Summary
The video presents a critical reflection on the common misconception that a service or product is inherently valuable simply because its creator believes so. The key message is that true value is demonstrated by the organic spread of the service or product among users—if it does not spread naturally, it indicates that the offering is not as good as assumed and requires improvement.
Key Insights
- Organic spread is the ultimate test of value: If your product or service does not get recommended or shared by customers without heavy advertising, it suggests that the offering is not meeting expectations or needs effectively.
- Self-assessment can be misleading: Creators often overestimate the quality and usefulness of their products or services because their perspective on what is “better” may be subjective and not aligned with the target audience.
- Improvement over abandonment: When a product or service fails to spread, the proper response is not to abandon it but to go back to the drawing board and improve aspects such as value, delivery, utility, presentation, and alignment with customer expectations.
- Examples from industry giants: Tesla and Google famously spent little to no money on advertising initially, focusing instead on refining their products until they naturally gained momentum and customer-driven spread before engaging in advertising and PR.
- Marketing redefined: Marketing is framed not as visibility or advertising but as the creation of something inherently valuable that naturally spreads through word of mouth and genuine customer advocacy.
- Alignment with customer expectations: Understanding whose idea of better you are aiming to satisfy is crucial. Success depends on aligning your offering with the specific needs and definitions of “better” held by your target audience.
Core Concepts
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Organic Spread | The natural process of customers recommending a product/service without paid promotion. |
| Subjective Improvement | The idea that “better” varies depending on the creator’s vs. customer’s perspective. |
| Iterative Development | Continuously refining the product/service based on feedback and market response. |
| Marketing as Value Creation | Marketing is the process of creating something valuable enough to propagate itself. |
| Customer Alignment | Tailoring the offering to meet the specific desires and expectations of the target audience. |
Timeline of Key Points
| Time | Event/Insight |
|---|---|
| 00:00 – 00:01 | Introduces the idea that products/services may not be as good as creators think if they don’t spread naturally. |
| 00:01 – 00:02 | Shares personal example of creating a course that did not spread widely, prompting reflection. |
| 00:02 – 00:03 | Highlights Tesla and Google’s approach of refining before advertising. |
| 00:03 – 00:04 | Emphasizes the importance of aligning with the customer’s idea of “better” to create spread. |
| 00:04 – 00:04 | Concludes that marketing is about creating value that spreads, not just about promotion. |
Recommendations for Practitioners
- Continuously test whether your product/service is spreading organically.
- Solicit honest feedback from your target audience to understand their definition of value.
- Be willing to iterate and improve rather than abandon projects prematurely.
- Focus on deep customer alignment rather than assuming your own perspective is correct.
- View marketing as a process of value creation and refinement, not just advertising.
Conclusion
The fundamental takeaway is that the success of a service or product is measured by its ability to spread organically, which reflects genuine value perceived by the customer. To achieve this, creators must align their offerings with the target audience’s expectations and be prepared to iteratively improve until natural growth occurs. Advertising and promotional efforts should follow only after this foundational value is established. This perspective offers a paradigm shift in how marketing and product development are approached, emphasizing authenticity, customer-centricity, and continuous improvement.
00:00:00
A very inconvenient truth that I think it’ll be beneficial for us to address early on is the probability that we’re not as good as we think we are and our services and products aren’t as good as we would hope them to be. And this is illustrated when let’s say you provide your services for 10 people. Is the idea about your service spreading? Are people telling others about your service or your product and what you do? And if not, you’d have to go back to the drawing board and work on
00:00:37
it. And to illustrate this, I created a course thinking that it would be very beneficial for the people who watched it. Um, and you know, I was totally convinced. I spent I spent a lot of time researching the course content uh creating the content itself so that it flows better and it’s logically sound and I shared it with about 15 or so practice owners and it didn’t spread. It spread a little bit but of course like it didn’t spread as much as I wanted it to. So it wasn’t a sign for me to go and
00:01:13
close the project and say this isn’t something that we need to you know not do anymore. it. It’s simply a sign that we get to improve our value, that we get to improve the delivery, we get to improve the utility of it or how it’s um presented or many of these things and remove the blocks to utility to the people we seek to serve as well as improve and align with what they what they want to see. Right? So we’re our services when I say are I mean you included are probably not as good as
00:01:55
we as you and I would like them to be and is it spreading on its own is the real criteria we have to look at because if it’s not spreading on its own then we need to go back to the drawing board and improve the actual service itself and this is also illustrated in things like Tesla early on in their business life. Um Tesla famously spent zero dollars on advertising. Similarly with Google that they really never advertised Google and all these two companies did was go back to the drawing board, focus on improving their
00:02:37
product, improving their service until it started to spread. And once that spread happened then they started advertising towards it. Then they started buying billboards doing PR and things like that. So the first thing we have to do is to create something that is valuable and get it to spread. Right? So that’s a fundamental shift in itself that I hope you start to consider. And the question becomes how do we improve these things? How do we make it better? And the idea of better is completely
00:03:11
subjective. If you asked me what better was, then the course I created was better. If you asked a dentist who had who I had given the course to what better was, it’s likely that their idea of better was different. Hence why my course didn’t get the reception I thought it would and why I’m working on version three. Um, so who is it that you’re seeking to serve? Whose idea of better do you want to align with in order to attract and identify that and do the work of aligning everything in
00:03:47
your offering to better serve it. And once you do that, you’ll have something that spreads that when you can create something valuable for someone that aligns with their ideas of what better is, you have something valuable for them and it’ll spread. All right? So that is the work of marketing. Marketing is not so much about the visibility, the advertising, the promotions. It’s about creating something that spreads. All right, I hope you take that seriously and I hope that really fundamentally
00:04:19
shifts how you show up in your practice. All right, thanks for watching. See you guys in the next one.