Back in August my Wife’s Uncle Ed gave me a copy of Seth Godin’s book “The Purple Cow ~ Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable” as a gift.
Ed told me that he found the book at a used bookstore and he remembered once that I had blogged about Seth so he thought it was a fitting gift, and it was. I’m sure at one point I had a copy of the book but I couldn’t find it so it was nice to see it back on my bookshelf.
Side Note: Ed was visiting local second-hand shops because he had “accidentally” thrown away ALL of his wife’s cookbooks!! 🙂 I was flattered that during his time in the dog house he thought of me.
This morning I was spending some time thinking about stuff and I just happened to grab the book and take a look at the inside cover.
Ed had left me a little note inside… “Pop Marketing, But enjoy.”
In a sense I get how Ed could have viewed it that way. The book at quick glance looks like a collection of short stories about the brands we all know about and the things they did to achieve success…Trendy, Pop-Type Stuff… i.e. Starbucks 
But as I skimmed through the book I began to quickly see why I’ve always enjoyed Seth’s work.
Seth has a certain way of saying things, but always follows up by giving you his outlook, and then asking us to look and think about what was said and how we can apply it to our own situations.
Let’s face it, traditional marketing books, training, and professional marketing educations” focus on the good old textbook taught 4 Ps of marketing.
I even once had a potential client in my office questioning my qualifications and my ability to grow his business. He did so by asking me if I knew the 4 Ps of marketing, assuming that if I did know the 4 Ps I was clearly qualified to be given his money.
Seth says the new P is the Purple Cow.
But here’s the thing I realized about Ed’s comments. It does look a little like Pop Marketing, I get it. But the underlying message is the same. If you want to achieve success you need to take massive action and if you want to achieve above average results, you need be a purple cow.
I mean, I’ve read through so many business books over the past few years and in the end they are really all saying the exact same thing.
Yet we continue to need more books and more of a push towards the same message being told in a different way.
The Personal Development niche is the same….Know your outcome, take massive action, don’t stop until you get the desired result.
Being a purple cow means taking massive action and being willing to fail, fail again, and fail again after that. But being a purple cow also means doing things differently than everyone else… kinda like stepping outside your comfort zone!
Here are three things from Seth to apply to your business today:
- Don’t Be Boring
- Safe is Risky
- Very Good is Bad
Ta-da!
