Purple Cow

Ted Leonsis, billionaire owner of Washington Wizards, stay at the Four Seasons in Manhattan. He could stay anywhere he wants to. As best as I can tell, he stays there because the entire staff at the cafe knows how to bring him his iced tea. In a tall thin glass, with ice, with a little carafe of hyper-sweet sugar water on the side. He does not ask for it; they just bring it. Every person who meets with Ted at the hotel notices it. I think it makes Ted happy that his friends notice it. Having something personalized can make one feel special. No wonder Web 3.0 is all about personalization. Personalization of services, web sites, social media, cars, etc., etc.

Every market has a few sneezers. They are often the early adopters, but not always. Finding and seducing these sneezers with your purple cow is the essential step in creating an ideavirus. The sneezers use your product, and the best of all, they will talk about your product and recommend it to their friends. With passion! And they in turn will start talking about it, creating a market that you will be proud of at the end.

It used to be that Engineering invented, Manufacturing built, Marketing marketed, and Sales sold. There was a clear division of labor, and the president managed the whole shebang. The marketer got a budget, and bought ads with it. Marketing was really called "advertising". Marketing was about communicating the values of a product AFTER it had been developed and manufactured. This is not a valid strategy anymore. The product attributes are now at the heart of what it means to be a marketer. Marketing is:

• the act of inventing the product.
• the effort of designing it.
• the craft of producing it.
• the art of pricing it.
• the technique of selling it.

How can a Purple Cow company not run by a marketer? If a company is failing, it is the fault of the senior management. The reason is most probably because they are running a company, not marketing a product. So best advice is: Go take a design course. Seriously. Send your designers to a marketing course. And both of you should spend a week in the factory.

To come up with a purple cow at your own private life or professional life, you have to get into the habit of asking, "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?"

Excerpts are from Seth Godin's Purple Cow.