Tribes: Seth Godin won’t lead you to the promised land, but he’ll give you directions.

A few months ago I received Seth Godin’s new book “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us“, but only recently have I had a chance to read it. Having read his latest book, I must say that Seth has written another successful book. 

What’s this book Tribes about anyways? Well basically it’s focusing on the fact that we mustn’t be complacent anymore with what needs to be done. If you want to be noticed, you need to standout and start your own tribe. Specifically in marketing, if you want to have evangelists who drive people to your product, who is going to lead that team? It needs to be someone who understands the audience and what is expected. It all boils down to who is that leader. I’m guessing it’s you?

Think about if you’re an Internet Marketer, you use plenty of tools and read about dozens of “A-list” industry celebrities, right? Chances are you’ve heard of Seth Godin and many of your colleagues are fans of his. Well the issues that he talks about and the books he’s authored shows he’s a leader of the tribe of business & internet marketers. The same could be said about folks like Robert Scoble (blogging), Guy Kawasaki (Macintosh & Entrepeneurship) , Kevin Rose (Diggnation), Chris Brogan (Marketing), Chris Heuer (Social Media), and Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library & “Bringing the Thunder”).

I must say that I enjoyed reading Seth Godin’s book and I find it fits in with the Triiibes.com network that he setup a few months ago to get people connected to talk about their tribes. However, one downside that I’m seeing is the lack of substance versus his other book that I love “Purple Cow“, but I’m still recommending that you read this book. If you’ve ever had an inkling about standing out and being a leader, this should be a good persuader for you. 

Some interesting points that I took away from the book:

• A “tribal leader” should not be one who just spouts out marketing and PR buzzwords. They need to understand what’s going on with their audience, product, and work to engage in the conversation.
• Setting up your tribe may require you to become a heretic in your organization/industry – you’ll be ostracized first before you succeed.
• Believe in change. The status quo only gets you so far.
• Leading a tribe is never about “me”…it’s about us.
• Show initiative.

So that’s what it takes to lead a tribe.

Are you a participant or a leader?