Welcome to the Escape Blog

Seth Godin with another thought provoking post about barriers within companies and marketing:

In talking with companies that are unhappy with the way they are
growing, I find two common themes (and one a little less often):

1. A belief that they deserve more attention. That their
   product or their service is so good and so beneficial and so fairly
   priced that the story they tell and the way they tell it shouldn’t
   matter. I don’t think this is arrogance… I think it is a natural
   byproduct of hard work and high pressure.
2. A lack of authenticity. This is almost the flip side of the first,
   but, surprisingly, it often shows up at the same time. This is the
   feeling that you don’t have to tell the truth, that it’s "just
   marketing." Talk to someone at a company on a mission–Southwest or
   JetBlue or Acumen Fund and you’ll hear the same story, told with desire
   and belief and honesty. These are people on a mission to really do
   something. Contrast that with someone who wants to know the ROI on a
   monthly basis from a blog–they’re busy doing the math, not living the
   story.
3. The third trait, which shows up a bit less often, is the marketer
   who doesn’t believe that she deserves success. This is the
   self-critical marketer who is being brutally honest–and is frustrated
   at the state of her market and of her product. The obvious but often
   difficult solution is to either change the product, change the story or
   get a new gig. The wrong but most common response is to just be
   frustrated.

Seth goes on to mention how these all tend to happen before the customer is even involved.

We mention the word Authenticity a lot in modern marketing. Why not be who you are and work on getting better at it? You will create a great story based on the fact that it is true. You will also get the customers you deserve and maybe that is the crux of the matter.

Do we really deserve our customers and, if we don’t, what could we be doing to make sure we do?