Run Highly-Effective Teams By Creating Principle-Based Habits

Run Highly-Effective Teams By Creating Principle-Based Habits written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Kory Kogon

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kory Kogon, Vice President of Content Development at FranklinCovey. With over 25 years of business expertise spanning frontline roles to executive leadership, she brings a deep understanding of how to apply FranklinCovey’s world-renowned content to drive success within organizations. Her insights into the strategies and principles for building exceptional leaders, robust systems, and winning cultures demonstrate how FranklinCovey’s blended learning solutions create real, practical impact—enabling the critical behavior changes needed for transformational results.

She is a co-author of the #4 Wall Street Journal bestseller The 5 Choices: The Path to Extraordinary Productivity, and Project Management Essentials for the Unofficial Project Manager. 

In this episode, we discuss the enduring relevance of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 35 years after its release and explore how these principle-based habits can be applied in contemporary settings. Kogon shares her insights on being proactive, the importance of empathy in communication, effective time management, and fostering a culture that embraces these habits. She also touches on the significance of well-being in the workplace and how organizations can support their employees’ mental health.

 

Key Takeaways:

• Habit one, be proactive, is foundational for leadership.
• Empathy in communication is critical in today’s world.
• Time management is about prioritizing what’s truly important.
• Building a culture around the Seven Habits takes time and effort.
• Well-being is essential for productivity and effectiveness.
• The principles of the Seven Habits remain unchanged over time.
• Organizations must listen to their employees’ needs for well-being.
• Effective leaders model the behaviors of the Seven Habits.
• Understanding others’ perspectives can prevent miscommunication.

Questions I asked Kory Kogon:

[00:00] Introduction to the Seven Habits

[03:05] The Importance of Being Proactive

[06:06] Understanding and Empathy in Communication

[09:01] Time Management and Prioritization

[12:02] Building a Culture of the Seven Habits

[14:58] Well-Being and the Seventh Habit

More About Kory Kogon:

• Check out Kory Kogon’s Website
• Connect with Kory Kogon on LinkedIn
• Grab a copy of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Oracle

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.

Duct Tape Transcript

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Testimonial (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I've been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It's changed the results that I'm seeing. It's changed my engagement with clients. It's changed my engagement with the team. I couldn't be happier. Honestly. It's the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It's time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM World slash scale.

(01:02): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantz. My guest today is Kory Kogon. She's Franklin Covey's vice president of content development and a senior leadership consultant with over 25 years of business expertise from the frontline to the executive team. She understands the application of Franklin Covey's world-renowned content within organizations, including the strategy and principles necessary to build great leaders systems and winning cultures. So we're going to talk a little bit about, this is almost a revisit. We're going to talk a little bit about the seven Habits of Highly Effective People. A book that was out actually came out last century, has sold millions and millions and millions of copies and certainly is as rings as true today as probably ever. So Kory, welcome to the show.

Kory Kogon (01:52): Oh, thank you so much for having me, John. It's a pleasure.

John Jantsch (01:55): So you continue to evolve and create content around the whole Seven Habits concept, but give me a little bit of what's your history with Franklin Covey with maybe with the Seven Habits Library?

Kory Kogon (02:14): Well, we will take you back just a Scot before that. I've been with Frank Company for 18 years, so had the pleasure and honor of knowing Steven before he passed away in 2012. But prior to that, I was the vice president of worldwide operations for a global franchise company. And so myself and the CEO ensured that we had a seven habits culture.

(02:39): I was a franchise organization and around the world, a seven habits culture. And so my familiarity started there and it was only sort of by accident, but not really that I ended up at FranklinCovey. And so as a consultant first, and then as part of the practices around productivity and leadership. So my familiarity with Seven Habits goes way back to implementation within small businesses and then bringing that practical business experience with me to FranklinCovey, to blend it with things like the Seven Habits to really help organizations across sectors move forward. So that's a little bit about my journey.

John Jantsch (03:24): So whenever an author or we're talking about a book that's like 200 ways to do X or seven habits or whatever the number might be, I always like to tease people and say, do you have a favorite favorite of the habits?

Kory Kogon (03:42): Yes, I do Habit one. Habit one, be proactive, which is the habit of choice. And I'll tell again, very practical, very pragmatic. I'm an operations executive. Steven talks about being proactive, not reactive. So as a leader in particular or as an individual contributor, being reactive to everything makes you come off as victimized and just not as somebody who makes things happen. And Steven talks about the space between stimulus and response, and that's why it's my favorite because if I'm good at, okay, something's triggering me before I hit the send button, can I count to 10 and think about what outcome I really want? And my whole career has been like that. To me, that's being proactive and it saved me both personally and professionally many, many times. So happy one is very foundational and truly for me it is totally my favorite one.

John Jantsch (04:44): Well, and I recall in interviewing both Steven and his son Steven. Hm. Is that right? Hm.

Kory Kogon (04:51): Steven hr.

John Jantsch (04:52): Oh, hr, sorry, got

Kory Kogon (04:54): That. I'm sorry. Stephen. MR Covey,

John Jantsch (04:56): Steven, Mr. Boy, we both are messing it up. Steven, Mr. I remember some reference to Vitor Frankl in

Kory Kogon (05:03): His work

John Jantsch (05:03): Actually in that particular habit.

Kory Kogon (05:07): And again, just we say you have the power to choose your response. And again, Viktor Frankl was a terrible experience and just we learned a lot from how he handled the circumstances he was in. So you choose, you get very self-aware that we call it emotional intelligence in this day and age, self-awareness, get very self-aware to just before you, whatever circumstance you're in, how can I think about how to deal with it in a way that I can live through it?

John Jantsch (05:40): Yeah, between stimulus and response, there is a moment and in that moment lies our freedom.

Kory Kogon (05:44): There you go.

John Jantsch (05:45): I think is the actual quote. Would you say because of your familiarity, sort of a long familiarity with the work, has the world changed in a way that has changed of those habits? Have any of those habits become more relevant? Just kind of talk to me a little bit about the evolution, I guess, of over 35 years.

Kory Kogon (06:05): Yeah, so the thing about the Seven Habits is that it is principle based.

(06:13): And I was just rereading this morning, Dr. Covey's, when he was asked these questions, I was reading a transcript of an interview and he was so clear before he passed away in 2012, and we feel the same today. So even we just spent millions of dollars in relaunching and contemporizing the workshop, the course around the seven habits, and the habits didn't change, the principles didn't change, just how we applied them in a contemporary way that people really can consume and remember and do something with. So it's how you point these principles and habits. And as Steven would say, as the more turbulent, the more challenging the world gets, the more important these habits and principles are. And that's a true statement.

John Jantsch (07:08): So I'm going to, you didn't ask me to, but I'm going to tell you my favorite. And that is seek first to understand, then to be understood. I think that a lot of miscommunication, and I asked the question about has the world evolved or changed, I feel like we're in this moment where that habit is probably more important than I can ever remember it being.

