I picked up All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin at the library over the weekend. The book’s an easy and enjoyable read and I’m only a few pages away from finishing it. In the book, Seth Godin explains that the title of the book is an intentional fabrication used only for the purpose of catching attention. I’d say that his tactic worked because it pulled me in.
Godin argues that marketers aren’t liars, consumers are liars. Consumers lie to themselves every day and yearn to be lied to. SUV’s aren’t truly safe, but consumers feel that they are. Organic fabrics aren’t any better than other fabrics, but consumers feel that they are. There is no justification for those $80 pair of jeans you bought other than the euphoria you experienced when the payment transaction was confirmed. Yes, I agree with Seth Godin that consumers believe these things because they want to.
As Godin says, marketers are storytellers. A successful organization should tell a story, it should put an image in your head. One such example is Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers. I remember discussing Cane’s ad nauseam in my marketing classes. The restaurant truly is a wonder. Cane’s focuses on one main item — chicken fingers. That’s it. Sure, there is toast and coleslaw and fries and the sauce. But pretty much, it’s just chicken fingers.
And Cane’s has done really well. This may come as a surprise to some, but Cane’s is not original by any means. My wife first told me this and I recently found a post on someone else’s blog that goes into more detail than I am prepared to. But what separates Cane’s from these other restaurants is its story.
If you’ve been to Cane’s, you know the story. Todd Graves, the founder, first revealed his business plan in a college course. He was told the plan wouldn’t work. He tried proposing it to banks who rejected his requests for a loan. As the story goes, Graves went to work as a fisherman in Alaska to save up some capital to start his dream. And the restaurant is named after a dog he once had. Isn’t that a great story?
Yes, it is. Because the luxury of hindsight makes it so hard to believe that a college professor and loan officers could not believe that Graves’s vision could make it. And the part about Graves working and saving his money and finally starting his own restaurant — if that doesn’t scream American Dream, I don’t know what does. And do you think the part about the restaurant being named after his dog is a mistake? Hell no, we all know how people feel about their dogs.
As for those other restaurants, I don’t know their stories. I doubt their stories are as sexy. Universities use this same idea, but they call it “traditions”.
And so Godin got me thinking, What story am I telling? What is my story? And I’m not exactly sure. Have I found my story yet? Do I have a story worth telling? If someone sat down across from you and looked you straight in the eye and asked, “What’s your story?” what would you say?
I think my story so far has been a search for my story. I feel I haven’t found my groove yet. I don’t know where my ideal location is, I just know I want to experience more places than Louisiana and Texas. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I can tell you a long list of careers I do not want to pursue. But surely there’s a story in there somewhere. There has to be, right? I do feel that it is forming and gradually showing itself to me. Maybe I just need to pay closer attention. Because some day I’m going to have to tell my story. And I want to make sure it’s damn good.
