Episode #50 - An Internal Marketing Conversation (with Seth Godin)

Speaker A: A whole bunch of people would say, why do I need internal marketing? These people work for me. I just tell them what to do. And marketing inherently embraces the idea that there's a voluntary exchange, voluntary exchange of attention, or voluntary exchange of effort or voluntary exchange of dollars. And if we don't treat work as voluntary, then we are making a huge mistake. If we call people human resources, then what we've done is we've said the people who work here are only working here because they have no other choice. Well, why would you want to work with people like that? Wouldn't it be better to work with people who are here because they are enrolled in the journey, because they want to make a change happen, because you have sold them on signing up for where we are headed. That is what leadership is. Not management, but leadership. So what I argue in song of Significance, what I've been arguing for 40 years, is that the stories we tell are, uh, the underlying foundation of what we are building.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Internal Marketing Podcast, the unique podcast series that flips the marketing conversation from external to internal, exploring all the ways that companies can build the brand and drive growth by engaging and empowering its employees to become effective ambassadors of the company brand. I'm your host, Kerrianne Stimpson, and I'm very happy to bring you this special 50th episode of the Internal Marketing Podcast where I'll be having an internal marketing conversation with international best selling author and thought leader, Seth Godin. But first, this season's sponsor is Workshop, the number one email tool for internal communications. They created a delightful weekly newsletter for marketing and comms professionals called the Happy Monday Club. If you could use a dose of practical resources, examples of incredible company cultures and ideas for bringing fresh thinking to your work, this is the newsletter for you. Every Monday, the Workshop team puts together an inspiring list of articles from some of the world's top workplaces, helpful email and internal comms templates, and the occasional giveaway or surprise. Join over 30,000 comms and marketing professionals and sign up now athappy Monday club.com. now let's jump into this special internal marketing conversation with my featured guest, Seth Godin, as we discuss why marketing internally to your employees is crucial to business success. Hi, Seth. Uh, thank you so much for joining me here today on the internal Marketing Podcast. How are you?

Speaker A: Well, thank you to you for showing up the way you do, for making a difference for people. It's not easy and you're doing it over and over again. So it's my privilege to be Here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: Oh, the privilege is mine. And I'm glad that you're going to be a part of this conversation today, because in reading one of your most recent books, the Song of Significance, it really resonated with me, Seth, especially when I think about all the conversations that I've been having about what internal marketing means. But I wanted to jump in first to understand your perspective on the whole matter of employee engagement or employee enrollment, as some folks like to say. Because I'd love to know what's your assessment of employee engagement and connection to where they work in today's overall world of work? And based on your perspective, why have you come to this conclusion, Seth?

Speaker A: Well, it's a brilliant place to start. But even more brilliant is the name of your podcast, because a whole bunch of people would say, why do I need internal marketing? These people work for me. I just tell them what to do. And marketing inherently embraces the idea that there's a voluntary exchange, voluntary exchange of attention, or voluntary exchange of effort or voluntary exchange of dollars. And if we don't treat work as voluntary, then we are making a huge mistake. If we call people human resources, which was invented to treat people like a machine, then what we've done is we've said the people who work here are only working here because they have no other choice. Well, why would you want to work with people like that? Wouldn't it be better to work with people who are here because they are enrolled in the journey, because they want to make a change happen? Because you have sold them on signing up for where we are headed? That is what leadership is. Not management, but leadership. So what I argue in song of significance, what I've been arguing for 40 years, is that the stories we tell are, uh, the underlying foundation of what we are building. And if people don't hear you and they don't believe you and they don't want to go where you're going, ordering them around is not effective.

Speaker B: Well, we're certainly of like minds there, Seth. Now, in the book you wrote, humans are not a resource. We are not a tool. Humans are the point. Why did you say this?

