Marketing by Sharing (translation and subtitles for Jason Fried speech)

The boys and I continue to slowly translate speeches with ideas that we like and which we ourselves try to follow.
Today I bring to your attention the speech of one of the 37signals founders, Jason Fried, at the Chicago Conference in 2009. He talks about how, by sharing your knowledge and experience, you unknowingly make the best advertising - advertising that you cannot buy for money.

This time we decided not to engage in voice acting - it takes too much time and is not very much in demand, as shown by our previous translation.

We got permission from 37signals, and this time we decided to make an English transcript using SpeechPad . It is relatively inexpensive - 1 dollar per minute, and very high quality. Then, having the English version, we made it a Russian translation. The organizers of ChicagoConvergence did not respond to the request to add our translation to the original , so we had to take their video on YouTube, cut it in half and add English (since we have them) and Russian subtitles. Adding English subtitles to YouTube does not require any special preparation - they are automatically placed, but the Russians had to tinker a bit, since YouTube requires a specially prepared file with time markers.
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English text can be found here .

And now - the word Jason.

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“I would like to tell you today about one of the ways in which you can promote your company. I touched on this topic a bit earlier when I talked about creating a personal brand, and today I would like to look at marketing from a slightly different angle. I came to this idea when I wanted to learn how to cook better. I knew how to cook, but I wanted to improve my skills in this business. I watched for a while specialized television channel, and one day decided to start. When I decide to start a topic or learn something, I go and buy what I think I need. It creates a special mood and helps me focus on the new business.

So, I went to the Kreit & Barrell's all-for-kitchen section, where there are a lot of pots, pans of different shapes and sizes made of different materials - copper, aluminum, anodized aluminum, stainless steel, etc. I do not like to ask sellers - I started walking between the shelves and chose a few things. Then I went to the section with knives and chose a couple more knives. Similarly with the accessories section. I paid off, loaded my purchases into the car and drove to the Baudès bookstore, which is just across the road. There I went to the department of books on cooking and got blunt by the number of books. There are thousands of them. Different dishes, national cuisine with hundreds of books devoted to each topic. But I wanted a book on Italian and Mexican cuisine, and I chose one each. I also wanted something about the barbecue and the basics of cooking.

I found everything I wanted and went home. Yes, at first I paid for them, of course, and then I went home. When I buy something new, I always wonder why I chose these things from a huge amount. I always do this because I like branding and marketing all by themselves. I looked at my purchases and realized that they did not belong to well-known brands, but they were all associated with people from whom I learned something.

I realized that I bought a book on Italian cuisine by Mario Batali because I watch his author's program on TV. I bought a pot of Emeril Ligassi for the same reason. I bought Rick Bayles' book on Mexican cuisine because I watch his show on PBS and the second book, Stephen Reichen , who broadcasts on barbecue. It turns out that everything I bought that day was bought under the influence of people from whom I learned something. Not influenced by television advertising or advertising in a newspaper or magazine, no. I don't remember anything advertising these products on the radio. I just remember these names, because I learned something useful in cooking from these specialists. In this case, you also have confidence in their products or in what they are advised to buy. When I realized this connection, I began to reflect on the influence of professionals, from whom we learned something, on the choice of product, service or business. And it became obvious to me that many companies do not follow this path, trodden by leading chefs, who not only cook food, but also share their experience. Instead of investing time and money in traditional marketing channels, they educate and thus promote themselves and create their brand.

I really liked this idea, and I was surprised why almost no one uses this marketing ploy. What prevents companies from acting like these famous chefs? I have no answer - except the assumption that many are afraid to paranoia. They think that if they share their ideas, then their “recipes” (in the broadest sense of the word), their “cookbooks” (if they show people their cuisine), this can be used by competitors to gain a competitive advantage over overtake them.

