What Purple Cows, Linchpins, Permission and Tribes all have in common.
Seth Godin is an marketer/author/out of the box thinker. He’s written book after book based around this topic – outside the box marketing in a rapidly changing world.
My favorite of his books is Tribes. Godin shares the premise that we live in a tribe-based world where people follow other people. The people we follow influence what we buy, where we shop and what we believe. As business owners, authors, marketers, promoters, coaches, pastors we should focus on building our tribe…not selling our stuff (from widgets to books to Jesus).
Are you selling your stuff or building a tribe?
How do you build a tribe?
The other day I read part of the story of Saul – king Saul from the Bible. Saul does not go down in history as a great king. Honestly, he’s kind of a screw up. Saul, however, is a great warrior. This guy knows how to build an army…a tribe.
The Israelites fought constantly with the Philistines throughout Saul’s lifetime. So whenever Saul observed a young man who was brave and strong, he drafted him into his army. –1 Samuel 14:52 (emphasis mine)
Saul was on a mission. He was on a mission to defeat a Philistine army who had decades of history of oppressing the Israelite people. To fulfill this mission, Saul needed to build an army – a great army. So Saul does what you do when building an army, he recruited every young stud in the land.
To the point, Saul was specific in which studs he wanted –
- Young
- Brave
- Strong
It wasn’t enough to be young or young and brave, Saul wanted young, brave and strong men.
How do you build a tribe? You determine exactly what you’re looking for. You are specific and measurable in who you want.
A new economy
Some people bristle at the idea of being specific in building a tribe because it can seem exclusionary. Don’t be fooled. We are in a new economy.
When I use the term ‘economy’ I don’t just mean the transfer of finances/goods/services. I also mean transferring ideas. Just like we make physical purchases differently than the past, we buy into ideas differently than we did 10, 15 even 5 years ago.
We live in a niche society. Today’s world celebrates diversity to the point where you can find thousands of options in any catagory in the blink of an eye. We are no longer subject to corporate gatekeepers in products or ideas or thinking.
People want and expect things tailored to them individually.
You are needed
Because of this, you are needed (another theme of Godin). Whether you realize it or not, there is a group of people ‘out there’ who need what you have to offer.
It starts with creating your tribe.
Who is your tribe?
PS – Here are some good Seth Godin books to start with:
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