Speaker A: You know, if. If we were living on some open desert plain and we didn't have enough to eat today, we didn't have a place to sleep tonight, I think we could make the argument that survival is the point. But anybody who has enough technology to be listening to you and I talking has solved that problem. That once we have solved the problem of basic survival, everything else is an opportunity. And the Question is, what will we do with that opportunity? If your goal is to make as much money as you possibly can, you're doing the wrong work. You should go work at Goldman Sachs. You should go figure out how to, you know, be a criminal, uh, who steals Bitcoin or something. But everybody else is in it for more than the money. Everybody else needs to fill their days with something that made it worth getting out of bed. And we have been persuaded in the last hundred years to forget that because our bosses want us to just work harder. But that's not the point. That's not the purpose.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Um, and you know, it's interesting because I wanted to then dig into the fact that because you spoke about the difference between management and, and leadership, that was also a big takeaway that I got from the book as well. What's the difference between management and leadership from your perspective?

Speaker A: Okay, so management is authority. It is the power to tell people what to do to get them to do what they did yesterday faster and cheaper. We need managers. Fast food places don't work without managers. Neither do operating rooms. Um, but that's different than leadership. Leadership has to be voluntary. Leadership says, I'm painting a picture of a future that's not here yet over there, who wants to come? And some managers lead and some leaders manage, but they're not the same thing. I have no employees. You're looking at my entire team. I don't manage anybody. But if I'm having a good day, I'm trying to lead people and vice versa. So let's get clear. It'll keep us from being frustrated.

Speaker B: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. And I'm sure a lot of folks would value understanding why you talk about the difference between management and leadership. Because still in the book, uh, there's another section that I read that again jumped out at me, where you said a significant organization can please its customers and make a profit as well. But it begins by earning enrollment and then doing the work that can make change happen. Why do you believe so many leaders don't seem to understand this? And, um, what's causing the disconnect for them? From where you sit, you know, we've

Speaker A: been indoctrinated from the time we were three years old to do what we're told, to get an A, to ask, will this be on the test to do the minimum amount of work to get by? All of these things are, ah, the symptoms of factory work. And if factory work is what we did, I couldn't really argue about it. But I don't work In a factory, and neither do you. Very few people work in a factory like Amazon is a factory. Amazon has a hundred thousand plus people who do exactly what they're told with a stopwatch every day. And if you want that job, you can go get that job. But the rest of us have more agency than that. And for an organization to thrive, it needs people who will take that agency and do something useful with it.

Speaker B: And by extension, Seth, what's the impact on employees then? And not only on employees, but on business success or lack of success, I should say that you've observed as a result of not enough business leaders having this kind of disconnect. What have you seen is the, uh, impact on their employees and of course, the success of business overall?

Speaker A: Well, the thing about a race to the bottom is you might win or come in second, and then you got to hang out at the bottom. And it is possible to be at the bottom for a long time and make money doing it. It is also possible to shrink yourself out of existence. But the organizations that we admire, the ones that people want to work for, they're racing to the top. And people, anyone with skill has choices and they're standing up and they're walking away from places that don't treat them with respect. So it's not going to happen overnight. But we can see the trend is very clear. If human talent is the driving force of what you're doing, then you can't treat people like machines and expect to come, uh, out ahead.

Speaker B: Now, there's another interesting quote from the book, Seth, where you said it's almost impossible to invest too much time and energy in your frontline workers. They're your marketing team and your R and D experts. And it was one of my favorite quotes from the book. Giving them freedom, authority and flexibility creates exactly what your customers want from you. And the loyalty of those customers pays for the commitment to your employees many times over. The people on the front lines are people. They are your brand and they are the point. Internal marketing, Seth and I just wanted to be clear about why that particular section would have resonated with me as it did. Internal marketing is seen by some as a management philosophy. Specifically, internal marketing, it is said, recognizes that companies can no longer assume that employees, because they've simply signed up to work here and are paid to work there. They can no longer assume that employees will automatically engage and be connected to the brand. Consequently, internal marketing puts forward that leaders see employees just as they see their customers. A specific target group that needs to be engaged to create A connection with the brand, and ultimately empowers those employees to be brand ambassadors or brand advocates. I'm curious now, Seth, and, um, that's one of the key reasons why I was so eager to have this conversation with you. What's your view on the concept or this management philosophy as some refer to it? What's your view on internal marketing?

