Seth Godin: Solving the Unsolvable, Plus Costco Surges & the AI Backlash

Michael LeBlanc (0:07)

Welcome to the Remarkable Retail Podcast, Episode 313, I'm Michael LeBlanc.

Steve Dennis (0:12)

And I'm Steve Dennis.

Michael LeBlanc (0:13)

Back with us on the show, this week is the one and only Seth Godin. If you look in the dictionary, if you have such a thing lying on your desk somewhere, take it out of your bookshelf. And if you look in that dictionary under such terms as email marketing, thought leader, wise philosopher of all things marketing and business, you'd probably see a picture of his bespeckled face. He is a frequent guest, a friend of the pod and a personal friend of yours, Steve. I've got to know him a little bit. Wonderful guy. Always such bright insights. He's here to talk about his latest knowledge drop in the form of a book, The Knot.

Steve, how would you describe Seth's impact on our industry, the marketing industry, and your thoughts about The Knot?

Steve Dennis (0:52)

Going back quite a while, I would say Seth's impact on a lot of industries was really around the idea of permission-based marketing and direct contact because he often takes credit, and I think it's fair to say, for inventing email marketing, and that obviously became quite a big thing.

Michael LeBlanc (1:12)

That could be big someday.

Steve Dennis (1:13)

I think also his contributions in terms of, I guess you'd call it, identity marketing around his book, Tribes, super important.

I guess we talked about it in the interview, how many books is it? He's had 22 or 23

Michael LeBlanc (1:29)

Yeah, Purple Cow, one of my favorites.

Steve Dennis (1:31)

Purple Cow, which definitely is pretty much a straight line to my idea of Remarkable Retail. Yeah, and I think one of the things that people will hear is really interesting about this book, it's not so much a business strategy book or a marketing strategy book, it's really broadly about how to solve problems of all kinds, and what gets in the way of doing that, and some different ways of thinking about it. It's hard for me to imagine whether we're talking about our personal lives, our business lives, our projects we're working on, that folks will not get some real knowledge and wisdom out of what Seth has to share, and I definitely encourage people to pick up the book to get the full story.

Michael LeBlanc (2:09)

And before we get to our great interview with Seth, we'll be talking about the news of the week, including Costco waiting for the penny to drop, Stitch Fix, and then back with what's on our respective radar screen. So, congratulations are in order. You just 3-peated as an NRF top retail voice for 2027 Congratulations. Looks like this year, I'll have to settle for being your plus one at the events.

I did not make the third year, didn't make the cut in the third year, but starts to get us thinking about the NRF in January. And lots of our friends and lots of our guests who've been on the show made the list of congratulations to them all.

Steve Dennis (2:47)

I believe of our guests, Simeon Siegel is the only one who, I think there's five of us that have been on the list all three years. I believe Simeon is one of them, and I think the only one who's been on the podcast before. And of course, people will know he's been on multiple times. So maybe Seth and Simeon are kind of battling it out for the six-timer jacket, or I don't know where we are on all that. But no, it's always nice to be recognized and it looks like there will be some interesting happenings at the big show. So that's coming up, what, three months now? I don't know.

Michael LeBlanc (3:21)

Virtually around the corner, I'm already planning my early visit to do the store checks for my retail store tour. So it's certainly in front of mine and it's coming up fast. And if you're a vendor, by the way, Steve and I are going to be there. So hire us to do a live version of the show. We can go to dinner with your guests and impress them with our witty repartee.

One last thing from an admin perspective. We're going back to mostly weekly. When we hit the summer, we went to every two weeks as a show. And then we both had a very, very busy early fall. So we kept the pace at every two weeks for the pod. But I heard back from a bunch of people said, hey, I miss you every second week. So good news for them.

Steve Dennis (4:04)