Why I read Seth’s Blog

Seth Godin writes one of the most popular blogs on the planet. He’s the only blogger that I read every post from. This comes down to three things:

1. His posts are usually short and sweet – around 100 words in length
2. They usually offer some interesting insights. Seth clearly looks at the world differently to most marketers.
3. And, given I have a number of friends who also are fans of Seth I need to read his blog to keep up with the conversation.

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The End of Geography

In one of Seth Godin’s recent blog posts he talks about the end of geography.

Seth listed a number of inventions that have ended geography as a marketing advantage: air conditioning, credit cards, television, container ships, the internet and cell phones.

Your Business Reach

If geography is no longer a competitive advantage, then this begs the question:

What is the reach of your business?

In other words, how far will people ‘travel’ to buy from you? And, by the word ‘travel’ I don’t mean they’ll visit you in person. A digital or virtual interaction is equally valid.

Business Reach Examples

Let’s look at some examples of business reach:

• The local milk bar or convenience story sells commodities such as bread and milk. Typically, we might walk or if we’re feeling lazy drive to get what we need.
• A little further down the road is the supermarket. There’s usually more choice here and we’re more likely to drive because we’ll often buy more than we can carry.
• Depending upon our taste for shoes, we might drive across town to find the ones we want in our size.
• Alternatively, if we’re really into shoes we might travel to a major city, interstate, internationally or shop online to find the exact ones we want in our style, colour and size.

The Reach of a Business Expert

A similar hierarchy of distance applies to a business expert. The more specialized our service the more likely people will contact us from further afield.

This is based on two key elements:

1. Your expertise
2. The way you position your expertise

Seth Godin is one of the most popular bloggers on the planet because he not only has some expertise that is translatable around the world; he also positions his expertise in a universal manner.

One way he does this is through his simple use of language and metaphor.

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Your Business Reach

The really obvious way to observe your own business reach is to identify the location of your current clients.

Q: Are your customers all within driving distance?

Q: Are you customers spread across your local city, state and country?

Q: Are your customers spread around the world?

And the big question: What business reach would you like to have?