In Seth Godin’s 2003 book called Purple Cow, he challenged businesses to stop playing safe by continuing to do what they have always done, or making small changes to existing product/service lines, and rather try more radical ideas to take a market by storm.  The business world is a bit different now than in 2003, but the principal remains very relevant.  The opportunity to gain increased market share and/or premium pricing by coming out with revolutionary ideas for new products or services are just as good now as they were 13 years ago.

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Seth used the analogy of a Purple Cow.  Nobody really notices one cow from the next.  They are very familiar and pretty boring.  A PURPLE cow however!!  Now that is something that would grab your attention and be something to talk about. Imagine if you could come up with a “purple cow” in your business.  What level of free publicity would that provide, and in these days of social media, how fast could that positive talk spread?  How “able” is the idea to make people “remark” about it to their friends and become “remarkable”?  What sort of additional sales and profit could that lead to?

Seth provided a checklist in his article to help you in the thinking process.  I have included it below and I encourage you to talk to your staff about this list and challenge them to think about purple cow ways you can change the company.  It doesn’t need to be a totally new and radical product that will cost millions to develop either.  It can just be a radical new way to answer the phones or provide customer support, or guarantee customer satisfaction.

Here is Seth’s list to help you in the thinking process:

  1. Differentiate your customers. Find the group that’s most profitable. Find the group that’s most likely to influence other customers. Figure out how to develop for, advertise to, or reward either group. Ignore the rest. Cater to the customers you would choose if you would choose your customers.
  2. If you could pick one undeserved niche to target (and to dominant), what would it be? Why not launch a product to compete with your own that does nothing but appeal to that market?
  3. Create two teams: the investors and the milkers. Put them is separate buildings. Hold a formal ceremony when you move a product from one group to the other. Celebrate them both, and rotate people around.
  4. Do you have the email addresses of the 20% of your customer base that loves what you do? If not, start getting them. If you do, what could you make for them that would be super-special?
  5. Remarkable isn’t always about changing the biggest machine in your factory. It can be the way you answer the phone, launch a new brand, or price a revision to your software. Getting in the habit of doing the “unsafe” thing every time you have the opportunity is the best way to see what’s working and what’s not.
  6. Explore the limits. What if you’re the cheapest, the fastest, the slowest, the hottest, the coldest, the easiest, the most efficient, the loudest, the most hated, the copycat, the outsider, the hardest, the oldest, the newest, or just the most! If there’s a limit, you should (must) test it.
  7. Think small. One vestige of the TV-industrial complex is a need to think mass. If it doesn’t appeal to everyone, the thinking goes, it’s not worth it. No longer. Think of the smallest conceivable market and describe a product that overwhelms it with its remarkability. Go from there.
  8. Find things that are “just not done” in your industry, and then go ahead and do them. For example, JetBlue Airways almost instituted a dress code– for its passengers! The company is still playing with the gift certificates. A book publisher could put a book on sale for a certain period of time. Stew Leonard’s took the strawberries out of the little green plastic cages and let the customers pick their own. Sales doubled.
  9. Ask, “Why not?” Almost everything you don’t do has no good reason for it. Almost everything you don’t do is the result of fear or inertia or a historical lack of someone asking, “Why not?”
  10. What would happen if you simply told the truth inside your company and to your customers?

I challenge you to come up with a remarkable, purple cow in your business and then milk it for all it’s worth!

Email me HERE and I will send you the Purple Cow e-book

Andy.  The Trades Coach.    www.tradescoach.co.nz