PDF Summary:Perennial Seller, by Ryan Holiday
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1-Page PDF Summary of Perennial Seller
If you’re a creator of anything (music, tech products, writing), you probably hope to have a large impact, breaking through to thousands or millions of people. But have you thought about creating something enduring? Have you ever thought about how to ensure your creation is still being used and loved 10 years from now?
That’s the question Perennial Seller is trying to answer. Ryan Holiday, an author and marketer, tries to articulate what distinguishes works that last from works that fade into obscurity. How is 4-decade old band Iron Maiden still selling records and concerts? What distinguishes works with followings, like Star Wars, from similar blockbusters like Avatar that have faded from public memory? Learn the strategies to create good, enduring products with loyal followings.
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Creation takes place over long periods of time and require dozens of iterations to polish. Don’t fall for the myth that great works are done spontaneously in one sitting.
- Get an editor who can give objective critiques. It’s very rare for someone to create a brilliant work in her own mind.
When creating and marketing, define your audience and purpose carefully. “This is a that does for __ (target user).”
- Be OK with polarizing the population. You want a fraction of the audience to love your work (and a fraction to hate it), not the whole audience to be blase.
- Think about one specific person you’re creating this for. This will help you target your work.
(Shortform note: Perennial Seller is light on how to actually do the core thing of creating a good product. This is likely too domain-specific and taste-based to really codify into rules.)
Marketing
Marketing is then about finding your target users and ways to reach them.
- The purpose of creating buzz at launch is to increase the pool of people who will refer your product to their friends. The product does the heavy lifting of marketing afterward. A product with a big launch but doesn’t sustain word-of-mouth referrals after is not going to endure.
Every new user has an activation barrier to trying your product - money, time, energy, mental, opportunity, social cost. Your goal is to lower this barrier as much as possible, so they try your product and have a chance to see the value.
- Consider lowering the price of your product or making it free somehow.
- Convey the benefits and social signaling to reduce the barrier further.
Assume: “Nobody cares about what I’ve made. They don’t know what it is. They can easily do without my work.” Humility works harder than ego.
When trying to reach users/influencers/journalists, always think, “what’s in it for them?”
- Journalists are dying for a scoop on a unique story.
- Influencers want to be seen as tastemakers and will promote products that their audience will love.
Keep Creating
Once you create one great work, what do you do? Create another.
- Each additional great work lifts all the other work you’ve created. People who liked your first work have more to enjoy; people who discover you anew can enjoy your back catalog.
- Would the Hobbit films be as famous without Lord of the Rings? Would we care about Shakespeare’s sonnets were it not for his plays?
The ideal situation to have is a loyal following of people who love your work and will buy every single thing you produce.
- A platform is the combination of tools, relationships, access, and audience to spread your creative work repeatedly over the course of a career.
- Ideally, you have a direct relationship with your followers, through a medium you control. Ryan Holiday recommends an email list above all, because of its longevity.
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PDF Summary Introduction
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- “Happy Birthday” song - before this, what were people supposed to do at a birthday party?
Every day something lasts, the chances that it will continue to last increase (this is known as the Lindy effect).
Perennial Seller is an attempt to codify the process of creating things that stand the test of time. Is there a common creative mindset? How does it differ from work that’s popular one day and gone the next? How do you capture an audience, build a platform, and develop marketing channels that endure?
PDF Summary Part 1: The Creative Mindset
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The goal is to create a product so good that people share it with their friends. This word-of-mouth is the only way that works continue to survive for decades.
Phil Libin, the creator of Evernote: “People thinking about things other than making the best product never make the best product.”
What Are You Creating?
Now that you understand your motivations, you need to figure out what to create that can be enduring. Here are a few tips.
Perennial sellers address timeless issues, not trends.
Chasing trends is problematic because 1) it’s fiercely competitive (partially because it’s strategically easier just to copy others); 2) the hype around a trend obscures its long-term potential (it’s hard to tell early on if the new thing is an enduring innovation, or just a temporary flash in the pan).
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says something similar: “Focus on the things that don’t change.”
Examples:
- Seinfeld, having dealt with timeless universal issues, is more memorable than Friends, which dealt with quirks of the current day.
