One of my favorite books is Purple Cow by Seth Godin, I highly recommend it for any business. It discusses the idea of creating something unique and remarkable. Standing out from the ordinary. Imagine seeing a purple cow in a field full of black and white ones. Would you take notice? Chances are you would not just drive by and simply state that you saw a purple cow. You would most likely stop in amazement. Take a picture, tweet about it, share it on Facebook. Tell friends about it for years to come. Maybe even take scheduled trips to see this cow again with the family.
It would be a pretty big deal right?
Be Different or Be Extinct
The bottom line is that your business needs to be different and stand out in order to survive. You cannot just be “same ol’, same ol’” and expect customers to come pouring in. The question I find most amusing to ask business owners is, “What makes you different?” I get a ton of garbage answers about how awesome they are and they are the best and yada, yada, yada, who cares?
You must give your customers a reason to do business with you. You must be remarkable, unique, blow away their expectations. Find something that makes you so different from your competition that they can’t tell their customers the same thing. Most businesses are absolutely clueless about how to do this. They truly believe that because they exist and smile people should line up around the block.
What if Someone Else Becomes Remarkable?
One objection I get while a business owner looks right at me and flushes money down the toilet, is what happens if someone just copies them and they are no longer unique? Instead of seeing the golden nugget just presented to them they resort to finding an excuse on why it can’t work. They’re worried that if they do something unique the competition can just copy it.
Look, it could happen, it usually won’t though because the competition will be too busy thinking your nuts (if you do it right). But if they do copy you, step up your game. Do something even more remarkable or unique. By the time they catch up, the damage is done and you’re already ahead.
So what do you do if someone becomes a purple cow after you worked so hard to be one? You become a neon green cow!
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