Super star author Seth Godin has a new book out, called Poke The Box. I just finished it, or rather Seth just finished reading it to me… I got the audio version.
First, about that audio version. It’s recorded on a MP3-CD. I guess I didn’t notice that, and I never heard of it anyway. It doesn’t work with my car CD player. I had to bring it back in and put it on my iPod. A bit troublesome, but it finally made it where Seth could read to me while I drove… a great way to learn by the way.
What the Book Is About
The idea of the book boils down to – Do Something.
Take action. Move forward. The world doesn’t have room for standing still anymore. You have to innovate. Take initiative.
Godin tells about his uncle, a PhD from MIT no less, that built a buzzer box for his child. It was just a box with a couple of buttons, lights and buzzers. The baby learns that poking a button causes a light to come on. Poking another makes something else happen, and poking both buttons gives an even different response. The curious child will Poke the Box to see what happens.
We must be like that child, poking our box and seeing what happens. Make changes. Do stuff.
The Seven Imperatives
Godin lists 7 imperatives for success in business, and life.
- Be aware – of markets, opportunities and of yourself.
- Be educated – understand what’s around you.
- Be connected – to engage and be trusted.
- Be consistant – so folks know what to expect.
- Build an asset – you need something to sell.
- Be productive – so you can have a good price.
- Have the guts and passion to ship – the do something part.
Godin claims you can knock it out of the park on the first six and still fail. The seventh imperative is the most important.
Kaisan
What Mr. Godin talks about in much of this book is really what the huge corporation I work for calls Kaisan.
Kaisan means continuous improvement. You must always seek ways to change things, even when they seem to be going well.
This is hard. It’s so tempting to just sit back and enjoy it when things are working. But people are watching. When you succeed they’ll copy what you’re doing. Then they’ll do it better. You’ll get left behind.
So you have to beat them to the punch. Experiment. Poke the Box.
This doesn’t mean you are trying for home runs all the time. You seek small improvements. Make a little change. Test. See how it goes, or as my Japanese trainers say, “Wait awhile and see how things will turn out.”
Perhaps we should call the author Godin San.
As Godin points out, many of your experiments will fail, maybe most. Experiment anyway. You never know until you try.
Poking the Internet Marketing Box
I know I’m guilty of this, and I think a lot of newbie Internet Marketers are as well, we think too much. We want to learn every tactic. We study until our eyes bleed. But we become frozen, afraid of the doing. Afraid of failure.
But failure is just part of the learning process. Yep, it’s a really hard part. But if it was easy, everyone would be doing it wouldn’t they?
As Poke the Box points out, we need to do the failing and learn from it. Yeah it hurts a bit, but rising above that fear is the way to greatness.
Get Poke the Box
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