- (Shortform example: long-lasting books like How to Win Friends and Influence People address timeless social challenges that...
PDF Summary Part 2: Creating and Polishing
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- Years passed between when Matthew Weiner had the idea for Mad Men and when he made the pilot. Then it took more years to get it on air, then 7 years to finish the series.
Creative ideas evolve over time, colliding disparate ideas organically. It builds layers into the work.
People who think they can rush to the finish line will disappear. There are no shortcuts to greatness.
Confront Your Fears
Creating something better than anyone has ever done it is scary. What if people don’t like it? What if someone forces you to change it? What if it’s not ready?
Embrace your nervousness. This is a normal part of the process. Fear will make you diligent. Let the feeling guide you, and honor it.
Only impostors are wildly self-confident. The real innovators are scared to death.
Don’t worry about others stealing your ideas. If your work is truly original, you’ll have to ram it down people’s throats. You’ll have to pay them to pay attention, or to work alongside you.
Don’t worry about falling short compared to other people. The best you can do is all that matters. There is no competition. There is no objective benchmark to hit.
If you’re feeling stuck, take a...
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Learn more about our summaries →PDF Summary Part 3A: Positioning
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- Is this a coffee shop or a coworking space or a private club? It can’t be all three without alienating customers looking for just one.
- Fictionalizing your Wall St experiences into a novel doesn’t give twice the audience (fiction lovers and business readers) - it might actually give half, since you’ve violated conventions of two spaces.
Then target a specific use case by filling the sentence: “This is a _ that does _ for _ (target user).”
- This needs to be SPECIFIC. Write only in third person. Avoid “I believe.”
- Bad answers: “for everyone.” “for fans of Malcolm Gladwell” (there is no convention where they get together).
- Examples of good targeting:
- Susan Cain wrote Quiet specifically for introverts, an underserved audience.
- Ethnic targeting - Blue Collar Comedy Tour vs Three Amigos vs Original Kings of Comedy. Or Modern Family vs The Goldbergs vs Blackish vs Fresh off the boat.
Once you understand your genre and your use case, you know what you’re trying to accomplish. Then decisions become easier.
- Jon Favreau built the film Iron Man around Robert Downey Jr. Once he made the casting decision, it became clear how...
PDF Summary Part 3B: Marketing
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- If you genuinely believe your work is of value, be excited about getting it out there.
Every new user has an activation barrier to trying your product. There are costs in money, time, energy, mental (understanding a new product), opportunity cost (when they try your product, they can’t try others), and possibly social cost (trying your product could risk their social standing). Even if you know it’s the best thing in the world for them, they don’t know that yet.
- Each new work competes for customers with everything that came before it and everything that will come after.
- Think of all the free concerts you’ve never been to, free samples you haven’t tried. Just because your work exists doesn’t mean people want to try it.
So the goal of marketing and positioning is to lower the barrier as much as possible to get them to see the benefits.
Whenever targeting someone, always think, “what’s in it for them?”
Tactics of Marketing
The core of marketing tactics is to find your target user. From your positioning, you should know who your target user is. Now you need to find out where they are and how to get their attention. “Find your addicts.”
This...
PDF Summary Part 4: Platform
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Building a Platform
A platform is the combination of tools, relationships, access, and audience to spread your creative work repeatedly over the course of a career.
“Platform is not a stepping stone. It’s the finish line.” - Casey Neistat
Just like creative work, everyone wants a following, but few want to put in the effort to make one.
Prefer Email as Your Platform
Ideally, you have a direct relationship with your followers, through a medium you control.
Using gatekeepers like social media or SEO is tenuous. Policies change, companies go bankrupt, consumer preferences change. If you built your following on MySpace and never transitioned to a new service, too bad.
Per the Lindy rule, what has lasted a long time is likely to continue lasting. Thus Ryan Holiday promotes an email list above all.
How do you build an email list?
- Collect emails in your physical performances (comedy club performances, art exhibitions).
- Create members-only resources or events.
- Run sweepstakes or contests.
- Do a swap with another person’s complementary email list.
- Promise a great service.
- Put a link in your email signature.
- Post online...
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