Do You Have a Purple Cow?
I know I'm reading a good business book when, as I'm reading, I can think of specific things I can do right away to put into practice the concept I'm reading about. This was the case with Purple Cow, by Seth Godin.
The full title is Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable. The "purple cow" concept comes from the fact that, while cows are beautiful creatures (especially if you've never seen one before!), they lose their beauty once you've seen a few, or a few hundred, as you're driving along the highway or country road. However, if you were driving down the road looking at the sea of cows in the field and one of them was PURPLE...that would catch your attention!
All the truly successful companies in the world have (or had at one time) a "purple cow" of their own - Starbucks, Jet Blue, Haagen-Dazs and even Walmart.
Overall, a great read! Definitely makes it onto my list of highly recommended business books.
I thought I'd call out a few quotes from the book that struck me. Hopefully one or two of these will hit you where you are today, too:
"How could you modify your product or service so that you'd show up on the next episode of Saturday Night Live?"
"It's not about the way you say it, it's what you say."
"Challenge your people to start with a blank sheet of paper and figure out what they'd do if they could do just about anything. If they weren't afraid of failing, what's the most audacious thing they'd try?"
"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?"
Whether you're looking for a book to read or not, add this one to your list!
Here's that link again to buy the book.