Seth Godin: Your Bootstrapping Questions 🎙

Der Podcast

Akimbo Podcast vom 12. September 2018

Meine Notizen

Frage: Was ist mit Künstlern und Handwerkern, denen es vor allem darum geht, etwas Kreatives zu erschaffen? Sind das auch Bootstrapper?

• Es ist ein Irrtum zu glauben, dass es mit dem Internet keine Grenzen mehr für Künstler gibt. Es gibt ja Plattformen wie Etsy, wo die Kunden von selbst kommen, oder? Oder Self-Publishing via Kindle. Oder Udemy. Es vermittelt den Eindruck: Das Internet kümmert sich um alles, “and you can get back to work, making what you make”.
• „What is actually happening is that you need a publisher. Somebody who is going to do the hard work of helping you be found. Of dancing with the potential customer. Of treating that customer with respect and care. Of earning permission, engaging with people who want to be engaged with. Telling them a story that resonates with them. Creating tension that moves them forward, so they will raise their hand and engage with you.“
• „Now, that publisher might be a business with a fancy office in New York City. That publisher might be a gallery owner. That publisher might be somebody who hires you to do this work. But it could just as easily be you.“
• „Now, you might not WANT to be a publisher, but you NEED a publisher. Sure, you can get lucky and maybe self-publish ‚The Martian‘ or ’50 Shades‘, but that’s unlkely. It’s unlikely that you will be found at the level you deserve to be found. Because there are too many people, too many creators showing up in the long tail, saying simply: Here, this is the best I could do. I made this. Want one? Because the bazar is too crowded. You will not be found more than your fair share on Etsy. You will not be found more than your fair share on Udemy. Something else has to happen for you to be able to do the work that you really want to do.“
• You need to commit to putting in the time and the energy and the ressources to publish yourself. To add the business element to what you are doing.
• „Yes, the gatekeepers are leaving the building. The bazar is wider and more open than ever before. But we still need publishers, people who will spend time and energy and money to bring interesting intellectual property and craftsmanship to people who don’t know it exists yet.“

Frage: What would you do if the people you are trying to serve are still a few steps away from the pain that motivates them to seek out a solution? How do you help those people to address the pain before the pain really hits?

• Das ist die gleiche Frage wie die, warum in der Medizin alles rund um die Vorsorge nicht wirklich funktioniert. Obwohl es viel, viel besser und billiger wäre.
• „It’s extremely difficult to sell water to somebody who doesn’t know they are thirsty. It’s really hard to sell education to someone who insists they already know everything.“
• „What it takes to get somebody to take action is the tension of ‚Here I am, but I wanna be over there.‘ That disconnect between where we are and where we want to go, that is what moves us forward.“
• “So the only choice we have, if we want to change the culture […] , is to start with the early adopters. The people raising their hand, the people who are thirsty or hot or eager or ready. To go to them and be welcomed by them, to be embraced by them. To have them say: Yap, thanks for coming. Because then, sometimes, they tell their friends.”
• “We have to begin with these people because they are the only people who are paying attention. The only people who know they have a problem that we are here to solve.”

Frage: Ist ein Coach auch ein Bootstrapper?

• Coaching, therapy… are solo activities.
  • We do them by ourselves.
  • We don’t talk about them a lot.
  • „In many cases, the first rule of coaching is that we don’t talk about coaching.“
• The coach is not a bootstrapper. The coach is a freelancer, “always hustling for the next client”.
• The problem with getting coaching clients is that there are only two kinds of people:
  • People who have a coach.
  • People who don’t.
• People who have a coach have a coach and they don’t need a coach.
• People who don’t have a coach don’t know they need a coach, and so they are not looking for a coach.
• So if you are a coach looking for new clients, you’ve got a problem:
  • Either you need to find people who are trying to get rid of their old coach and find a new one.
  • Or you need to find people who just realized they need a coach and you are the one.
• A big challenge. So how to get around it?
  • One big way: Group coaching: 5 people who have something in common. You coach them together. That changes the conversation to „People like us do things like this.“
  • “Circles of interest, coordinated by a coach.”
  • So wie es Seth Godin bei den Akimbo-Kursen gemacht hat.