Kory Kogon (07:30): I really appreciate that. And I didn't want to interrupt you before, so I didn't ask you that question. And I've taught this hundreds of thousands of times I think, and keynoting it now and speaking to groups as we're relaunching and since the pandemic. I'm with you, John, because with the remote hybrid, the state of the world, there's a lot of pain going on. And whether a personal or professional, if you are not listening, empathically to others, seeking first understand and putting yourself in others' shoes and sort of not absorbing, but acknowledging the pain they might be in or the excitement that they're in, and really understanding them without trying to fix things and do the whole autobiographical listening thing, giving them space and empathy to really feel safe, to be able to have a conversation and move to action. So I'm with you, it has become critical that whether you're in a family, in a small business or a big business, that you are listening to each other deeply.

John Jantsch (08:43): I remember a story from the book that really, I remember drove that point home so much that we have absolutely no, especially a stranger, we have absolutely no idea what's going on in their life. And there was a story about a man on a bus and he had, I dunno if you recall it, but there were children that were being unruly and he wasn't paying attention to them at all. And everybody thought how rude that was, and he should take those children, take care of 'em. Well, turns out the story is his wife has just passed and nobody, you have no idea what it is going on in somebody's life. And I think that story and that lesson really probably, or that principle really probably impacted me at a really early time in my career, probably more than anything.

Kory Kogon (09:24): Yeah, it's a classic story around a paradigm. And Steven says, I was like, why doesn't he get ahold of his kids? Whatever. So we had a paradigm shift, and that is really the basis of the seven habits is how do we help people become very, very aware that the way we think about things may not be exactly that and how we behave and show up in the world. Maybe if we were open to examining our paradigms, we could make good changes that make us more effective. And don't go down those kinds of rabbit holes like Steven did with making that kind of assumption.

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(11:02): That's oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape. So this book was probably the first place I was introduced. I mean the whole four quadrant thing has been around since consulting was invented, but it was the first place where I really saw a clear picture of the idea of the stuff that's nagging you but it's not important and the important stuff that is also needs to be done or is the most impactful. That idea of, I don't think he called it time management necessarily, but it was really more along the lines of if you just stay focused on the important stuff that's actually going to be high payoff, then that's probably all you need to focus on.

Kory Kogon (11:51): Yeah. So that's habit three first things and that became so popular and important. He sort of blew that up into a bigger book and first it was achieving focus, achieving highest priorities. Now we have the five choices, the path to extraordinary productivity and the time matrix is a core part of that because, and he did call it time management, it's a time matrix where you really have a process by which you can synthesize, let me get really clear on what's most important, and then how do I make sure that I'm mitigating or eliminating the things that may be less or not important. So your brain needs a process, and so the time matrix is really helpful to that.

John Jantsch (12:35): Well, and we work with a lot of entrepreneurs, some of our solopreneurs, and what gets in the way with them so often is there's things that they're doing that they shouldn't be doing at all. But then there's certainly things that somebody else, one of my great examples, get that off your plate delegate that there's lots of people who actually enjoy doing that. And I think that once people get to the point where they're like, yeah, I shouldn't be doing this. That's not important. I can delegate this because frankly I don't like doing it anyway, then all of a sudden you're like, okay, maybe I do have the time for the important stuff.

Kory Kogon (13:08): It is, I'm sorry.

John Jantsch (13:10): I was just going to say it's hard for people though because we're just so focused on like, oh no, this thing is yelling in my ear so I better do it.

Kory Kogon (13:18): And I like to call from the neuroscience world labeling and reappraising. If I just write down, take the time to really write down what's important. Tell you even and working in my past in the franchise business and helping support small businesses, we found that some of the entrepreneurs would do bookkeeping or go sweep the floor because they didn't want to go out and sell. So they sort of knew. So there's a whole psychology around some of that. And when you have a framework and you have a process, and again, that's what effectiveness is all about, what are the tools that can support how I can get really clear on what's important and come to terms with those things that maybe I shouldn't be doing? Because if I don't do that, I'm not going to achieve my end in mind of a successful business.

John Jantsch (14:07): How have you seen leaders? Because sometimes when you read some of these kind of bigger principles, they feel very much like leadership training and leadership skills. But in an effective organization, we have to also drive those down throughout whatever ranks. So how have you found leaders have been effective at not just embracing this but not because there is kind of a danger of buying courses and buying, it's like, here go to this stuff. But how do you, have you seen organizations make seven habits almost a culture?

Kory Kogon (14:44): It's a very good question. It's not easy. I mean, it's a very real question you're asking. We've had clients that I can't name here, but that have been with us for 25 years as seven habits companies and we were in my prior organization as well, and we made it part of the culture, what we know. I'll tell you what my executive chairman used to say, Kory, if you want to win a championship game, you can't just read a book, even if it's the seven habits, you can't just read a book or watch a video. He said, if you want to win the game, I'm not going to say to you, Kory, go watch a video on how to throw the ball and show up on Saturday to play the big game. And so our whole philosophy is around that. And with the seven habits, it's a surround sound, how do we and Steven created the maturity continuum to give you an accessible, memorable framework and the see do get model around behavior change.

(15:45): And beyond that it's how do we consume or digest these principles and the pragmatic practices that go along with it and really encourage people to practice it and speak the language over time. And so what's the sustained learning to really turn it into a culture? And I think that small wins along the way really helped that. So our organizations really, they have posters up, they're speaking the language, they're behaving what they're learning and small fires with groups of people start to people look in and go, Hey, wait, what are they doing? It looks like they're doing great. I want some of that. So it takes work, but it's certainly doable. And we've had some great organizations that really everybody speaks the language of the seven habits.

John Jantsch (16:36): So to me, over the last 20 years, one of the most gratifying things to see is a lot of the things that we're talked about in this book, time management, better leadership skills, better communication skills, were all things seen as hard skills for leaders to learn. This book was really one of the first that the seventh habit sharpened the saw that MINDBODY spirit maybe are all a part of this in terms of you being effective. And one of the most gratifying things I've seen is the last, over the last 20 years, that's become a very mainstream thought as well, hasn't

Kory Kogon (17:07): It? Wellbeing? So wellbeing more than ever as people are working harder than ever

(17:14): And all of that. So we still, even in our new program, it is you have to sharpen saw, and Steven always said it again, even reading this morning, he said, the more high tech, the more high touch, and I do a lot of work around the implementation of AI and human capability and hybrid intelligence and all that. And I read that and I thought he was, so before his time on it, wellbeing is key, sharpen the saw. He said, you can't do the first six habits without sharp because I find it incredibly difficult to pause and just be the kind of person I should be, whether it's at home or at work, but it is right at the top. The younger generations will not work in organizations that do not have substantial things around how are you going to help me with my wellbeing? Seven habits are no seven habits. It's a mandate.

John Jantsch (18:15): And I think that that was brought into sharp focus. I think after the pandemic, the whole quiet quitting thing that people talked about, a lot of it was like, I'm not getting charged recharged here. I think I've made a decision to leave. So I think that that habit is one that a lot more companies are at least coming to terms with.

