Biz Break | Purple Cow

You can be the absolute best at what you do, but if no one knows you exist does being the best matter? Nope. If you give your clients what they expect, nothing more or less, will they be satisfied? Maybe. Will they tell other people how great you are? Probably not. So, how are you supposed to get noticed? Be remarkable. Be a purple cow.

The Purple Cow was in the list of recommended reading I made during the Gray Photography Workshop. Being remarkable was a theme for the business portion of the workshop and it resonated with me so much that I made it part of my mission statement.

Seth Godin begins the book telling a story of his family driving through France and being amazed by the picture perfect cows but after seeing them for miles they all grew bored and started ignoring them.

"Cows, after you've seen them for a while, are boring. They may be perfect cows, attractive cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by beautiful light, but they're still boring. A Purple Cow, though. Now that would be interesting. (For a while.)"

My review: 5 out of 5 stars
Where the E Myth was a crash course in business, the Purple Cow is a crash course in marketing. Godin explains the basic concepts and then gives scores of examples of how they used to work. He then presents case after case where following these traditional concepts is failing miserably while being a Purple Cow leads to success.

Nuggets from this book...

• Among the people who might buy your product, most will never hear about it.
• Stop advertising and start innovating.
• Don't try to create a product for everybody because that is a product for nobody.
• In almost every market the boring slot is filled.
• The opposite of remarkable is very good.
• Being safe is risky.
• If you just do what you are supposed to do no one will care. Be remarkable! 

Godin has challenged me to re-think the how's and why's of my business. Maybe the next time you see me you'll see a little bit of a purple glow ;)