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 is a for High School or College Students
- It consists 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

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 transcation 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.

Side Note: I coach a 10U select baseball team, and I would miss those guys if I went to N.Y. for the summer, but they would forgive me when I came back with some uber-cool ways to brand their team.

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 would give me the perfect opportunity 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. Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to master Squidoo yet, but it's on my list. In the meantime, what are the chances that this site gets a few thousand diggs in the next week or so and Seth Godin calls me up an asks me to be his intern?

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? 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.) Seth Godin is America's Greatest Marketer - All jokes aside (and there have been a few throughout the list), I honestly believe Seth Godin is America's Greatest Marketer. That isn't so much about flattering him, as it is taking advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.

If I sincerely want to achieve great things and be the best at what I do, and there is an opportunity that allows me to learn from someone that I consider to the best in the WORLD at what he does I would be foolish not to at least ATTEMPT to obtain that opportunity.

If you've read this whole list, I certainly appreciate it! Check back as I may add to/update this list quite a few times in the next week or so.

Thanks again for stopping by!

Ryan Stephens

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