“Permission Marketing" by Seth Godin book summary

If you’re someone whose role at work involves talking to leads or customers, or if you want to sell something for yourself, “Permission Marketing” will definitely make your job easier.

Impressions/personal thoughts

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My top 3 lessons

Lesson 1 - How a sales funnel(or permission ladder) works

[Stage one - going from stranger to friend/lead]

Start with a small interruption(ad, email campaign) or content(youtube video, social media post).

The point of the ad or interruption isn’t to sell anything. It’s to bring people to a site or site page where they give their contact information in exchange for some type of free value that they want.

“The offer should provide selfish motivation and offer virtually no downside…. the less you ask of the person and the bigger the ‘bribe’, the more likely they will be to give you permission” - Seth Godin

Personally, what value do you have that you could offer people in exchange for an email address?

For example: Imagine that you knew how to make super tasty and well decorated homemade cakes.

What if you put together an easy recipe for people like me who don't bake, then made a short video tutorial of how to use the recipe? If someone wanted the recipe and video, they could get it from you in exchange for just their email address

[Stage two - Going from friend/lead to customer]

Once you have people’s contact info, the next step is to

• reach out

and

• gain their permission to continue messaging them and teach them more about how to solve their problem(hopefully with your product or service)

A lot of companies do this by sending an email that shows again the value from stage one + an option to receive more emails if you want more free value or updates.

In the cake recipe example, this might mean someone opts in to get more advanced recipes from you sent to them every month.

Personally, what free value could you send on an ongoing basis to the people who took your offer at stage 1 in exchange for their email address(monthly, bi-weekly, weekly. higher frequency was advised in the book)?

Also, what value could you offer to the people who are receiving your ongoing emails in exchange for money?

In the cake example, maybe if someone tried one of the recipes you sent and felt that they didn’t do it right, they could book a time for you to go through making it again with them over a zoom call. Then they’d pay a fee for your time if they felt the cake turned out much better.

[Stage three - Going from customer to long term customer/fanatic]

For this part you’ll really have to read the book because it’s a lot to try and sum up here. But basically, you don’t want the contact you have with a customer to end once you’ve sold them something

You want to stay in contact over time and keep giving them value, or gifts… The purpose of the value/gifts that you’re sending at this point isn’t to offer them more stuff to buy from you. That’s just sending an ad. For this part, you mostly want to give without asking for anything in return. The purpose instead is to:

• build trust with them so that the next time they are ready to buy something like what you have, you’re the first person they think of

and

• make them naturally want to talk about you to their friends, family, and followers online because the value/gifts you send are remarkable(worth talking about or sharing). the word of mouth and referrals should bring you new customers and keep the business going

That’s it. that’s how a sales funnel(or permission ladder) works

Lesson 2 - At each stage in the funnel, I’ll have to make an offer(or set an expectation) with someone for them to move to the next stage.

The goal is always to deliver or over deliver on that expectation and any other expectations that are set

Lesson 3 - When you follow up with people and make offers, each message that you send should be “anticipated, relevant, and personal” and you should always be able to answer from the customer’s perspective - “what’s in it for me?”

I applied this thinking to the follow up messages I send to the leads I have at work, and it's made a big difference in how much people respond.

Two things that helped me here a lot were to…

• always try to speak in terms of what the person(lead in my case) said they're looking for

and

• adding a section to my notes for each lead I work with labeled “problems, goals & desires, accomplishments, life events - (x)“

If I'm talking to someone(a lead) and they tell me a problem, goal, desire, accomplishment, or a life event they're having, I'll write it down. Then when we're done talking I'll come back and ask myself “what would be helpful to someone who (insert problem, goal, etc.)?

One lady I recently had as a lead told me that she was selling her car because she was in the process of moving to Atlanta for a new job. I wrote that down and asked myself “what would be helpful for someone moving to Atlanta soon?”. Then I remembered that my boss lives there. So I asked him what some good places are to visit for new people. He sent some cool places and I shared it with the lady. She messaged back with 2 smiley faces and took the offer to move on to the next step in our process.

That felt nice