Speaker A: So, you know, if we're looking at a pharmaceutical company or a business to business company or even a pizza place, how much does it cost them to get a new customer? In a B2B situation, it might be $30,000 for a pizza place. If I divide out the rent across the number of customers, it might be $100. So you've got a new customer, they're worth a lot. And you are now putting that customer next to somebody who is the lowest paid, least trained person in your organization. Maybe they answered the phone, maybe they're behind the counter, maybe they're doing customer service. That person is the single most important marketer in your entire organization. Because if that person doesn't delight the customer, offends the customer, doesn't treat the customer the way you would treat the customer, they just burned all that money. And yet it happens all the time because the organization forgot to keep teaching and marketing to their internal people about what it's like around here, about how they behave. And you know, I have an electric car. And for the first 50 interactions I had with the company, it was extraordinary. And they made a mistake when they did some service. And so the airbag lights came on and I ended up calling them three times. And the first time I talked to somebody who hadn't been taught or trained or empowered to do a good job. And I realized this after five minutes. So I started over. And the second person also hadn't been trained or taught or marketed to. Fortunately for them, I persisted one more time and then the third person was back on track. But they're so busy doing what they think they do for a living, which is making a car, that they forgot that what they actually do for a living is make the people who buy the thing delight. And it doesn't cost very much to do this ongoing marketing to people internally, but you gotta try.

Speaker B: No? I guess some would argue then how do you market to your employees? I mean, we would have recruited for them, right? So they should be bought in because, hey, they signed on the dotted line. And you know, it's funny, I had this same conversation with a fellow executive not too long ago, and that that executive didn't see the role of internal marketing generally or in any way, shape or form. Because from where they sat, if I hired them and they're here, then I can comfortably assume that they're bought in and they're bought into who we are. They're bought into the M mission, the purpose, the why of the company.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Now, their question then would be is why do I need to market to employees who are assumedly already bought in? It's the external customers, as far as they were concerned, that I need to enroll and bring on board through marketing. Right. So very interesting conversation, but I'd love to turn to you, Seth. You know, what's your perspective there?

Speaker A: Well, I. I would perhaps say that he knows nothing of my work. And to quote Marshall McLuhan. Um, let's talk about externals for a minute. Do we believe that Apple has more raging fans who would go more out of their way to buy a product than, say, Hyatt Hotels? I think we can agree that that's correct. That most people who stay at Hyatt Hotels would happily cross the street to save $5 and stay at a Hilton instead. But to get somebody who's got an iPhone to give it up for an Android phone, that's not happening anytime soon. That's a marketing gulf that I hope we can agree that there's, uh, different levels of fan, different level of support or different level of loyalty. Okay, so why can't we believe the same thing's true for employees that in the old days at Federal Express, Federal Express drivers did things like rent a helicopter to make one package delivery? Because it was important that there are long histories at places like Nordstrom of employees who have done things that others think of as the extra mile that they think of as normal. Because that's who they are. They have bought in, they've chosen to care. And then there are other places like Sears, really, whatever. So if it's a spectrum, what I would say to your colleague is, where on the spectrum do you want your employees to be? Do you want your employees who are doing the minimum because you're paying them as little as you can, or do you want your employees who are doing the maximum because they believe? And if they're going to believe, it's because you marketed something to them.

Speaker B: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. An example that you would have shared as well. And again, wonderful book with so many great nuggets, but a great example you would have shared, Seth, because I still wanted to sit with this a little bit when we talk about recruiting employees, because something else that Popped out at me. Ah, was that when you spoke about Zappos in the book? And it's one of the companies that I guess is legendary in how it enrolled its employees and how that enrollment manifested itself in the customer experience, which I'm sure you and I would have experienced as well. But the team at Zappos clearly were enrolled in a way that caused them to be bought into who the company was. Right. And so when we talk about internal marketing and how a company can go about ensuring that they're hiring for what you refer to as real skills, again, another great nomenclature from the book. Not soft skills, but real skills. It's so very, very important. Right. Uh, what's your view there on companies and how they incorporate the whole matter of recruiting for real skills as opposed to, uh, just the regular hard skills that, you know, anybody can put on their resume?