A few comments on this. Firstly, do not be afraid of competitors. They were, are and will be. You need to know about them, but not too steamed about it. Secondly, your competitors are not sitting and not waiting until you accidentally reveal your secrets in order to immediately use it against you. So it does not work. Mario Batali is not afraid that another chef will watch his program or buy his recipe book and open an Italian restaurant next door and ruin it. In life, it does not happen. But companies seem to be fixated on this scenario. That is, despite the fact that it is almost impossible, many are still concerned about the possibility of such events. I presented - what if our company, a small business creating web applications - what if we began to share what we know how to do well, as these cooks do? What if we write our recipe book? I’ll talk about it now, but first let's take a look at other companies that have gone this way, because I like those companies that don’t load me with traditional marketing.

And then I thought about Zappos - the people who sell shoes. You've probably heard of them - Zappos.com. They sell shoes online, just like many other companies. But what really makes Zappos different is that they are not just shoe sellers. They created their own customer care culture. In addition, it is so important for them that they write a book on this topic every year. And the employees of this company are doing this. That is, in Zappos, directors encourage employees to write a book about what it is like to work at Zappos. At the same time, this is not a directive of the company's management. This is not a plan approved by the CEO. There is no editor. People are simply allowed to write about what they find interesting about working at Zappos. And this book is available to everyone inside or outside the company. It could be another shoe company, anyone. They talk about their "kitchen" openly. They show what it means to work in Zappos. They show everyone what kind of people work and what it means to work in Zappos and this makes Zappos interesting. After reading this book, I always buy shoes in Zappos. Their prices are always lower, but the point is not only this, but what I learned from them, how to work with clients, what they taught me, in the culture created from them in the company.

There is another company - Zingermans. If any of those present attended the University of Michigan, then you probably know Zingermans - this is on the outskirts of Ann Arbor. Aha There are such in the audience. Zingermans is a cool delicatessen shop. Now it all turned into a real enterprise. But one of the unusual things that Zingermans does to stand out is the “Zingemans University”, which is created for those who only want to open a delicatessen or grocery store, or any other food related business. You can learn from their courses how to start such a business. Basically, they teach their future competitors. But, again, they know that this cannot harm them - as if some of their students had opened a shop across the road to Ann Arbor and ruined them. It doesn't bother them. What worries them is the fact that they have practical knowledge that is very important to those who begin.

Different companies - Zappos, Zingermans, and so Google, for example, also increasingly uses this approach. Google is working on a new browser called Chrome, and they talk about the process of creating it openly. That is, everyone knows about the new browser from Google long before its release. Again, a company with a traditional approach would be afraid to do so. They would work behind the scenes when employees cannot speak openly about what they are working on outside the company, as the management is afraid that, having learned about their plans, competitors will be able to use knowledge against themselves. In fact, they should be worried that as many people as possible knew about their ideas, and not about those who could use them. They need to popularize their ideas, and the best way to do this is to talk about them, share them. That is, companies such as Zappos, Zingermans and Google are much more interesting to others than their competitors - mainly because they are not afraid to share such information.

I think that this approach will be useful for small companies, especially creatives, the media business, because in order to become well-known in these areas in the usual way, you need to spend a lot of money. There are a large number of simple design, video and web design firms. How do you know about them? Where do people find out about you? Of course, you can hire a PR firm, paying it from 5 to 15, and maybe 20 thousand dollars a month. I would not do that. You can pay for advertising anywhere. I think that this will not work either, as it is difficult, for example, to find the target audience for such advertising and it is expensive. You can try other marketing methods, more traditional ones, but they, in my opinion, will not bring tangible results.

And so I would recommend that you think about what you are good at and can teach others. If you are a web designer, for example, show others what it is like to be a web designer. Teach other CSS or HTML. You can share what it is like to agree on a project with a client, how to prepare a proposal, or how to respond to a request for specifications and prices. Everything that you, as a web designer, do. If you do not have a blog, you should create it and write in it about your work, what you do, what you are good at, what it is like to be a web designer, so that those who work in the same sphere or just want become a designer, could learn something from you.

The positive moment when you start sharing your experience with other designers is the fact that you have an audience that is a secret weapon when it comes to promoting your business. When you do not have it, then you have to spend money to bring information about your service to more and more people. And after they have bought something from you, they leave and most likely will not return until they need something else. You will have to advertise yourself to them again and again. But when you have an audience, when you are a source of useful and necessary information - the people themselves return to you. Instead of inviting them to you, they come to your site for information. You have an interested audience and it is easy for you to bring to it information about your new offers. In this case, it is not necessary to sell them. You simply share with them what you are doing and teach them what you know. In the end, someone from this audience will become your client. Sooner or later, someone will need the services of a designer or your web service or something else that you do. They will remember you when they have such a need, because they are your audience, who know you and what you do. This is a truly effective way to promote your services or company without having to spend a lot of money on it.



So this was an idea for a web design business. Suppose you are a writer on free bread or a journalist, or just someone who is looking for a project to work, wants to find more clients. You have to talk about what it is like to be a free writer on your site. Most sites are just a portfolio, with “About us” and “Contacts” pages, and that’s all. But you should have a section on what you need to become a writer and what problems are associated with it. You must share the work that was rejected. About what you had to throw away from the text. You should talk, for example, about an offer that you spent a few hours on. Tell us about all the iterations and the course of your thoughts behind this. Why did you throw it away, why did you change this word, why did you change this phrase, how the final version of the sentence differs from the original one.

You have to share the work process itself, because those who read or see your story will think: “This guy or this girl - they know their stuff. They do not care so much what words to use, how they sound, how sentences are built, that they are ready to share their knowledge with me. It means much more than just a series of essays or general articles with information that is also easy to find from other sources. ” When you actually show your backstage, as these things were actually written, you are sharing more valuable information. In addition, you begin to create your audience.

If you are a photographer, you need to talk about lenses. On lighting. About how many pictures you have to do to get exactly that. About patience. You should talk about all these little tricks of your craft and share your photography experience. This is a great way to make yourself known. One of the things we did (just to talk more substantively). When I was introduced, you heard that we are creating web applications, and we try to keep our products simple. I want to talk about some of the things that we did to know about us. Over the past five years or so, we have registered 2.5 million people. We do not use the services of a PR company. We do not spend money on advertising. We do not do traditional marketing. All we did was share what we know and can do. Everything we did was taught based on our experience.

For example, in one of our products called "Basecamp" there is such a feature called "yellow fade technique". In fact, this is a way to add a message or add a to-do item. A new element appears on a yellow background and after a moment the background becomes normal, so you notice what has just changed on the web page. This is a tiny tiny little idea, but we thought it was a really effective technique for dynamic pages, and it would be really interesting to others. Thus, instead of using this idea in our own products for the time being, we decided to write about it, document it and tell about how this idea occurred to us. Why it is effective and how we implemented it so that you too could use it.

The page with the description in our blog has been read more than 800,000 times in the past five years. 800,000 people have opened this page! Of course, this does not mean 800,000 unique visitors, I will correct myself in this. In this little note there is a lesson on how to make this function, there is a description of how we got it, and what it is used in our product. So now suddenly we have 800,000 people who have read this article, which has an element of education, a mention of the name of our product and the name of our company, and this has been learned to many people all over the Internet. Now there are 7,000 other articles linking to it, while writing took just 15 minutes. You can not buy such advertising. You just can't. Well, probably, this is possible if you have hundreds of millions of dollars, but for people who do not have them, as most of us probably have, this is unrealistic.

In addition, we once wrote about how we are sketching interfaces. When we develop an interface for a product, we usually do a sketch first, and I used to talk about how I do it. This is usually so boring that it will not interest anyone, but surprisingly, this also turned out to be interesting to blog readers, especially when you share interesting details. For example, I said that I use thick markers instead of ballpoint pens for sketches. I explained this by saying that when you use a ballpoint pen, the line is so thin that you start worrying about details that don't matter at this moment. At the time of creating the outline, you do not have to worry about small details, and therefore I use a large, thick marker. He stops me from drawing details. I can only work on the form and the general placement of elements on the screen. I published this article about a year and a half ago. To date, 400,000 people have visited it and many other resources have been linked to it.

If I just started blogging about our products, articles would never have become so popular. Some people will read them, but the visitors would be less and less, because it would be an obvious advertisement. It would be an obvious marketing campaign. But if I talk about how we work, about our ideas, then it becomes interesting to a larger audience and spreads over the Internet with great speed. What is the result? The fact that you have an audience with interests similar to yours. Ultimately, you attract potential customers. You may not even know that they are already your customers, but in the future they will become them. Again, they trust you more, because they are interested in what and how you are doing. They will subscribe to your blog because you gave them something valuable - instead of advertising.

So my advice is this: whatever you do, think about how you do it. Think about the subject area, think about the methods you use.Return to the office today or tomorrow — or when you return to work — and instead of continuing to work from where you left off, write something about what you are doing. Share the process itself. Share what may be interesting and instructive for visitors to your site. Even if you do not yet have visitors, start a blog today and, eventually, in the future (although it may take some time) a interested audience will start to form around you. When this happens, you can offer your products or services, and since this audience knows you well, it will be more receptive to such offers.

That's about it, in principle, I wanted to talk about today. I know that I finished the presentation a little earlier than planned and therefore I would like to answer your questions if this is possible. I have two minutes. Any questions about this approach, in which you, without fear of disclosing your ideas, openly share them? I can hardly see the hall. So have any questions? Yes? ”

A person from audience # 1 For a startup that doesn’t have any audience yet, you are saying that you need to choose a topic that people may like, create a bunch of websites and so attract attention to themselves. But are there any other ways to attract visitors to your site?

Jason:So, the question is, if you are a beginner and you have no audience - how to show your notes so that someone will pay attention to them? I must say that this approach does not work right away, but you also do not need to hurry. I think that too much attention is paid to approaches that work instantly. I think it’s perfectly normal to create a blog and just start writing. Find other blogs on a similar topic, and just let them know about what you recently posted. Link to them. A great way to get traffic is to give away some of your own: refer to other people who will do the same to you. So this is a really great way to start, but the result will not be visible overnight. You will not get a huge audience in a day, it will grow slowly. The more you publish,and the more you share, the more your audience will end up. Yes?

Man from audience # 2: How does what you say fit into the concept of copyright?

Jason: Hmm, no. You want to say: “Does such an approach cancel the concept of copyright?” In what sense? What do you have in mind?

Man from audience # 2: Well, if you have a great idea, you want to patent it, because it's your idea and own it.
Jason: You can't really patent ideas. You can patent its implementation. For example, if you develop something unique, then you can get a patent or trademark. Something like this.But you can not patent the idea. So it is better to share your experience. The truth is that nowadays everyone can get to the bottom of any idea and think of implementation. Anyone can figure out how to do something — why not be one of those who write about it openly. So, if you have an invention that you came up with, and it is incredibly unique and you think that no one will understand how you did it, then, as a rule, there will always be someone who understands and writes about it. So why don't you write about it yourself?

There is one more question - since then, I think, the time of the next performance.

Man from audience # 3: So, Jason, is this the way you went when you gave up on contract work and started building your own applications?

Jason: Is this the way we went when we abandoned the contract work and began to create our own applications? He definitely helped us popularize our apps, because if you only write about them, people will know that this is an advertisement. They stop paying attention. But if we can talk about how we develop products, about the ideas behind them, the thought process behind their creation, then the products will be advertised on their own - because what you write is interesting to your readers. If you just write about your products like this: “Look at what our application does” - it’s not as interesting as “Look at what it does, how it does it, why it does it and why we decided to exactly".In this form, the message will interest readers and attract them to your site again and again. In this way we created an audience and as a result we have a huge number of people using our web services - we shared information and tried to make it interesting for those who work in the same direction.

I think the time is up. Thank you very much for your attention, and I hope that my presentation will be useful to you.