Why I Should Be Seth Godin's Summer Intern

I learned that traditional marketing is dying (or at the very least changing) and that to be a successful marketer you have to join the conversation. This process takes time and you have to learn to be a great listener because sometimes consumers are not saying aloud what they really want or mean. In the end participating in the conversations and cultivating the relationships enables consumers to trust you, to follow you, to purchase from you.

I learned that if you really want to be a successful marketer you have to learn to lead without authority. I had the responsibility to make an impact, but I could not control what people did so I had to learn to establish the tone and build my tribe in other ways.

You can do this by building intricate spiderwebs that link together a bunch of small parts that invariably create an immovable object. If you become a voice that stands for something and you are building something worth building all of these intricate, connected thoughts inspire others to follow. Seth is the master of this; I have a lot more to learn about it, aside from the fact that I do know you have to be very passionate about whatever it that you're doing for this to even have a chance of working on a large scale.

Some of my other favorite take-aways were:

> Creativity thrives in the face of boundaries
> (Sometimes) it is about making noise, and sometimes that means breaking rules.
> Taking risks and (sometimes failing) is inevitable if you are going to consistently stay in the lead pack.

Do you read Seth's blog? What have you learned from Seth? What other blogs do you learn the most from?

- The Internship was a for High School or College Students
- It consisted of hands on group marketing and the web
- It's a paid gig, pretty good pay too
- It's just outside of New York
- The work actually matters
- Office Hours are 10am to 5 pm
- Program runs from June 30th to July 21st

For all the information check out Seth's Lens here:
Summer Internship with Seth Godin

(Because of the # of applicants Seth received he invited 4 students to intern in-house, and there were a handful of us that participated virtually.)

1.) I am VERY passionate about marketing. In need of some extra cash I began studying online marketing two summer's ago and immediately made the transition from Communications Studies (undergrad) to Marketing (graduate school).

I believe this is a "Marketing World" and that virtually every business in the world would benefit from being ran by marketers.

2.) I think outside the box when it comes to marketing. I was once asked what telesales companies should do to increase conversions. The first thing I did was jot down "call successful stock broker firms and ask them what they do" on a napkin.

That's right. Who needs a fancy legal pad? Traditional advertising is dead so why take the same boring approach to marketing?

3.) I WANT to help people! That's no lie, that's not the end of a beauty pageant speech, and nobody told me to say that. I genuinely believe that if you help people get what they want in life, then you can get what you want as well. Not to mention, there's a phenomenal level of self-satisfaction there.

Since I've realized my passion for helping people, the number of business people that I have befriended, worked with, learned from, etc. online has increased tenfold. It's not a coincidence.

4.) I don't want to sell out to the corporate world. What I mean by this is that I have no intention of getting some run-of-the-mill corporate job doing something that 10,000 other people could do.

I don't want to follow normal conventions, I want to change them. I want to be a pioneer, and I think that interning with Seth, my own business ventures, and blogging have provided opportunities for me to expand my breadth of knowledge and become more capable of changing the face of marketing in the future.

5.) I'm charismatic. This is not bragging it's a fact. I'm very fortunate that I was blessed with charisma, but I also work hard to hone it. Telling stories when I speak comes naturally, but being completely comfortable in front of others in a business setting doesn't. That's something I consistently work on.

Before a big presentation this year, I watched hours of funny YouTube presentations and speeches in order to draw from professionals that do it better than me to ensure that I could be charismatic and funny in my own presentation.

6.) I believe in the power of the Internet. With the Internet and web 2.0 it is so easy for promotions, campaigns, heck even a good blog post, to go completely viral.

I'm constantly using what little spare time I have to learn more and more about the Internet. Of late I have been reading an abundance of blogs on social media, word of mouth marketing, relationship marketing, and generation Y.

7.) I want to market to the myth. Honestly, I want to be an entrepreneur, write the coolest books ever, work with the tons of interesting people and companies, etc. BUT if I work for one single company, I would love to have a brand like Mountain Dew that successfully markets to the myth.

