Espresso: Seth Godin 5 Proven Ways To Make Any Idea Spread Far

0:06in terms of that storytelling and the i've with all the all your work i've i've kind of absorbed over the many years is the stories can get ideas to spread if you tell the crux of a story your idea can spread and i want to talk about a cookbook i don't know you've heard of it called salt fat acid and heat by um some some in nosra i hope i've said that right um but why i love that is it's the kind of the four principles you put salt fat acid heat together um in a myriad of different ways and you're going to get a great delicious recipe and i'd love to um explore what kind of the salt fat acid heat principles of storytelling are for brands now imagine there's and i know for a fact a lot of our listeners um say they're a korean street food truck under london bridge for example do the most wonderfully fantastic korean burgers for example but they can't get that idea to spread um last week i was up in manchester doing an interview with a young couple who do these outrageously um kind of weird lurid culling color easter eggs they look they look kind of like the easter eggs based on david bowie actually is kind of strange um or maybe say you're like a kombucha brand in in dublin who's trying to get going there's so many delicious products but they don't have the story to help the idea spread So what would you say is the salt, fat, acid, heat to kind of get your idea to spread?

1:39That's a cool metaphor. I guess I would divide it into two categories. The first category is accepting that attention is scarce and trust is rare. You are not entitled to my attention. When you try to steal it, that's spam. It doesn't work. Attention is more scarce than ever before, and most people don't want to offer their attention to someone new. And trust, in a world of hype and scam, most people aren't going to give you the benefit of the doubt. So we begin by saying, if you are bringing something new to the world, it's not for everyone. It has to be for the smallest viable audience. The few people who want something new, not everyone.

2:22because even though everyone eats, everyone doesn't actually want to go to a food truck on a bridge and eat a burger they've never had before. That's the first two pieces. And that's where permission marketing kicks in. When people are eager to hear from you, and the concept of the Korean food truck blew up in LA. And the way it happened was he built a following. I think it was on Twitter, but maybe by email. And you didn't know what corner he was going to be on unless you were on the list. But once he had the list and he had a group of people who trusted him, who were paying attention, everything else gets easy because he's not making food for everyone.

3:03He's making food for them. And then the second path that I would talk about, which is more, I don't know, amorphous, is people are only driven by three things. Once we have a roof over our heads and decent health, we're only driven by three things. Fear, affiliation, and status. Fear is obvious. If an asteroid is about to land on your house, it's very hard for you to focus on taking a drum lesson. You're afraid. Affiliation is who's to my left, who's to my right. What are people like me doing? Who am I in sync with? That's one reason why people listen to your podcast because people like us do things like this.

3:47We like to be able to talk to each other about what we heard. The third one is status. Does this move me up or does this move me down? Did I get a seat at Noma before they closed? That is not about delicious. That is about status. It doesn't have to be expensive for it to be status. You gain status by seeing that Easter egg that other people didn't get to see. It wasn't about the money. It was about the access. So when I put those two things next to each other, what makes the story spread is, is it in my interest as a consumer to tell my friends about it? If it isn't, I won't. It's that simple.

4:28And so I tell people about Sean Eskinosie's chocolate all the time. Why do I do that? So I almost started a chocolate company. I'm very drawn to bean-to-bar chocolate. I didn't do it because Sean makes quite delicious chocolate, and he's a better human than me. He has open book management. He only sells direct. He visits the farmers in the Philippines and Tanzania every year. He brings underprivileged kids with him to visit the farms. He puts the kids in these villages to private school. I mean, he's just a mensch. And so I will, every year around Halloween, talk about don't buy cheap chocolate, but I will also promote Sean's chocolate.

5:14It might not be the single best chocolate bar I ever had. That's not why I'm talking about it. I'm talking about it because it increases my affiliation and my status. My affiliation, because now I'm in sync with people I'm proud to be in sync with. And my status, because I know something other people don't know yet, my status, because once people do hear the story or read his book or taste his chocolate, they're like, wow, thanks, Seth. I'm really glad that you were a pioneer and introduced me to that. So I'm not doing it selfishly, but it spread because it was easy, useful for me to talk about.

5:51I talk about the Poulain Bakery in Paris because Apollonia is a friend and because it has never failed to increase my affiliation and status when I share it with other people. But there are other things in my food life that are hard for me to talk about. And so I don't because they risk my status or they risk my affiliation. And it's not generous for me to bring it up because it's awkward. So I don't. Quick one, guys. Espressos have got a brand new sponsor, Unleashed. Unleashed is inventory management software that talks directly to your finance and econ software. We use Unleashed daily at Ireland.

6:30I bloody love it. We've got our admin time in half, saving approximately 30k a year. Why use it? Save money, save headaches, save stress. Get granular clarity on your margins. Know where your stock is. Don't miss availability. Look, your favorite brands literally use Unleashed as their backbone. Candy Kittens, tiny rebel trip always religiously look there's a link in the show notes please feel free to book a call with josh and his wonderful sales team at unleashed they're amazing even nothing comes of it and even better news you'll get your first month free if you reference hungary thank you so so it's essentially the the the attention the trust for the smallest viable market to begin with is kind of the path one path two and i suppose getting that part right for people listening to this is it's kind of point one and then you can get that that story to spread on fear affiliation status i think yeah the the david bowie easter egg example is kind of that because it was like i was looking at these crazy easter eggs like wow and i suppose yeah affiliation status say someone is again whether it's a a food brand who's selling i don't know up in derbyshire selling marmalade for example product is categorically unequivocally the best tasting product and they they know this attention trust smallest viable audience and then fear affiliation status what is how do you create the emotion to link on to those things do you see what i mean i think the emotion i totally understand so let's do a case study first of all yes it's unlikely that it's unequivocally the best marmalade.

8:10It might be. Yeah, okay. Because when you make a statement like that, you're saying one of two things. Either in a double-blind taste test, people always say this one is better. That's really hard to do with marmalade. Or you're saying, when I add the story, the jar, what I need to take to get it, for me, that makes it the best marmalade. that is totally achievable for some people, right? And so for me, for years and years, if you went to Henrietta's Pine Bakery, which I believe is now out of business on the way to Algonquin Park, Canada, between Toronto and the North Pole, you would have these little butter biscuits.

8:52They were the best butter biscuits in the world. What made them the best butter biscuits in the world is because it reminded me of camp, not because they were unequivocally the best ones, They fit into a story, a narrative. So if I've got that story, if this marmalade is made by monks who are all over 100 years old, and it comes with this, and it comes with this, and it's this, and then that, now the story, I taste it when I taste the marmalade. Or perhaps they only make 600 jars a year, and they cost$3 ,000 a jar, and I'm on the list, and you can't get on the list because it's all sold out for the next three years.

9:29You want to taste some? That's a story. And so when we think about the brands in the UK that put the Queen's little emblem on them, what the heck does that mean? The Queen has terrible taste in marmalade. Why do I care that the Queen's the status? Because of affiliation, right? You can see there's a hundred-year-old history here of branding of food products based on status and affiliation, the story, and how it makes us feel. But, and this is the huge but, most small food providers have as their unstated motto, you can pick anyone and wear anyone. If you're looking for marmalade, this is a little better or a little cheaper.

10:15Here, have some. that's not a useful story that's a race to the bottom and the problem with the race to the bottom is you might be thank you so so much for listening it honestly means the world to me i hope you enjoyed your morning coffee and go and have an amazing day let's be having ya if you want the full episode it will be in the show notes and it will be in the show notes the full episode thank you so much please leave friends as well means the world to me