Kory Kogon (18:38): Absolutely. And all kinds of quiet, quitting resignation, all of those things. And even with the economy changing and companies doing some layoffs and all of that, the younger generations are not going back. I mean, it is really significant for them to have a sense that an organization will care about their wellbeing. And I know there's organizations today out there that are like, Nope, you need to work 24 hours a day or you can't work here. And people will make their choices. But principally people, humans have to sharpen the saw. And that's why that's a timeless principle at a very timely point in the world right now.

John Jantsch (19:22): And it's funny, it's one that people say, oh, I don't really have time to take to do that. Well, I think science proves it, but anecdotally, I can tell you if I exercise, I do better work. And so I take the hour to do that. I'm going to be way more productive the next three, four hours doing the work. So while it may seem counterintuitive, it certainly science backs it as a way to actually be more productive.

Kory Kogon (19:50): And in the new course we even have in there just a little research on the detriment of back-to-back zoom meetings or teams meetings, whatever you're on, and the stress levels by not taking breaks. So I mean, it's really critical. And whether it's leaders or personally we go, we can't see it. It's like Steven, if you remember the famous line, he said, are you too busy driving your car to stop to get gas? It's the same thing here. So into our overwhelm, we can't see it. And unfortunately we know that over statistically, we know that over half of people will not do something about burnout until they are burnt out, which is terrible.

John Jantsch (20:37): Yeah, yeah. It's like boiling the frog.

Kory Kogon (20:40): Exactly.

John Jantsch (20:42): You don't realize it because it just happens gradually and then it happens all at once.

Kory Kogon (20:46): Right. So very timeless principle as habits its own. That's right.

John Jantsch (20:50): So Kory, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there somewhere you'd invite people to tell us a little bit about how somebody can consume the course or where they might find out more?

Kory Kogon (21:02): Sure. Very simply, just go to www franklincovey.com and on the homepage you'll probably see a lot about our launch. If not just search seven habits. But it should come right up for you, right in the middle of a big launch world tour right now. So thanks John for asking.

John Jantsch (21:20): Awesome. All right, well again, I appreciate you stopping by the podcast and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

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Weekend Favs November 2nd

Weekend Favs November 2nd written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but I encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one I took on the road.

• Turtl uses AI to create personalized, interactive content experiences, enhancing reader engagement and providing insights into content performance.

• PathFactory leverages AI to recommend relevant content to users, facilitating personalized content journeys that increase engagement and accelerate the buyer’s journey.
• PaveAI transforms Google Analytics data into actionable insights using AI, helping marketers identify key performance drivers and optimize their strategies accordingly.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Connect with me on Linkedin!

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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Outsmart Competitors With Agency-First Web Design

Outsmart Competitors With Agency-First Web Design written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Itai Sadan

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Itai Sadan, founder of Duda, a website builder designed for marketing agencies and small businesses. As a digital marketer since the birth of the internet, I remember Duda’s early days. In this episode, we discuss the evolution of this website builder from a mobile-first solution to a comprehensive platform for responsive web design.

Given how competitive the market is, Itai Sadan shares insights on the strategic shift to focus on web professionals. Just listen to any podcast episode, and you’ll hear it in the ads. We also talk about the role of AI in enhancing agency efficiency and the unique value Duda offers compared to competitors like WordPress. Also, being one of this episode’s sponsors, Itai Sadan gives a Cohen Brothers explanation of the origin of the brand’s unique name.

 

Key Takeaways:

• Duda started as a mobile-first solution for small businesses.
• The platform evolved to support responsive web design.
• Focusing on web professionals helped Duda clarify its mission.
• AI is transforming how agencies operate and deliver services.
• Duda provides tools to enhance agency productivity and efficiency.
• The company emphasizes the importance of websites in marketing.
• Duda’s support team offers 24/7 assistance to users.
• The platform integrates various tools to streamline website creation.
• Duda is committed to improving Core Web Vitals for better performance.
• The name ‘Duda’ is inspired by the film The Big Lebowski.

 

Key Moments

[00:00] The Birth of Duda: A Mobile Revolution
[03:02] Evolution of Duda: From Mobile to Responsive Design
[06:07] Focusing on Agencies: A Strategic Shift
[09:04] AI in Marketing: Opportunities and Challenges
[12:01] Duda’s Unique Value Proposition for Agencies
[15:02] The Duda Platform: Empowering Agencies
[20:00] The Story Behind Duda’s Name

 

More About Itai Sadan

• Check out Itai Sadan’s website, Duda
• Follow Itai Sadan on LinkedIn
• Follow Duda on LinkedIn

 

This episode of The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Duda

Try Duda, the web design platform trusted by agencies to create beautiful, high-performing sites quickly. Ready to impress your clients? Visit Duda.co and start building something unique!

 

 

 

ActiveCampaign

Try ActiveCampaign free for 14 days with our special offer. Exclusive to new customers—upgrade and grow your business with ActiveCampaign today!

 

 

Duct Tape Transcript

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Testimonial (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I've been looking for. I can honestly say it has genuinely changed the way I run my business. It's changed the results that I'm seeing. It's changed my engagement with clients. It's changed my engagement with the team. I couldn't be happier. Honestly. It's the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You could choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale to book your free advisory call and learn more. It's time to transform your approach. Book your call today, DTM World slash scale.

(00:59): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Itai. He is the founder of Duda. It was created to help small businesses connect with potential customers anywhere, anytime, and any place. Itai started the company from his garage in Mountain Valley, California. I wonder how many intros have that in with his high school friend, Amir Glot, who is now the CTO in 2008. They both noticed how the internet was shifting towards mobile and the need for better mobile first experience to extract customers on the go. Over the years, the platform has evolved. Today Duda offers a fully responsive website builder targeting digital marketing agencies and SaaS platforms. Duda has over 1 million websites hosted on its platform. So Itai, welcome to the show.

Itai Sandan (01:50): Thank you, John for having me. Excited to be on the show.

John Jantsch (01:53): So I've been covering marketing, digital marketing for many years, and I feel like I've seen the evolution of Duda. Talk a little bit about V one, like the very early days when you started this. What did the tool look like at that point?

Itai Sandan (02:08): Oh yeah, we went through quite a change over the years. So when I started the company back in 2010, it was really at the advent of mobile phones. iPhone came out in 2008, Android followed shortly after. And the first idea that kind of triggered the launch of Duda was to help small businesses take their website that was built back then for desktop primarily,

(02:35): And make sure that it really created a great user experience on mobile phones. If you remember, back then it was a lot of pinch and zoom of sites, and the experience was not really there. So we came out with a pretty nifty solution that just took all you had to do, put the URL of your desktop site, click on submit, and we do the magic behind the scenes and kind of optimize it for mobile. Created a second website, kind of an mdot, and that was the initial product for the first, I would say re four years of a company.

John Jantsch (03:07): And fast forward to today, Duda is really very accepted by agencies as really a full building platform for your entire online presence. So talk a little bit about that evolution, that change that you really saw, because you probably felt at some point the mdot was a little limiting for what to do, could be right. So talk a little bit about that evolution and how you've kind of walked alongside the changes in small business marketing in general.

