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Please Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you happen to like any of Seth Books and buy one after following a link from this site, I’ll make a few dollars toward expanding my own business library. Of course, you’re free to look up the books yourself if you want! 

As I mentioned in my last post about the traditional advertising vs. authentic communication, different marketers use different methods to spread the word about their online businesses. Seth Godin is the poster child for the “authentic communication” approach in marketing. His books, such as The Purple Cow, All Marketers Are Liars, and Meatball Sundae all center around this theme.

Today Seth’s latest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, hits the market. This time around Seth is talking about how we’re all part of a group, or a tribe. As business owners, we can either create a brand and then try and sell it to people, or we can develop a tribe and then create products for them. Whether your business is selling houses or selling peanuts, if you can help the people that love what you do connect with each other, not only will the power of word of mouth marketing begin to work for you, but you will not need to search for any more customers! By bringing people together you create a community that will provide you feedback about what they want. If you in turn listen and create products specifically for them you can be sure they’ll sell, because you’re meeting a specific need, the need of your tribe.

I won’t say too much more about Tribes, other than that I highly recommend it. Seth Godin explains the concepts much better than I ever could. In the meantime, if you want a taste of what a Tribe can accomplish, check out the Tribes Casebook Seth released today. This 200+ page PDF was created entirely by members of an elite tribe Seth has been cultivating and is available for everyone as a free download. Download it and read some of the stories, both present and past, of tribes and the people who have led them. After you’ve read through some of the stories, think about your business. How can you cultivate a tribe around what you do?