As one of those who read my Blog regularly, you already know that I’m a bit of a Seth Godin fan to say the least but I recently started on his latest book The Practice. So far it is excellent and is an extension of the voice and theories I found in This is Marketing and I reckon there are other juicy bits of this book to get my teeth into and post about here.
Prompt 36 resonated with me very strongly. It’s about selling and pitching but the nitty gritty of it is around the question of whether the people you are interacting with, will be glad they did what you are asking them to do, when they discover what you already know. At the end of the paragraph he closes with the line:
You are not a short order cook. You are here to lead us.
Having spent 18 years of my professional life in the hospitality industry as a chef, I know a little bit about being a short order cook and this statement sums it up perfectly. I no longer sell a small number of commoditised items that can be ready in minutes, promise an outcome with their description and an ephemerality measured in minutes.
Nowadays I do something entirely different and to those I serve I offer no promised outcome but only a process. A collaborative, creative, uncertain, sometimes messy process and it’s wonderful. Because it allows me to do my best work.