Itai Sandan (03:36): Yeah, absolutely. So as I kind of alluded about three or four years in, as we started sensing that small businesses didn't want to build a site for mobile, a site for desktop, a site for tablet. They wanted to build it once and it runs everywhere. And kind of at the same time, responsive web design rose to be the way to achieve it. There weren't great tools that allowed SMBs to actually build responsive sites. So we kind of were thinking, okay, how do we take the solution that we built really for mobile primarily and add these other screens and worked on our second product, which is today our core product. And as we did that, we also went through a rebranding. Initially we launched the company as Duda Mobile. Then with this new product, we kind of cut the mobile out. And from then on, the company was known as Duda with building fully responsive website.

(04:33): But that was not enough. As we did that. Now, we were suddenly in competition with some very significant players like Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, and four years into the company of a very big question arose of what is unique about us? Why are customers going to come to do that? And we were looking at our user base and about 50% were SMBs, but the other 50% were these web professionals, web designers, digital marketers. And we felt like first they were just from a data perspective, they were growing faster and maybe from a culture DNA of the company, we felt we understood them better, we understood their needs, and we were better at building maybe more sophisticated software for a more professional user than kind of dumbing it down building simple tools for. So at that point, we made a very significant decision that was kind of the second big decision.

(05:28): Almost in the same year after moving from a mobile product to a fully responsive product, we basically decided to focus on only 50% of our customer base. And going forward, we said, we are going to be a web development platform for agencies, for web professionals. And from that day on, we did not spend a dollar more on acquiring SMBs. We became that platform for web professionals and that brought tremendous amount of clarity and focus throughout the organization. So my co-founder and CTO knew which features to prioritize, obviously the features that agencies wanted. Marketing knew at what level to message sales understood better who were their customers. So really that decision. I know a lot of companies are hesitant about narrowing your customer base and your total addressable market, but actually being much more focused, which everybody always tells you that you should do. It really helped propel the company forward, helped us be more unique and help the product become much better in doing what this type of customer really wanted.

John Jantsch (06:42): And those are two very distinct markets that had very distinct needs. So it makes it very difficult to try to serve both of them with essentially the same message, the same tool set. So whenever I talk to a technology company, a SaaS company, and we can talk about the changes in platform and the market that have occurred, I mean, I started my business, we didn't have the internet talk about all the changes, but I love asking this question. In your time in doing what you've been doing and being an entrepreneur, is there anything in marketing that you feel like hasn't actually changed?

Itai Sandan (07:21): Yeah, I think I know from when I launched it and first talking to VCs, and this was like 14 years ago when I started the company, there was always the question, will websites always be needed? Would it be replaced by social media? Will it be replaced now with ai? So the technology has changed, but websites stay a very fundamental piece of any small businesses marketing stack. And I don't see that changing. I think we actually ran a survey with our customers, and 99% said that they still see websites as a very dominant component of their revenue generation capabilities in 2024, they actually expect much more from their website. And we can talk about that very soon.

John Jantsch (08:09): Yeah, I was going to say, I actually think they've moved from being a channel to actually being the hub. I mean the central part of their marketing.

Itai Sandan (08:17): Yeah, absolutely. They're asking, they want to see more traffic, they want to see more leads from their website, higher conversions doing a lot more things, and they don't want to pay more. So I think we can talk about that. That causes a challenge for agencies that are servicing SMBs, how do they continue to service them and help provide that additional layers that they're asking for additional capabilities while keeping costs at bay?

John Jantsch (08:51): That's a really significant question. We work with a lot of agencies, and a lot of them are especially agencies that are very focused on tactics. We do websites. We do SEO, we do content. I mean, the pressure on price for that stuff is, I mean, because there's somebody doing it for $10, AI will do it for free mean, or at least that's the perception, right? I mean, so a lot of agencies are really struggling with both revenue and certainly profitability today. I mean, first off, have you found that to be true? Second part of that, I suppose, is what has due to attempted to do to kind of address that?

Itai Sandan (09:28): It's absolutely true. There is much more pressure to do more for less. And I think things like obviously AI are key technologies and capabilities that an agency needs to adopt in order to be more efficient with the existing headcount and staff that they have, do that. As many other players in the market, we've been very focused on adding AI features into our platform. We call those AI assistance, and they really help our customers deliver, build and maintain websites at half the time then it used to be before. So everything that you can imagine from the obvious things of text generation, content creation, but then to a lot of things that are kind of also behind the scenes around SEO taking a lot of helping with workflow, taking a lot of those maintain, but very important tasks that need to be done on the website and automating them.

John Jantsch (10:30): It's my pleasure to welcome a new sponsor to the podcast. Our friends at ActiveCampaign. ActiveCampaign helps small teams power big businesses with the must have platform for intelligent marketing automation. We've been using ActiveCampaign for years here at Duct Tape Marketing to power our subscription forms, email newsletters and sales funnel drip campaigns. ActiveCampaign is that rare platform that's affordable, easy to use, and capable of handling even the most complex marketing automation needs. And they make it easy to switch. They provide every new customer with one-on-one personal training and free migrations from your current marketing automation or email marketing provider. You can try Active Campaign for free for 14 days and there's no credit card required. Just visit active campaign.com/duct tape. That's right. Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Listeners who sign up via that link will also receive 15% off an annual plan. That's activecampaign.com/duct tape. Now, this offer is limited to new active campaign customers only.

(11:36): So what are you waiting for? Fuel your growth, boost revenue and save precious time by upgrading to ActiveCampaign today. Hey, attention all digital agencies. Are you looking to build beautiful high performing websites? Fast Meet Duda, the platform designed to help you create stunning, responsive sites that wow your clients and boost your business, whether you're a season pro or just getting started, Duda Hass got the tools you need from custom widgets to seamless client collaboration. We've made it easier than ever to turn your web design dreams into reality. So why settle for less? Join the thousands of agencies who trust Duda to power their success, head to Duda.co and start building something amazing today. Yeah, I love the fact that you're using the word assistance. That's how I refer to AI right now. I mean, maybe there will be a day when it can create from scratch original stuff, but I think it's terrible at that right now. But I think that it is very good, as you said, at creating efficiencies, doing mundane things, creating writing metadata. I mean, that's like mind numbing work and AI can probably do that better than a human being in some cases. And so using it as an assistant, I think is the correct way to look at it.

Itai Sandan (12:56): We have capabilities inside the tool that with one click of a button, let's say you have 500 images on a website, it will add all text to all your images automatically, right? It actually does it really well. You could go and edit it, but most people don't. And these are very important things in order to be, for the website to rank and to be found for all these keywords. A lot of focus there.

John Jantsch (13:23): So in addition to the tools that you have built in, what are you seeing agencies do? Some of the things we talked about, like metadata and alt tags and creating efficiencies. A lot of people are focused very much on using AI for content creation, which makes total sense for marketers. But are you seeing agencies use it in other ways to run their businesses?

