Book Report: Purple Cow: Transform your business by being remarkable

This is a review of the book “Purple Cow: Transform your business by being remarkable” by Seth Godin.

Read this book if:

• You are building a new product or business
• Are interested in learning how to approach marketing
• Want to find inspiration for a business

I was a bit skeptical of this book at first. I’m pretty anti-marketing in any form, except for the fact that, I need to do marketing in every facet of my life. In my defense, the title “Purple Cow” just sounds like a gimmick and turned me off to it. The author quickly points out that this is because of the P’s to marketing such as product, price, place and promotion. “Remarkable” doesn’t start with a P, so the Seth named the book Purple Cow because a purple cow would be remarkable and it starts with a P.

The book is arranged with very short chapters. They are one to three pages each. There’s a structure, but it largely tries to nail home that traditional marketing won’t work consistently. You need to be remarkable to succeed and even then it won’t last.

Being remarkable

I enjoyed the discussion around being remarkable. I loved the fact that Seth pointed out every aspect of your business is a chance to be remarkable. It helped me rethink the customer onboarding flow to my own business. What can I do to stand out when someone agrees to work with me? A handwritten note? A marble coaster that’s personalized for them? Ideas were abound!

Targeting the right people

The book points out that you shouldn’t focus on everyone. Instead, you should focus on the early adopters who are going to promote your business to their network. Those are the people whose opinion truly matters when growing a business because they are the ones actively doing the promoting.

Beyond the specific group of people the book points out that it’s best to target a small market with a niche product. Grow the product until you’ve saturated that market, then move onto the larger market encompassing it.

Should you read this book?

While I was hesitant at first, I came around to this book. If a person is starting a business or wants to improve the marketing of themselves or a business, it’s worth reading this book. Paraphrasing a message from the book, What audacious thing would you try if you weren’t afraid of failing?¹