. Say it. Don’t hide, don’t embellish.

What would happen if every single high school student had to have a blog? Or every employee in your company? Or every one of your customers?"

Fallout shelter radio ads

I remember well the back-yard fallout shelter craze (mania?). The family that lived behind us had one. It was clearly large enough for just one family but it was considered uncool to talk about who would live and who would die. And we lived in the landing approach path to the Strategic Air Command base in Blytheville, AR. Generally considered a prime target for a Russki ICBM.

The nice folks at DinosaurGardens.com have posted some creative radio spots for Survive-All Fallout Shelters. (“Civil defense approved, FHA approved, no money down, five years to pay!”)

  1. Maximum Protection (General)
  2. Comparison
  3. Value
  4. Equipment
  5. DYS
  6. Maximum Protection (Steel and Concrete)
  7. DYS (short)
  8. Maximum Protection (Steel and Concrete) (short)
  9. Maximum Protection (General) (short)