Itai Sandan (13:49): We have multiple examples. We have seen an agency create custom gpt for each customer.

John Jantsch (13:55): So

Itai Sandan (13:56): They kind of load that custom GPT with all the documents, all the information related to that customer

John Jantsch (14:02): Tone, they tone, tone, voice brand, right? Yeah, everything.

Itai Sandan (14:04): Yep. And that custom GPT is connected to additional tools like could be connected to an SE Mage or an H Rev to do that. So then when you need the specific tasks, you want to know how is this customer doing on their search ranking? The custom GPT would go and question SMR and return that answer, or how's the traffic been to that website in the last months that it will go to Duda and check that and return that answer. So creating a lot of these efficiencies inside the business in the agency where otherwise it would be just going to many different tools to try to collect that data. So that's one example. We've seen a pretty big directory. Local listings business in Australia really increase a lot of efficiency by embedding eye content into the generation of websites. So think especially today, in order to rank, you want to add more pages into a website, you want to find one of those keywords that I want to rank for.

(15:10): I want to create additional pages with content related to those keywords. You can use AI today to generate these specific pages, at least to give you a pretty good first draft that afterwards a human can go and review. They've been able to go from about the creation of 130 websites a month to about 270. So almost more than doubling. And they say that the majority of those gains is due to the use of AI for content generation. So I'm sure there's a lot of more examples, but those are quick too, that I have top of mind.

John Jantsch (15:48): I still see a lot of business owners and even some agencies really seeing AI as a threat. I mean, where do you fall on that? Is it going to wipe out the industry or are SEO firms not going to be needed anymore? Where do you fall on that?

Itai Sandan (16:01): Yeah, I think similar to what you alluded to, I agree as well. I don't think there's any risk to agencies not in the midterm of being replaced by ai. I think the risk for an agency is to be replaced by another agency that makes better use of AI than they are.

John Jantsch (16:22): This is, I have said that exact thing numerous times. Yeah, exactly. Somebody who's as strategic as you using ai.

Itai Sandan (16:30): So this is where agencies need to educate themselves, train themselves, embed AI into their workflows in order to make sure that they're not falling behind.

John Jantsch (16:43): So this might be getting a little bit into the technical aspects of Duda, but I wonder if you could explain for people that are not familiar with it, if I'm familiar with, say WordPress, I go and I get an installation and I build the website and then I do all the stuff to it, right? Explain kind of how Duda works for agencies, right? Because you have a model where somebody can build countless websites on the platform for all of their clients. So talk a little bit about how that all works together or maybe even compare and contrast to say a WordPress.

Itai Sandan (17:13): Yeah, I'd say I'd start with that Duda was built with agencies in mind. So everything that we do, every decision about our roadmap is all focused on agencies and how do we empower agencies to be more productive, more efficient when they build websites. And we have kind of broken down the lifecycle of an agency creating websites for SMBs, and we try to address different pain points in that lifecycle of website creation. So we have multiple different tools. Of course, the bread and butter is the editor itself, and I'll talk about that in a second. But we have multiple different tools to address different stages of that lifecycle. So for example, we help our agencies with acquiring customers because we know the value propositions of our website. So we provide sales training and marketing assets that they can white label and provide us their own. We have tools that help them gather information about a small business.

(18:19): We know how long it takes to get things like just to get the images for a business that you're going to build a website for how long it takes to get business information, opening hours, email addresses, social media links. We have tools that scour the web and put that information at the agency's fingertips. So again, it's all about efficiency and productivity. And then around the website builder itself, there are a lot of capabilities there that are around productivity and efficiency that make it very easy and quick to build beautiful pixel perfect websites in the fraction of a time compared to what it would take you in WordPress. Now, the nice thing about using a proprietary platform like Duda is that you have a lot of things included that maybe in the WordPress, WordPress ecosystem, you would need to go into the plugin directory and you get plugins from different players that you don't know how well they're playing with one another and they break.

(19:24): And here actually, you have an amazing support team that is sitting, some of them are sitting right here next to me where I am here in Colorado, but they're spread throughout the world, so they can give you 24 7 support, and they actually help you with issues that you have. They're all very technical savvy in H-T-M-L-C-S-S, JavaScript. So they can really help you if you run into issues, you shouldn't run into issues, but if you do, they can help you get the job done. And then on top of that, I would say we have a lot of these advanced tools that really for agencies that are not building maybe one or three sites a year, but if you're thinking of taking your agency to the next stage where you want to build tens, hundreds, we have customers building thousands of websites a year. You need these tools. You're not going to get them in the WordPress ecosystem. These are tools that allow you to make one change in the template, and it spreads throughout all the websites that you created. It's tools that give you AI and sorry, API access into a website and either integrated into your workflow creation process into your CRM tools or things that through APIs you can go and make changes in your websites, your customer's websites. There's so many. Again, I gave examples of AI and capability. So there's a lot of things

(20:51): Embedded in there. There's things that, I dunno if you know, but Duda is also a leader in terms of core vitals, which is

John Jantsch (20:59): For speed, I'm sure.

Itai Sandan (21:01): And that's just the page speed and load times. We do better than any other website CMS platform out there significantly better than WordPress. And that's because our engineers are really focused on improving every single aspect. And that's one of the advantages of having more of a proprietary platform. You can really control these things. But yeah, there's a ton of advantages. I probably touched on a few of them.

John Jantsch (21:26): So I want to end today, our time today with probably a silly question, and maybe you've answered it a hundred times, but I'm sure other people have asked you. Is there any story behind the word Duda?

Itai Sandan (21:36): Yeah. So Duda is related to the dude, and that is, if you've seen the Big Lebowski, Jeff, who plays the dude there, that was a movie that both me and my co-founder were very fond of. I know him since high school and we went to college together. So initially when we formed the company, we called it Duda Mobile. We didn't think that Dude Mobile was a great name. So we went Duda Mobile, and now it's Duda, but still the culture and some of the aspects of that movie, and you can see them in our offices today. For example, I'm right now sitting in a room that is called the Dude, but there's other rooms here that are called the Ringer and Urban Achiever and Pinky Toe. So there's a lot of elements from, it's kind of just a fun thing to have as part of your culture.

John Jantsch (22:25): So I'm hoping Happy Hour includes white Russians then. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, Itai, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there somewhere you'd invite people to find out more about some of the things we talked about today?

Itai Sandan (22:40): You can obviously visit us@duda.co. That's where you can try out the software. There's a 14 day free trial. If you need an extension, ping me directly. You can find me on LinkedIn, on Twitter. Yeah, I think those are the best channels to reach out to us.

John Jantsch (22:56): Awesome. Well, it's really been a joy to watch kind of how you've grown this tool and evolved this tool. So again, I appreciate you stopping by and sharing a few moments with us.

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How Writing a Book is Good For Business & Why You Shouldn’t Do It Without a Coach

How Writing a Book is Good For Business & Why You Shouldn’t Do It Without a Coach written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Leigh Shulman

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Argentina-based author Leigh Shulman. A writing mentor with two decades of experience under her belt.