Speaker A: I'm glad you brought up Zappos. Um, and people miss Tony Hsieh every day. Rest in peace. But, um, you know, my friend Tony came up with this idea because when people think about marketing, I think they misunderstand it as advertising. That's not what we're talking about. So, for me, the single most important part of Zappos recruiting happens three weeks after you start. So you've been hired, you're working there, you're going through the training three weeks after you begin, and they decide that you're really good at your job. They call you into a conference room, and they sit you down, and they say, here is $3,000 in cash. If you quit today, you can have the money or you can stay, and then you don't get the money. Which would you prefer? And people hear this, and they say, that's crazy. Why are you paying your best employees to leave? And Tony said, because I want people who are willing to pay to stay. That someone who. Who's willing to leave for $3,000, not worth the effort they're going to put into the next level of training and everything else that's a marketing conversation, because what it says is internally, inside. I must really like it here because I just paid $3,000 to stay. That shifts everything. Right? And so that is where we begin. Now, your. Your thing about, uh, real skills is if we talk to most leaders and make a list of all the things they could have in employees, things like words typed per minute or ability to code in C, those don't rank as high as honesty, integrity, sense of humor, loyalty, connection, enthusiasm, charisma, uh, equity, all of those things. Right. So why aren't we hiring for those things, and we say we're not hiring for those things because they're hard to measure. Yeah, but companies do lots of things that are hard. So why don't we just acknowledge that what we really care about are the innate choices that people have made, the real skills of what it is to be a human in community. Because that is a proxy that's worth measuring.

Speaker B: And to go further, Seth, onto that point and the whole matter then, of smallest viable audience. Right. And I think it's, uh, certainly for me, the concept of identifying your smallest viable audience externally is pretty well known, especially those for those folks who are familiar with your work. Uh, but to support our audience, how does the smallest viable audience show up when we're talking about identifying the smallest viable audience when it comes to our employees? Uh, because again, for those folks who follow you long enough, we know what that means when we talk about reaching out to an external audience or prospective customers. But what happens when we flip that on its head and we're talking about smallest viable audience when referring to our employees? I mean, does that happen before we join in the recruiting process? How do we reach the right people who we want to bring on board as part of what we want to create as a company?

Speaker A: Well, one of the things, and I mentioned this to a friend yesterday, turnover is a good thing. Turnover used to be a bad thing because training took a really long time because sharing information was very hard. That when Dolores quit after 18 years in accounts payable, all this information went out the door with her. But now it's all in Slack, it's all in the Google Doc, it's all in your management information system. So we ought to be able to build an organization where people come up to speed fairly quickly. And so if someone doesn't want to be there, they should go. Turnover as a, uh, bad thing is about power, and it's about hoping to keep people from realizing they have options. Enrollment says, I know you have options, but you chose to stay anyway. The reason this is important is our smallest viable audience, when we were talking about internal marketing, are, uh, the people who chose to be there. And if there are people in your organization who aren't going to get the joke, who aren't going to get the story you're trying to tell, they should not be there. You should only have the employees that you would love to have. Because when you start compromising on your way for more, you're averaging down.

Speaker B: Yes, indeed. And even after, perhaps, I guess sometimes we would recruit and identify and bring on board the right people. Because again, going back to the book, another thing that jumped out at me is that certainly we thought that that was the case. You know, so sometimes when we think we would recruit and identify and bring on board the right people, um, or certainly we thought that was the case in the book, you went on to highlight the whole performance appraisal process, because recruiting is one thing, right? So bringing. Making sure that we're targeting the right people and bringing them on board and the initial onboarding and slash orientation process is important, but once they start to work and be a part of what it is we're trying to create as a company appraisal, performance appraisal becomes a crucial part of sustaining that. Right. And again, reading from your book, when we talk about assessing not just for their performance on the hard skills, but for those real skills, right? And even just things like identifying who are the bullies, who are the people who are really holding the team back from doing their best. Uh, do leaders assess for that, in your view? I guess I'm suspecting because it's easy to track the hard skills. And again, something discussed in your book. And as a fellow leader, I know this, it's easy to assess for the hard skills. It's not as easy to assess for those real skills and making sure that we sustain and maintain the right people on our team that are a part of what it is we're trying to create and not negatively impacting the connection that we're trying to build with our people, people, and just the whole level of engagement and enrollment that we want to sustain. How does a company measure for real skills? How do they assess for that? Because I know as a leader, and speaking to many leaders, that continues to be a challenge.

