Mr. Godin believes that when people are remarking upon your PSO, you've found the free prize -- the edge, if you will -- that makes your PSO stand out in a crowd of similar offerings. It's innovation, not advertising, that makes consumers sit up and take notice.
Of course, you'll need to change your thought patterns to create those ideas. Mr. Godin pokes at old ways of thinking and encourages you to reach beyond throwing money (in advertising and R&D innovation) at your PSO in order to gain an advantage. Instead, you should find free and low-cost ideas to differentiate your PSO.
It's not enough to have a good idea, though; you need to champion your idea. Can you sell your idea and make it happen? Mr. Godin shows you how.
By the way, if you prepare PowerPoint presentations, you should read this book for the "Avoid Really Bad PowerPoint" tactic. You'll sell your idea, whatever it is, much easier when you avoid these three biggest PowerPoint mistakes.
It took me a little while to get into this book, probably because I've not read Mr. Godin's other works. I also found the book's divisions (three sections, no chapters) rather long. I'm looking forward to reading it again, but I'll probably read his "Purple Cow" first.
His main theme is that the cost of traditional innovation such as high priced Research and Development, and expensive marketing has risen too high. The alternative he proposes is soft innovation, making an incremental change to an existing product.
Soft innovation is the Free Prize Inside. An example is Cracker Jacks and cold cereal. The free prize is a small innovation that was made to the existing product that increased its value in the marketplace. The beauty of soft innovation is that anyone in your organization can be creative enough to come up with a free prize inside of your product. And it's my opinion that this works for non-profit organizations as well where our product is programs. Small innovations can create excitement around a program that has grown dull and lifeless.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in creating excitement in their products and marketing. http://jeffreyclong.typepad.com
Once you buy the book, visit the site (http://www.freeprizeinside.com) for some helpful and amusing thoughts on powerpoint.reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8, 9