If you don't already read Bob @Lefsetz then I suggest you should.
He's the Seth Godin of the music 'business'.
I get his email every day (sometimes more) and every one has a gem or two.
I've paraphrased some chunks of one of this weeks mailers here.
As I said, Lefsetz writes about the music business but his pointers relate to every business.
Try this on for size...
"You read "The Long Tail" and believed a new era was upon us, an egalitarian one in which everybody got to play and be recognized, where [digial products] were plentiful and those making it survived financially...but this is untrue.
Consolidation is always lurking.
Happened with record companies. Happened in live entertainment. And it's going to happen [to every business].
But put yourself in the shoes of the [customer]. He's confronted with chaos, he wants someone to make sense of the clutter, and the [companies] who do this will have all the power and ultimately all the money.
Skill and inspiration, what a concept!
It's what listeners want, even though [mediocre businesses] might recoil at the thought of this.
Because it leaves them out.
And with everybody able to hear [about your products or services] instantly, word spreads pretty fast that you're mediocre.
You just can't shove what people don't want down their throats. This is a sea change in advertising, in music. The product leads, it must be intrinsically good.
The only people left out will be the wannabes, who thought it was all going to be easier, those sour grapes individuals who always thought the man was against them.
No, you just weren't good enough.
And you're not going to be good enough tomorrow.
And with good being the main criterion, it's less important what kind of [advertising you do] than your ability to infect people and grow an audience. Anybody can make it. It's about self-starting as opposed to getting a check from a major.
But at the end of the day only a very few will triumph".
Dynamite.
