You can’t make people listen; you can only make something worth listening to. It’s a game-changing shift from shouting louder to creating something so compelling people lean in. This is the core of modern marketing and communication.
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Meaning
Stop trying to force attention and start earning it. The power is not in the pitch, but in the product, the idea, the story itself.
Explanation
Look, I’ve seen so many teams burn out trying to push their message. They spam more emails, run more ads, talk louder in meetings. It’s exhausting. And it doesn’t work. What Godin is saying here is so profound because it flips the entire script. You stop being a marketer and start being a value creator.
Your job isn’t to find more ears for your message. Your job is to craft a message that ears will actively seek out. It’s the difference between being a used car salesman and being a trusted advisor. One is noise, the other is a signal. And in a world saturated with noise, being a clear, valuable signal is everything. It’s about building a Purple Cow—something so remarkably interesting that it’s worth commenting on.
Quote Summary
Reading Level70
Aesthetic Score86
Origin & Factcheck
This gem comes straight from Seth Godin’s 2003 book, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. It’s a cornerstone of the book’s philosophy. You sometimes see this sentiment floating around unattributed, but it’s 100% Godin, born from that era when the internet was really starting to teach us that interruption marketing was dead.
Attribution Summary
Author Bio
Seth Godin writes and teaches about marketing, leadership, and creative work. After earning an MBA from Stanford, he founded Yoyodyne, sold it to Yahoo!, and later launched ventures like Squidoo and the altMBA. He has authored bestsellers such as Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, Tribes, Linchpin, and This Is Marketing. He posts daily at seths.blog and speaks globally about making work that matters. If you’re starting with the Seth Godin book list, expect insights on trust, storytelling, and shipping creative projects that change culture.
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Where is this quotation located?
| Quotation | You can’t make people listen; you can only make something worth listening to |
| Book Details | Publication Year/Date: 2003; ISBN/Unique Identifier: 9781591843177; Last edition: 2010; Number of pages: 160. |
| Where is it? | Chapter 32: Worth Listening To, page 153/160 |
Context
In the book, Godin argues that the old ways of marketing—the TV-industrial complex—are broken. You can’t just show up with an average product and an expensive ad budget anymore. The Purple Cow is a metaphor for being remarkable. And this quote is the actionable takeaway: you create that remarkable thing, and the listening, the attention, the word-of-mouth… it follows. It’s the effect, not the cause.
Usage Examples
So how do you actually use this? It’s not just a poster on a wall.
- For a Marketing Team: Instead of brainstorming your next ad campaign, brainstorm how to make your product or service so good that your customers would be disappointed if they couldn’t tell their friends about it. Shift the budget from advertising to innovation.
- For a Manager: Don’t just send another all-hands email that gets ignored. Craft a message that actually addresses your team’s core frustrations and aspirations. Make it so insightful and helpful that they forward it to each other.
- For a Content Creator: Stop chasing the algorithm. Don’t ask “what content should I make to go viral?” Ask, “what is a piece of content so unique and valuable that my ideal viewer has to share it?” Create the worth-listening-to thing first.
To whom it appeals?
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Motivation Score81
Popularity Score79
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FAQ
Question: But what if I’m in a “boring” industry? How do I make that worth listening to?
Answer: Great question. This is where it gets fun. You don’t make the *industry* interesting, you find the remarkable *within* it. Is it your customer service? Your unique guarantee? The story behind your sourcing? There’s always a Purple Cow hiding in plain sight. You just have to be brave enough to build it.
Question: Does this mean I should never advertise or promote?
Answer: Not at all. It means promotion is the *amplifier*, not the *source*. You pour gasoline on a fire, not a pile of wet wood. First, build the remarkable fire. Then, and only then, use promotion to help it spread.
Question: How is this different from “if you build it, they will come”?
Answer: It’s a more nuanced version. “If you build it, they will come” can be passive. This is active. It’s not just building *anything*; it’s the specific, intentional act of building something *remarkable*, something inherently worth talking about. It’s “if you build something truly remarkable, they will tell everyone they know.”
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