First of all a disclaimer: I’m a Seth Godin fan. I approached his new book in roughly the same frame of mind in which I greet the first taste of chocolate after Lent — and just like the chocolate, it didn’t let me down.

Much of what’s here will be familiar if you’re a fan of Seth’s, of course — but if you haven’t read him before, this will feel like a seismic strategic shift. He talks counter-intuitively about the ‘smallest viable audience’, for example: the digital revolution has so fragmented and personalised consumers’ experience that to make an impact, you must focus relentlessly and exclusively on those who will love what you do for them.

His concept of the ‘chasm’ is particularly interesting: early adopters might love you if you’re doing something new — that’s what early adopters are all about, after all. So you need consciously to start with them. They are the ones most likely to try out what you’re offering, the ones prepared to change what they’re doing, the ones actively seeking the solution or system nobody else is using yet. The challenge is to make the leap from those enthusiastic ‘neophiliacs’ — who will quickly move onto the next thing — to the rest of the population, who are less interested in whether something is new and cool and much more interested in whether it works (‘The middle of the curve isn’t eagerly adopting. They’re barely adapting.’). This demands the network effect, and the network effect demands that you create not just customers but a connected tribe.

What’s so glorious about Seth is that he lives in the real world with unselfconscious profundity and makes you feel the significance and potentiality of what you’re doing when you send an email or write sales copy. It’s like taking business advice from Yoda, with more straightforward syntax.

It’s hard to find one single quote to share — I highlighted more than 50 separate passages, a personal best. But if I were going to pick one quote to give you a flavour — and obviously I am — this would be it:

‘This is a book about roots. About anchoring your work deeply in the dreams, desires and communities of those you seek to serve. It’s about changing people for the better, creating work you can be proud of. And it’s about being a driver of the market, not simply being market-driven.’

And since Seth is also a master of book marketing (naturally), it’s worth looking at his website for tips on how to do this if you’re a publisher or business author — there’s a neat tool allowing readers to submit their own video reviews of this book, for example.

Perhaps that’s what it comes down to, in the end: when Seth says ‘This is Marketing’, he’s showing us, not telling us.