The February 2022 Indie Business Book Club pick is: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin.
The reason I selected this book is because I am more persuaded today than ever before that your business success depends largely on your willingness to create, nurture, and lead community around your brand.
Your products must be great, but that's just the starting point.
Even if your products are great, the hard truth is that people can get great products anywhere. You've got to offer something more.
You Must Offer Community
In 2018, Sprout Social, a social media marketing software company, surveyed 1,013 consumers to discover what they want from brands besides a good product.*
Seventy percent of them said they feel more connected to a brand when the brand's CEO is active on social media.
Moreover, more than half of them said that when they feel connected to a brand, they will increase their spending with that brand, and 76% will buy from them over a competing brand.
Ignore these statistics, and others like them at your peril.
In today's business world, community is king. Your customers and prospects want to be a part of your community, and they want you to host the party. This is especially true if you are an indie brand with artisan products people cannot purchase on every street corner.
If you are ready to embrace this truth and put it to work in your business, then this is the book for you.
What You'll Learn …
In addition to learning how to be a better leader, here are some of the things you'll learn by reading this book with me:
• why it's important for you to fully embrace your role as leader
• how the success of your brand depends more on your ability to lead than on how great your products are
• why community is an indispensable part of the long-term success of your business
• what steps you need to take now to become the leader your customers need now
• and more …
Reading Plan
The reading plan progresses in our private members only Facebook group. We will share and discuss valuable takeaways in our weekly Coffee with Donna Maria meetings on Mondays at 12:30pm ET.
The link to join Coffee with Donna Maria live will be in your Monday morning member update.
The graphic below displays our easy reading schedule. Instead of being organized into chapters, Tribes is broken into short snippets and ideas. Each week, we will read several ideas as outlined below.
About Tribes
First of all, anything by Seth Godin is worth reading and studying. Tribes embodies some of his best work.
If you want to build a meaningful brand that enjoys consistent repeat sales, you must build and lead a community around that brand. Tribes is all about doing that.
No matter what type of business you are building, community is its lifeblood. This book, and the discussions we will have around it, will help you take the steps needed to build and strengthen your community, or “tribe,” so it delivers not only consistent sales, but also lifelong relationships and a whole lot of fun.
About Seth Godin
Seth Godin is the author of several international bestsellers that have been translated into over 35 languages, and have changed the way people think about marketing and work. For a long time, his Unleashing the Ideavirus was the most popular ebook ever published, and his Purple Cow is one of the bestselling marketing books of the last hundred years.
Tribes, is a nationwide bestseller, appearing on the Amazon, New York Times, BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.
Buy Tribes
Buy this and other Indie Business Book Club picks at IBN's Amazon shop.
Of course, you can also purchase the book at your favorite local book store.
Are you ready? I am.
Join us!
If you're not familiar with the Indie Business Book Club, you can click here for more information.
If you're a member of the Indie Business Network, make sure to join us in our private member Facebook group to get started. If you're not an IBN member, what are you waiting for? Join now and enjoy the book club and tons of other benefits to help you and your business grow.
Feedback and Share
Are you leading a company of one? Did your business start out that way? How about now? What are some of the pros, cons, and issues you think are most important to leaders of companies of one?
Share your comments, questions, and feedback below.
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* “Creating Connections: What Consumers Want From Brands in an Increasingly Divided Society,” 2018. Details here.