She founded The Inspired Writer Community, an online mentoring community for writers at any stage in their writing lives. Her bestselling book The Writer’s Roadmap: Paving the Way To Your Ideal Writing Life helps thousands find their way in the writing world. Her international writing retreat and website are listed as The Write Life’s top resources for writers, and her words have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Longreads, and Guernica, among others.

Leigh lives with her family, where she writes and contemplates (like most writers do) about whether she’s the only person who doesn’t like Dulce de Leche. We discuss the profound impact of writing a book on business success, the importance of storytelling in both fiction and nonfiction and the role of coaching in the writing process. We also explore how books can serve as trust builders, the influence of AI on writing, and strategies for finding time to write amidst busy schedules.

Key Takeaways:

• Writing a book acts as a calling card for businesses.
• A book can directly lead to client engagement and revenue generation.
• Books can amplify credibility and visibility in the market.
• Every business can benefit from telling their story through a book.
• Books are part of a continuous learning process.
• Setting clear goals for your book is essential for success.
• Writing solidifies your process and helps define your next steps.
• Feedback from readers and peers can guide future writing projects.
• Both fiction and nonfiction writing share common storytelling elements.
• Coaching can alleviate the challenges and self-doubt in writing.

Chapters:

• [00:00] Introduction to Writing and Business Impact
• [01:46] The Value of Writing a Book
• [05:01] Books as Trust Builders
• [08:02] Defining Goals for Writing
• [10:05] Fiction vs Nonfiction Writing
• [14:12] The Role of Coaching in Writing
• [15:54] AI’s Influence on Writing
• [20:03] Finding Time to Write

 

More About Leigh Shulman:

• Connect with Leigh Shulman on LinkedIn
• Grab a copy of The Writer’s Roadmap: Paving the Way to Your Ideal Writing Life
• Sign up for the Inspired Writer’s Community

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by:

Oracle

Nobody does data better than Oracle. Train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive at Oracle.

Duct Tape Transcript

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Testimonial (00:00): I was like, I found it. I found it. This is what I've been looking for. I can honestly say it is genuinely changed the way I run my business. It's changed the results that I'm seeing. It's changed my engagement with clients. It's changed my engagement with the team. I couldn't be happier. Honestly. It's the best investment I ever made.

John Jantsch (00:16): What you just heard was a testimonial from a recent graduate of the Duct Tape Marketing certification intensive program for fractional CMOs marketing agencies and consultants just like them. You can choose our system to move from vendor to trusted advisor, attract only ideal clients, and confidently present your strategies to build monthly recurring revenue. Visit DTM world slash scale. Brilliant. Here we go.

(00:50): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Seth Godin, teacher, author, and entrepreneur. With over three decades of experience inspiring people to level up and make a difference. He's published 20 bestselling books translated into nearly 40 languages, including most recently, the Song of Significance, the Practice, and this is Marketing. Today we're going to talk about a new book called This is Strategy, make Better Plans. It comes out dependent upon when you're listening to this in mid-October of 2024, October 22nd, to be specific, he is a inducted into the Gorilla Marketing Hall of Fame, direct Marketing Hall of Fame, the Marketing Hall of Fame. And today I'm going to officially induct him into the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast Hall of Fame as well. So Seth, welcome to the show,

Seth Godin (01:47): John, like the actual duct tape, your podcast is really useful and it lasts. And last, thank you for having me once again.

John Jantsch (01:56): You bet. Been doing this for a while and I think that I've lost track, but this is at least your sixth appearance and I always enjoy it. Always look forward to it. Me too. So if I were to gather a panel of 10 people to put them in a room and ask them what is strategy? I know for experience, I would get 10 different answers. Maybe 12. Maybe 12. You're right. And some of them would be nuanced. Some of them would just be flatrock. So I wonder if you could, at least for a baseline, what is your definit?

Seth Godin (02:29): Right. So that's why I had to write a book and why it's called This is Strategy. I want to answer that question. It's not tactics, it's not follow all the steps in the plan and then you'll get your result. We need that. But that's not strategy. Strategy is a philosophy of becoming. It is our awareness of the systems around us and our decisions that we make to use those systems to help us Cause the change we seek to make, it is an assertion about the future and it gets better if we talk about it.

John Jantsch (03:06): Sometimes I talk about how everybody has different notions of it and a lot of the confusion, I think people come by honestly. I mean Google the term marketing strategy and you will get said lists of tactics from what is supposed to be an authority. So I really get it. But your definition, a philosophy of becoming. Do you find that, while I think that is an amazing definition, do you find that people struggle with Can't get my arms around that idea. I need something more tangible.

Seth Godin (03:38): For sure. That's why it's a book and not a blog post that people who have a strategy that is working look like they're smarter than everybody else the same way. Good waves make a surfer seem better than they are. And our blindness to the available strategies is the main reason why we get stuck. And so there are countless examples and questions that we can go through to help us see what we couldn't see before, and that once we learn to bring empathy to our work, everything about it gets easier.

John Jantsch (04:20): Yeah. So you jumped ahead of me. I was going to challenge you on the empathy word because quite frankly, I think a lot of times when people think about strategy, all they think about is how are we're going to compete? And sometimes that doesn't have a whole lot of empathy in it. So how should we be thinking rather than that limited view?

Seth Godin (04:40): Okay, so there is kindness and empathy, but I'm not making a kindness argument here. What I am saying is you might want to be the king of the world in charge of everything, but you are not

(04:53): That other individuals and organizations have agency, they can make a choice. And so when you wrote your breakthrough book about marketing, you wrote it in English that showed empathy for the reader you were seeking to serve because if you had written it in Czech, they wouldn't have been able to read it no matter how much you insisted they do. So what we have to do is acknowledge that the people we are seeking to do business with, we are here to serve them. And they don't know what we know. They don't see what we see. And that's okay. If we don't go to where they are, they're definitely not going to come to where we are. And that has to be built into our understanding of the choices and the systems and the decisions and the time as we compete because you don't have to have pity for your competitors, but it really helps to have empathy for anyone who has agency.

John Jantsch (05:51): So again, in my world, probably to some extent in your world, although yours is a little broader, more diverse maybe in some cases, audiences, I talked to a lot of marketers and so when they think strategy, it's a business strategy for gaining more customers or something along those lines. Would you also say, well no, this is something every individual needs to be thinking about. I mean, we all need people strategies.

Seth Godin (06:16): Well, from a very practical point of view, let's start with the 17-year-old who lived down the street who I helped get into college, and he just made the most expensive financial decision of his life. It's going to put him a quarter of a million dollars in debt. And he did it without a strategy. He decided to go to a place that isn't worth the money and isn't going to pay off because he was judging it on what did it feel like to visit the college campus and how will that window sticker make him feel? Well, if he had said out loud before he started, that was his goal. It would be coherent, but he didn't say it out loud. It was intuitive. He didn't really have a strategy. He was just stumbling in the dark. So we easily become the victim of a credit card company, the victim of someone in our life, in our family who isn't engaging with us in a way that's productive with our boss if we don't have a strategy.

