I've never met marketing guru and author, Seth Godin, but he mentors me every day. I suppose 1000 people have mentored me via the web. Somehow he manages to post a full thought every day of the week. I would highly suggest all marketers sign up for his newsletter. He takes a stance on all of his topics. Most post take about 15 seconds to read in your inbox.
Here is a blurb from todays post. This is a stance I agree with. In our business for instance the diagnosis and research we do is not shooting for a comprehensive scientific market analysis. Instead we are learning up to the point where we find a recurring nugget of key insight about a customer, a market, a product that we can all believe in. We keep it 100% relevant. I hate fluff in research.
Business plans with too much detail, books with too much proof, politicians with too much granularity... it seems as though more data is a good thing, because data proves the case.
In my experience, data crowds out faith. And without faith, it's hard to believe in the data enough to make a leap. Big mergers, big VC investments, big political movements, large congregations... they don't usually turn out for a spreadsheet.
The problem is this: no spreadsheet, no bibliography and no list of resources is sufficient proof to someone who chooses not to believe.
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