Speaker A: Right? Okay. So the first thing is I hope we can agree that annual reviews are dumb because people spend a whole year dreading them and a whole year forgetting the last one and a whole year avoiding them. We ought to have daily reviews, weekly reviews, and we ought to be reviewing the stuff that matters, not a form that's going to go into the file. And the thing about false proxies is we are measuring things that are easy to measure but not important to the institution. Right? So if you work at an ad agency and you come into work five minutes late, that is not a useful proxy for whether you are doing a good job. That is a measure if you're doing a good job and if you're a lifeguard because someone might die in the five minutes you weren't there. But if You're a creative director. It's not a, um, useful proxy. So let's make a list of what we actually need to do well here, and then let's talk about it and talk about it and talk about it, that if we can talk about it all the time, it's going to get better. So we have two problems. We're measuring the wrong thing, and we're not even talking about the wrong thing. We should measure the right thing and talk about it all the time.

Speaker B: Time. Seth, I'm sure I. A lot of leaders are likely listening to this and appreciate everything that you've been sharing and we've been talking about. And they are probably thinking to themselves that they need to do an entire reset in their companies right now if it's required for them. And admittedly, you did acknowledge that there are certain organizations, for example, who are in a model of industrialization because they're kind of just putting out widgets. There are some organizations, perhaps for them, this kind of conversation would not necessarily apply as much. But for those organizations that really do need a reset and really need to revisit, how are they engaging and enrolling their employees, um, in a way that allows them to bring to the table their best work, supported by people who are passionate and want to do great work every day, how do you suggest they start where that reset is concerned?

Speaker A: I think it's essential that we start really small and that you don't wait for your boss to do it or the boss's boss, or the boss's boss's boss's boss to do it, um, that each person is capable, even if you have no employees, of beginning to model significant behavior. The simple example I've given before, if you work in a company like Boeing, you're not going to get fired for organizing weekly book group over lunch. If you organize a weekly book group over lunch where you invite five other people to all read a book together, engage in the book, and figure out how to put those ideas to work. Four people. The four people you chose to join you, their lives are going to get better. You are going to be more connected. You have just experienced leadership. If that works, start another book group for five other people. You don't have to go to the meetings, and if that. And then all of a sudden you're the person who started 40 book groups throughout Boeing. You don't think that's going to help your career. You don't think that's going to start to change the cult. And then on and on and on and on. And on. So we need to let go of this top down dominance and simply say, if it's worth me going to work, it's worth me making it better.

Speaker B: Now, when we're talking about marketing to our employees, what in your view does that look like, Seth? Because I think some people are still stuck. Because you're right. There are some people who think, oh, well, marketing is just advertising. So I'm just going to do a bunch of motion graphics and emails and post some stuff on the Internet for employees to take a look at. But in your view, fundamentally what's internal marketing when we say we're marketing to our employees?

Speaker A: Uh, I'm going to highlight three pillars and you should write a book about this. Carry on. Because I don't think anyone ever has.

Speaker B: Yes, that's actually my plan.

Speaker A: Pillar number one is marketing is storytelling. Telling true stories that resonate with people and get under their skin and spread. And there are so many examples of this. The receptionist at Kodak was a brilliant marketer because every person who interacted with her guest or employee felt different after the interaction. It took her an extra 15 minutes a day. But her interactions with every single person made you feel special. When you walked into Kodak. Right. At a little company, it could be something as simple as who has the reserved parking space and how did they get it. That's a marketing decision because it came with a story, right? What happens to someone on your team if they do a project and it doesn't work? Do you celebrate them for leading a project or do you criticize them for something that was out of their control? That's a marketing choice, right? One of the best moments in my management career was at Yo Yo 9. We had one of the first Internet companies. I had 40 employees and, uh, one of my three senior people, someone who would be very hard for me to replace. He was a yeller and a bully. And, uh, I heard him yelling at someone in our open office and I went over to him and I took him into a side room and I said, look, here's the deal. If you ever yell at somebody again in this building, I will fire you on the spot. That was a marketing choice because I said it clearly and it never happened again. If I had let it happen, I would have established what kind of company this was. It's the kind of company where if you have enough power, you can be a yeller. Not. Okay, so that's the first one. The second one is permission anticipated personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them establishing that Marketing is going to happen around here and it's not going to take the form of HR memos that are hard to read, that you are going to interact with the people who are telling a story that's part of your job. And it's not weird and it's not awkward. We're going to have these kinds of interactions. And then the third one is probably finding your medium, finding the place where you are putting on these stories. And it's not in an annual event where you try to make up for 360 days of mediocrity. It's on a regular basis. Are they hearing from you? In what form? Right. What are the methods, the media, the genre that you are using to continue to tell and rehearse this story? And if you can put these things in with intent, they're going to work, I promise.