What I mean is that the brand goes against the grain. They market to the people that do not want to follow our current national ideology (and they always have, even when that ideology has shifted), and because of that they stay ahead of other brands.

8.) I am a Purple Cow. I'm going to work hard, strive to learn as much as I can, and be respectful of professors and business people.

That said, I am invariably going to crack a joke (at an appropriate time). I am going to have fun. I organize our program's Happy Hour each week. I think the really innovative, really fun ideas start coming out when a group of great business minds get together outside of the classroom structure.

Once I was supposed to build, "The tallest structure" with some paperclips, rubberbands and sheets of paper. That was the only requirement (at least that's the way I heard it).

Our team's structure was by far the tallest and everyone looked at me pretty weird when I was standing on a chair that I had placed on top of a desk to hang our structure from the ceiling (it touched the floor). Apparently it was 'supposed' to be free-standing, but I never heard that, and even so, why limit yourself?

See: #2 outside the box

9.) Color me curious. What made Mike Filasime's product launch of his Butterfly Marketing Manuscript so successful? What about Frank Kern's Mass Control? How do companies like Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Toyota and other brand champions operate? These are things that I am always trying to study and questions I am always trying to ask.

I take the stuff I learn in class, and I find something that really resonates with me (alot of it doesn't, let's be honest) and I blog about it. That usually gets the wheels spinning, and then I see how I can relate it to other aspects of my own business.

I am always trying to find ways to bring things together in way that makes them a.) make sense b.) more successful c.) potentially a new thought or idea that might fill a current gap.

10.) In an effort to learn not only from brands, but from thought-leaders I try to get my hands on, and read everything from guys like Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Guy Kawasaki, Keith Ferrazzi, Kevin Roberts, etc.

One of the best things about following all of these guys is that I can always find an interesting post or riff that provokes thought and stimulates further research and learning. I get to combine consistently innovative insights and approaches (from some of the world's best new age marketers) to my own knowledge-base in effort to formulate my own theories with respect to marketing.

11.) I dream big. Yeah, I probably need a voice of reason around to insist that sometimes my ideas might not be as feasible as they are in my head, but aspire to be great, and to be the best at whatever I am doing.

I started Ryan Stephens Marketing, not really as a business looking to earn a bunch of money, but as a way to set myself apart from my peers. I wanted to acquire some real consulting experience that I could apply to my studies, and eventually my career.

12.) I am highly competitive. I took the test from the Strengthsfinder book, and my #1 strength was my competitive nature. To the extent that I'm competitive it is not always a good thing. Fortunately I do believe (and feel confident that I have a good grasp on it) in work/life balance, but if I think someone else is getting ahead, chances are you'll find me hammering away on the keyboard into the early morning hours.

One of my best friends makes fun of me because I can't go running without having to pass everyone I see in front of me, even if it means nearly killing myself at the tail-end of a long run. There's just something embedded deep within that feeds off of the competition.

If you've read this whole list, I certainly appreciate it!

A group of us that have managed to stay in touch and talk consistently admit that we learned a lot from working under the guise of one of the world's best marketers, but even more importantly than that we all have a trusted circle of intelligent advisers now.

Here's what some of the interns are up to now:

Jeff Widman - Jeff is currently writing for Venture Beat and heading up Mint.com's Facebook marketing efforts.

Richard Millington - Richard is one of the most intuitive community leader's I've ever encountered. His blog is my go-to resource for all things community building.

Charlie Hoehn - Charlie lives a life where we works on what he wants to. He helped Ramit Sethi's "I Will Teach You to Be Rich" become a NY Times best seller. He knows marketing.

Aidan Nulman - A founding partner at Communitie, Aidan is truly a unique and insightful thought leader.

Brandon Laughridge
Sebastian Graham
Bert Hart
Derrick Kwa
Jess Neil
Snow Bui