(07:19): So when I got out of business school, my strategy was super simple. I want to get a job at the fastest growing company that will hire me. I don't care what they make because if it's the fast growing company, I'm more likely to find a smart boss and I'm more likely to get exposed to interesting problems. And that two years will set me up for the next thing I want to do. And the person sitting next to me in class, their strategy was, business school is really expensive. I'm going to go work for the most prestigious, highest paying job I can get. And time demonstrated that I probably had a better strategy because the trajectory of my career over time was different. And so when we invest in time as we make these choices, whether it's understanding what the admissions office wants or understanding what our partner wants or understanding what the customers for our locksmith company want, it's all the same thing. It's do we see the game? Do we see time? Do we see systems? And what moves are we going to make?

John Jantsch (08:27): So you mentioned system, so I was definitely going to go there as well. You talk about systems delivering value. I've gone as far as saying the system for many business is the strategy

Seth Godin (08:41): You're using system I think a little differently than me. Tell me what you mean by system.

John Jantsch (08:45): When I created Duct Tape Marketing, I actually decided people needed a marketing system. And that if I could at least come in and say, look, here's something we can do and we could repeat for a lot of folks and we're going to install a system, which people were like, why didn't I think of a system for marketing? That's how I'm using it. And that's been my body of work

Seth Godin (09:06): And that's super important. But the reason you need one is you are trying to make a change in a system outside of your company and having a persistent tool inside your company is the only way to do it. So what are the systems we're talking about an example I like to share how much should a wedding cost? And the answer is exactly what my best friend spent plus $20. And that's why weddings cost a hundred thousand dollars. Now, the wedding industrial complex is a system, all these people in the system making decisions that if the system didn't exist would seem absurd, right? But they're not absurd because they are part of something. The healthcare system in the United States does not make health. It makes treatments. And there are all these, well-meaning people in the system, but they make decisions that don't make any sense outside the system, but inside the system make perfect sense. So if we're going to dance with any existing system, we need an internal system. So we can repeatedly do our work, but we better be able to see what the system in the outside world does in order to be able to make a change there.

John Jantsch (10:24): You make what I still, I've actually said this in various ways for many years, ports that you actually as a business get to choose your customers. And you have said that, and I think a lot of people are like, that's completely wrong. That's not how it works. The customer is always right. I just have to find enough people to give me money and whatever they want I need to create. And this notion of choosing your own customers to some people seems a little elitist almost is when it comes to business. But boy, is it a much more enjoyable way to do business.

Seth Godin (10:56): Yeah, well, this is a breakthrough and of course it's elitist. You deserve that. You deserve to spend your days offering this thing. You're offering to the people who will appreciate it and engage with you in a way that's helpful. When you take anyone off the street, you have sacrificed your agency and vision for randomness. So David Chang's a famous chef and he's been in the news for many years. Before he was famous, he had a tiny restaurant in New York City called Momo Fuco and it hadn't been reviewed yet. It only had 40 seats and you could sit at the counter. I don't know how I stumbled on it is where my kids were younger, the four of us, my wife and kids would get in the electric car drive to Manhattan and go there for lunch on Saturday. And we would sit at the counter and I haven't had meat in 40 years and I would say, I would like the Brussels sprouts.

(11:53): Please leave out the bacon that benefits both of us. You don't have to waste the bacon and I can eat them. And the first three weeks we went, I loved it. And the fourth week, the guy behind the counter, I'm pretty sure it was David said, there's a vegetarian restaurant a few doors down. I think going forward, you guys would be happier there. We put this on the menu, we like bacon, thanks for coming, but don't come back. And that was the day in my book, he became David Chang because he said, I'm going to build a restaurant not for people who are hungry. There are countless restaurants for people who are hungry. I'm going to build a restaurant for people who want to see what David Chang wants to make. And you can do that in any line of work or you can be a commodity. Those are your two choices. If you want to be a commodity, you got to put up with whoever's going to give you the money. But if you pick your customers, you can pick your future.

John Jantsch (12:52): I'm not sure if there's the flip side or if this is actually to me an advancement of that same idea. You also talk about choosing your competition. And I think that one is in some ways even more brilliant because I don't think anybody thinks about that idea. It's like, no, this is who I compete with as opposed to, oh, this is the category I'm going to actually claim.

Seth Godin (13:13): Yeah, right. So a lot of your customers, John, actually want a job without a boss. There's nothing shameful in that they're freelancers at scale. They're not entrepreneurs who are claiming an unfolding future. And so they find a category where they can put out a sign and wait for the customers to come. They've already determined who their competitors are. They intuitively picked. But if you decide that you are going to compete with scammers and spammers and people who are always fast talking and racing to the bottom, you're either going to do that or you're going to fail, right? You pick them that when you decide to be a plastic surgeon in Columbus, Ohio and there's only one other plastic surgeon, your practice is going to be different than if you're a plastic surgeon in Park Avenue in New York. You pick your competitors and then you pick the standards that your customers are going to measure you by.

John Jantsch (14:16): AI might be the most important new computer technology ever. It's storming every industry and literally billions of dollars are being invested. Buckle up. The problem is that AI needs a lot of speed and processing power. So how do you compete without cost spiraling out of control? It's time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud infrastructure or O-C-I-O-C-I is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds offers one consistent price instead of a variable regional pricing. And of course, nobody does data better than Oracle. So now you can train your AI models at twice the speed and less than half of the cost of other clouds. If you want to do more and spend less like Uber eight by eight and Databricks Mosaic, take a free test drive@ociatoracle.com slash duct tape. That's oracle.com/duct tape oracle.com/duct tape immediately. What I thought of when I read that was even in the same business marketing consultants, choosing what you're going to charge is a way to pick your competitors. There's so much competition in this bucket. Let's go over here.

Seth Godin (15:38): Exactly. That's exactly right. Positioning is a generous model. It is not differentiation. It is saying to your customers, if you are looking for this is what I have. If you're looking for that, let me give you the fun number of those people.

(15:54): And there's a story, it may be apocryphal, I don't think it is, of several of companies. Were trying to build big financial institutions, people like Fidelity, et cetera. And one of them did some research and discovered that 80% of their customer service calls were coming from 5% of their customers. And that these customers tended to have low balances. So they decided to write all of these people a very respectful letter saying, we don't think we're the place for you. We are having trouble serving this. Here are the phone numbers of three of our competitors. Please find someone who's a better fit. Well, when you move those customers away, you freed up your entire customer service team and you've established your position in the marketplace, which is we are here for people of a certain kind of resource and a certain kind of question. And those people over there, that's where you should go if you're a different kind of customer.

John Jantsch (16:49): So when it really comes down to it, people who read books, love tools, they love like, oh, this philosophy of becoming is great, but what are the 40 questions that I need to ask in order to develop my own strategy? You happen to actually have that for us. So how did you decide on what that very curated list should be?