Speaker B: I have no doubt. And do you have a view, Seth, on whether or not there should be a center of excellence in the organization where this internal marketing function resides? Or do you see it more as a cross platform functional partnership?

Speaker A: I guess I would say if we think about the great brands, the person who is the brand steward doesn't make every single one of the brand elements that Steve Jobs has passed away, but there's a lot of what would Steve do when they're making an ad? And the person who invented the Oreo cookie is gone a really long time. But the spirit of the Oreo cookie lives on. So it begins with there's a brand steward who started the thing, who understood what the brand that we are marketing to our employees is. And then there's a management choice of who has authority to keep doing this. Because if you. Not every single person who works at Oreo is allowed to run an ad. That's someone who has the authority to spend the money and run an ad. So there needs to be something in place. But the brand steward's job is to make sure that people like us do things like this. The brand stewards job is to not compromise on the little things, because everything is a little thing sooner or later.

Speaker B: And another quote from the book, Seth, that resonated with me. I mean, there's so many things that resonated with me from the book. But another quote was that you wrote, the opportunity for all of us lies in the emotional labor invested by enrolled and committed employees who seek to make a difference. That is the competitive advantage that extraordinary organizations produce. What do leaders need to do differently to bring about the shift that's needed to drive the kind of engagement, enrollment and as I sometimes also refer to as the emotional connection or alignment, a commitment to purpose, uh, that's needed. Uh, what do leaders need to do differently to bring that about or bring that out in their teams, in their employees?

Speaker A: Well, Kerrianne, I worry that people who ask that question are saying, tell me the least I can do so I can then get back to work. And I think the argument that we're making is this is what it is to get back to work work. That the other stuff is the stuff you want to get over with. This is why you're at work. If you get this part right, the other stuff isn't a big deal anymore.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. Seth, you have shared so many wonderful nuggets for us to chew on. And based on all that we would have discussed in this episode, I'd love to know. It's a standard question I ask all of my amazing guests. I'd love to know, what's the question, Key takeaway or the key nugget that you'd love our audience to come away with, having heard everything that you would have shared?

Speaker A: Uh, the nugget is that this is important. If you don't think it's important, you should move on. If you do think it's important, maybe it's worth five hours of your time to not look for one more nugget, but to actually understand the big picture and the nuance that goes with it, it that we are caught up in a tldr, uh, world of check, check, check, check, check. Now I can go back to work. And I'm just trying to argue that the one big thing is it's not time to go back to work. It's time to do a different work.

Speaker B: Very important, very important takeaway, Seth. Uh, thank you. And of course, my final question again, to all of my amazing guests, because I'm so very, very grateful for your generous sharing of time and insights here today, is that I'd love to know. How can we, the internal marketing tribe, support you?

Speaker A: Oh, the only thing you can do to support me is to up, uh, your internal marketing is to listen to what Carrie Ann has been preaching is to make things better by making better things. That's why I show up. That's what I need.

Speaker B: Seth, thank you so much for your generous sharing of your time and your insights, your expertise. I'm very grateful, and I'm sure my audience is grateful as well. And of course, please accept my best wishes for continued success in everything that you do.

Speaker A: Thank you. Carrie Anne. Sending hugs.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. For tuning in to another episode of the internal marketing podcast. I'm sure you got some great takeaways from this conversation, and if you haven't already subscribed to the internal marketing podcast, then please join the tribe. And don't forget to leave a review and share. Share this podcast with anyone whom you believe will find it valuable as well. I'm, um, your host, Kerrianne Stimson, and I look forward to your joining me next time.