This Is Marketing by Seth Godin

Nobody needs your product
It doesn’t make sense to say “people need a white leather wallet,” because:
1. People don’t need a wallet. They might want one, but that’s different.
2. People might decide that they want a white leather wallet, but they don’t want it
because it’s white or because it’s leather; they want it because of how it will make
them feel. That’s what they’re buying: a feeling, not a wallet. Identify that feeling
before you spend time making a wallet.
Marketers make change. We change people from one emotional state to another. We
take people on a journey; we help them become the person they’ve dreamed of becoming,
a little bit at a time.
No one is happy to call a real estate broker
Not really. Despite what the broker is hoping, this isn’t often a joyous interaction.
They’re afraid.
Nervous.
Relieved.
Eager to get going.
Anxious about moving.
Stressed about money.
Thinking about status gained or lost.
Concerned about the future.
Worried about their kids.
The broker is a speed bump on the way to their future. And most of what he or she says
is merely noise, a palliative, because it all costs the same anyway.
According to statistics given to me by the National Association of Realtors, more than
80 percent of the people who hire a broker do so by choosing the first person to return
their call.
Given that, here’s what I’d ask a broker seeking better: How will you choose to show up
in the world? Will you reassure and soothe? Will you probe and explore? Will you claim
that you’re better, faster, more caring?
Just as no one needs a drill bit, no one needs a real estate broker. What they need and
want is how it makes them feel to get what a broker can get them.
(And the same thing is true for waiters, for limo drivers, and perhaps for you . . . )
• • • • •
Like real estate brokers, most of us do our most important work when we traffic in
emotions, not commodities.