Seth Godin (17:11): Well, it's not that curated because I could have had 40 different questions. It's designed to prompt you down the path. And the way I did it was after I wrote the first draft of the book, I made 45 videos to become a Udemy course, which is in the world now. And then I had 350 people inside the purple.space community. I gave them access to the course for free and watched them do the course. And it was very cool to be able to watch other people have interactions about it. I could see where they were getting stuck and instead of me diving in and clarifying, I just clarified it in the book. And what I have found is it asking simple questions. Who's it for? What's it for? What is the change I seek to make? Who else has done this before me? What assets do I need?

(18:05): What do I need to learn? These are very straightforward questions that we avoid every day. And I know this because I spend time talking to friends about their projects. And when I bring up any of these questions, they get slightly anxious because left unsaid, you're off the hook, left unsaid. Well, whoever needs it. But if you have to say it, then if it doesn't come true, you've made a claim that you're responsible for. But if you're going to spend your limited days on this project, please say it to just two or three people. Say it to claude.ai, own it and see what other people say back.

John Jantsch (18:49): It's funny, I work with a lot of organizations and I'm sure you have as well. You take one look at me, you're like, well, it's obvious what you need to do. And yet they have really brilliant people inside the organization that are like, oh my God, that's brilliant. Why didn't somebody tell us that? Why is it so hard for people that are in it every day to see strategy or even rather than just like, here's what we do, phone's still ringing. Keep churning.

Seth Godin (19:18): Yeah, well, so there are many differences between you and me. You are way more patient than I am.

(19:23): And that's one of the reasons why I have never done a day of consulting in my life. Because in person, when someone hires a consultant, they often want them to solve their problem. And what you have the patience to understand is only they can solve their problem and your job is to create the conditions for them to see how to do that. But I have sat with people running for president. I've sat with people who are billionaires, people who run giant organizations, friends, and they have no clue what their strategy is. And if you point out what a possible strategy might be, you can watch their eyes light up and they realize someone just showed them a path when they thought they had to go through the woods. And then inevitably they get off the path and they go back to the woods because it's hard to say no in the short run. So you can say yes in the long run, it's easier to say yes to the urgency of right now and then have to dig your way out of a hole later. You have no choice. And so strategy is this affirmative action, this decision-making to say, I have the internal discipline to turn that down so I can do that instead.

John Jantsch (20:38): Yeah, that's one of the brilliant things about having a clear view of what your strategy is. It actually helps tell you what not to do. Does it?

Seth Godin (20:48): Yeah. That's actually the hardest part.

John Jantsch (20:50): And I think that's what people are struggling, especially entrepreneurs are struggling with the most. There's so many things they can do and there's no filter for what they should do.

Seth Godin (20:59): So they end up doing mediocre this, mediocre this, but at least they did everything. So in my case, when Twitter showed up, I was early, could have had quite a big following on Twitter. And I said, but if I say yes to that, what am I going to do less of? Am I willing to become a mediocre blogger to become a pretty good twitterer? And I was like, no, that's not my choice to be there. It's my choice to be here. Let me focus on the thing that fuels my strategy as opposed to serving somebody who's decided I would make them happier if I did that instead.

John Jantsch (21:37): Yeah. And as it turns out, you were so good, you ended up having a big follow on Twitter anyway without even participating there. It was amazing. No, brilliant. So would you say that one of the things that holds people back, call it mistake, call it a choice, is that generally speaking, especially a going entity, there is going to be some pain before there is gain to actually adopt a clear strategy because you're going to have to invest. And it's not a short-term effect.

Seth Godin (22:09): I think there's already pain and you've justified the pain because doing your work and there's going to be a shift for sure, there's going to be taking a deep breath and saying, we're not going to do that anymore. So there's a lot of things to criticize about Jack Welch, but one of the smart things that Jack Welch did was their strategy is if we can't be number one or number two in a category, we're not going to do it anymore. So that's why General Electric stopped making toasters

John Jantsch (22:41): Because

Seth Godin (22:42): They said, we can make a pretty good toaster and an okay return, but let's just sell this toaster division and focus on someplace where we can win. That was painful, but it ended up, at least for a while, being a really smart move because being a meaningful specific is better than being a wandering generality that can fuel many strategy choices.

John Jantsch (23:05): So the last, I'll end up here with a timing question. The last decade at least, I mean, I've been doing this 30 years. We didn't have the internet in marketing when I started, right? I, so we can talk about how much has changed, but the last decade, I feel like as every coming decade, it just feels like the speed of change accelerates. So how big is a lot of times when people make a great strategic decision, it was just good time. So is there an element of luck to this? Because who knows what the next quarter's going to bring?

Seth Godin (23:42): There's a huge amount of luck. What we're trying to figure out is how can you make the deck as stacked as you can before you have to pick a card? And the thing about change is this systems change when they have to, not when they want to. And what forces the system to change is a shift in communications information or technology because systems depend on those things to maintain their status quo. Well, guess what? The biggest systems change in history is happening right this second. And when systems confront the combination of climate and ai, they are going to be transformed. If you show up when a system is in flux and embrace what the system is about to become, it's like being a surfer who gets a perfect wave, that learning to use the systems when they're shifting to help the system get what it's wanted all along, that two hours of work will pay off in 2000 hours of benefit. And this is the moment to do that.

John Jantsch (24:53): I said that was my last question, but then you opened up the whole box on what you're doing on climate. We could do a whole show, I'm sure you have done entire shows. Can you give sort of a one minute invitation to people to find out more about the work you're doing?

Seth Godin (25:08): So I volunteered for a year and a half full time and built the Carbon Almanac with 1900 other people. It's at the carbon almanac.org and it is a judgment free book, 97,000 words, footnoted fact-check illustrated with cartoons. And you can look up anything that's in it, and if you don't agree, but you need to know, you need see and understand what is actually going on. Carbon in the air is invisible, but easily measured, and it doesn't match the way we grew up in the world to imagine that the weather is just something that shifts back and forth. The climate is not, the weather and the climate is changing in a way that's going to create 15 million refugees without homes in the next five years. It's going to put American cities completely underwater. You don't have to like it, but it's happening. So the question is, what will we all do about it? And it's going to be really hard to make that decision in 20 years, but if you know now what's coming, it represents not just an urgency, but an enormous opportunity.

John Jantsch (26:20): Well, and if you think the wars over oil have been bad, which we see the wars over water.

Seth Godin (26:25): Yeah,

John Jantsch (26:26): We actually need water. We don't really need oil. That's going to be, I'm not sure what it's going to be anyway, Seth, as always, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop on Duct Tape Marketing podcast. And I know people can find your books anywhere, but there any place you'd want to invite people to find out more about this as stretch?

Seth Godin (26:48): I built a page at Seth's blog slash tis, and there's some videos and links and other things there. We made this really fun deck that has 5 million combinations of prompts in it. Add a collectible chocolate bar, my first one ever with a trading card and everything inside. Very fun.

John Jantsch (27:05): Well again, appreciate you taking a moment to stop by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days again, out there on the road.

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