Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts, by Ryan Holiday. This is an excellent book! In it, Holiday lays out the case that creating great products, services, art and especially books is not just the first crucial step in success, but that the ongoing marketing is even more important.
This may seem controversial as many artists, writers, and inventors expect to simply create and then have the world beat a path to their door. This is the rare exception. The rest of the masses must accept that they are going to have to hustle, persist, and bottom-line market themselves. This isn’t easy for most people to hear but it’s the truth. In the book, he shares several examples of hugely successful people that had to go far above and beyond to get their message seen, recognized, and most importantly sold.
Under The Cover
In Perennial Seller, Ryan also shares:
- Why intent is important to any project and the sacrifices that must be made to achieve their completion
- The key questions to ask when undertaking a creative project to see if there’s a market or audience for it
- Why you are the CEO of your work and that you will have to work hard at marketing and getting people interested
- How certain musical artists and writers kept revising and getting the word out to become globally known after years of short-term setback and adversity
- The best ways to position and find the right target market for your product, service or idea
- The three critical variables to even get a chance at people’s attention: The Positioning, the Packaging and the Pitch
- Why you must build a list of key customers and contacts and continually stay in touch with them
Quotable
Here’s a great quote on page 113 that really sums up the book well:
“Marketing is your job. It can’t be passed on to someone else. There is no magical firm -not even mine- who can take it totally off your hands. Even if you’re famous, even if you have a million Twitter followers, even if you have a billion dollars to spend or fancy credentials -it’s still on you and it still won’t be easy. It’s on you to take this great thing you’ve made and reach as many people as possible with it.” – Ryan Holiday
Share this:
