Seth Godin is the top business blogger in the world and has nine best-sellers.

I’ve never been in a room with so many people with faith.

I think what you want is more. More people to touch, more interactions, more goodness, more growth.

One way to go about that is to mimic the marketers in the world.

I want to leave you with one idea. What marketers did for a long time was interrupt people. They stuck messages places where people didn’t really want them.

Marketers realized that TV worked.

Interrupting people doesn’t work any more.

What’s better, more organic, is to have people talk to each other.

Ask 2 questions?
Who else is going to be there?
Who is going to lead us.

The idea of tribes is an ancient idea.
Tribe: A group of people connected by an idea, language, goal, leader, etc.

There used to be only three tribes in our lives: work, church, & community.

In order to drown out those tribes, marketers aimed at us.

Now we have discovered that we can get people to talk to each other.

The Internet was supposed to homogenize everyone, but instead allowed pockets of people to form.

People do things to fit in. Chefs wear white. Stock traders wear smocks.

There wouldn’t be a volunteer fire department anywhere in the world if it weren’t for tribes.

People do things because they want to.

People like being with people they like being with.

Sports fans aren’t rooting for the players or the coaches, they change. They’re rooting for themselves.

There are tribes at work. People stay where they are because they are defined by what they do.

A crowd is not the same as a tribe.
A mob is an angry crowd.

Tribe: A group of people, usually self-selected, often with a leader.

Tribes have insiders and outsiders. Everyone in the world can’t be in one tribe. That’s just a crowd.

Sometimes tribes are silly; other times they have a deep blood connection.

The more powerful your connections are, the more valuable the thing you are building is.

Your job moving forward is to connect people, to find out what they share.

This is about one thing, having leverage.

Barack Obama raised $400 million by building a tribe.

The Grateful Dead only had one top 40 record, but they built a tribe.

What you do for a living isn’t what you thought it was. What you are doing here today is learn how to lead a tribe.

You don’t deserve a tribe. You don’t get one because you want one.

If you want to grow, it’s going to come from a tribe.

We know now that everyone is 4 degrees away from everyone else.

When I think about a tribe, one thing I can do is make the tribe tighter. In a tight tribe, it’s not easy to join, but once you’re in, you’re in.

You can make the tribe bigger. Oprah has a big tribe because all you have to do is watch an hour of TV.

It’s hard to make a tribe tighter and bigger at the same time.

Marketing Management is now Tribal Leadership

Everyone is not the same. You’re idea might spread through some groups is not others. The idea that everyone who wants to join your tribe is wrong. Your job is to find the people who want to join your tribe.

There are tactics and tools; don’t get stuck on them.

My thought: People want community. They want to be accepted.

It’s not about bringing knowledge; it’s about finding someone who is naturally leading and helping them to do it better.

If you can’t get 10, you’re not going to get 100. If you can’t get 100, you’re not going to get 1000.

You have to do something people can criticize. If you want to be safe and play in the middle, you’ve already failed. No one is seeking a safe leader.

There are three things that tribes do to grow.

• Find people in the world who are lonely and don’t think there are other people like them.
• Find people who already knew there were people like them.
• Find people who would never ordinarily be together.

It’s about leading, not controlling.

Sheepwalking is another giant problem. No one follows sheep. They don’t want to get in trouble. They don’t want to stir the pot.

No one is going to follow the average.

I am begging you to become heretics, someone who’s faith is so deep that they are willing to deal with the criticism of the status quo because their faith is so deep. Martin Luther was a heretic.

There is a giant distinction between faith and religion. Faith is built into us. It is something that everyone has and needs. Religion amplifies faith for a while but eventually becomes a tool to control others. Faith and Religion exist everywhere. In corporations, in sports teams, etc.

Controlling through a series of rules when the faith is faltering is exactly the wrong idea.

The rules get piled on, and piled on, and piled on. Some rules are good. Some rules make sense. Often times heretics seek out a rule and break it on purpose.
What piece of religion are you willing to set aside if you have a big yes.

Being a community organizer often gets you in trouble, but it also means that you can have a big impact.

Leadership is the same thing as marketing, and marketing is the same thing as leadership.

• Leaders challenge their tribe, they don’t settle for what is now.
• Leaders create a culture for their tribe.
• Leaders are curious, they don’t accept something just because it is written down.
• Leaders have charisma. You don’t become a leader because you have charisma; you get charisma because you are a leader.
• Leaders communicate. They figure out how and when and where to talk with the tribe.
• Leaders connect tribe members with each other.
• Leaders commit to the well being of the tribe.

Tribe members want to

• Connect
• Create Meaning
• Make a Difference
• Be Noticed
• Matter
• Be Missed

If you can’t be inspiring, you have no business being a leader.

Are you doing something for the tribe or to the tribe?

We have an obligation to do something with the leverage we have.

Note: Seth (a non-Christian) gave a copy of his book “Tribes” to everyone at the Catalyst conference.

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