Purple Cow (21 page)
EVERYONE KNOWS that the record business is dying, that no smart entrepreneur would start a real business trying to make money in music. Don’t tell that to Micah Solomon, David Glasser or Derek Sivers. Micah runs Oasis CD Duplication, which is obsessed with making CDs for independent musicians. One example of his remarkable behavior: He regularly sends a sampler CD to every important radio station in the country—and the CD only includes music from his customers.
David Glasser and his partners run Airshow Mastering, which creates cutting edge CD masters for Sony—and for individual musicians as well. He does an amazing job in helping musicians realize their dreams.
And where do both companies send these musicians when the records are ready to be sold? To
CDBaby.com
, the best record store on the web. Derek sells the work of literally thousands of independent acts, doing it with such success (and treating his partners with such respect) that word of mouth is the only advertising he needs to attract new musicians and new customers.
CDBaby.com
, the best record store on the web. Derek sells the work of literally thousands of independent acts, doing it with such success (and treating his partners with such respect) that word of mouth is the only advertising he needs to attract new musicians and new customers.
A quick visit to
CDBaby.com
,
oasiscd.com
and
airshowmastering.com
will make it clear just how remarkable these three companies are. They understand that they have a choice between distinct or extinct.
CDBaby.com
,
oasiscd.com
and
airshowmastering.com
will make it clear just how remarkable these three companies are. They understand that they have a choice between distinct or extinct.
Will any business that targets a dying business succeed? Of course not. But these three prove that targeting a thriving niche in a slow-moving industry can work—if you’re prepared to invest what it takes to be remarkable.
AT BROCK’S RESTAURANT in Stamford, Connecticut, here’s what it says on the menu (in large type):
SORRY-NO SHARING SALAD BARIN ORDER TO KEEP OUR OVERALL PRICING REASONABLE, IT IS IMPORTANT THAT AN HONOR SYSTEM OF NO SHARING OF THE SALAD BAR BE RESPECTED. SHOULD YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND AND WISH TO ENJOY THE SALAD BAR, IT IS ONLY 2.95 WITH A SANDWICH, BURGER OR ENTREE. FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND COOPERATION WE THANK YOU.
Compare this to the wine policy at a restaurant called Frontière. The owner puts an open bottle of wine on every table, and at the end of the meal you tell the waiter how many glasses you consumed. The honor system.
Which is more worthy of positive comment? Marketing benefits aside, which leads to more incremental profit? (Hint: Two glasses of wine pay for a whole bottle at wholesale!)
GODIN’S THIRD LAW of restaurant dining points out that the friendliness of the staff at a pizza place is inversely proportional to the quality. At Johnny’s Pizza in Mt. Vernon, NY, they were still yelling at me after five years of being a regular. At Louis’s hamburger shack in New Haven, they will absolutely refuse to serve you ketchup with your hamburger—a fact well chronicled on Web sites and by word of mouth. And of course, A1 Yeganeh, a wonderful, misunderstood soup entrepreneur, has people waiting in line for hours to buy his lobster bisque. Misread the rules, and no soup for you. Could you improve the fame of your retail establishment by creating stupid rules and hiring truly mean waiters? Sure, probably.
Explore the limits. What if you’re the cheapest, the fastest, the slowest, the hottest, the coldest, the easiest, the most efficient, the loudest, the most hated, the copycat, the outsider, the hardest, the oldest, the newest, the . . . most! If there’s a limit, you should (must) test it.
Salt Is Not Boring-Eight More Ways to Bring the Cow to Work
For fifty years, Morton has made salt a boring commodity. People at their headquarters would happily agree with you that there was no possibility of a Purple Cow in this business.
Good thing the folks who create handmade salt from seawater in France didn’t know that. They regularly get $20 a pound for their amazing salt. The Hawaiians have just entered the market as well, creating a stir at gourmet restaurants. Now, ordinarily boring Diamond Kosher salt is looking at millions of dollars in increased annual sales-because their salt tastes better on food.
Is your product more boring than salt? Unlikely. So come up with a list of ten ways to change the product (not the hype) to make it appeal to a sliver of your audience.
Think small. One vestige of the TV-INDUSTRIAL complex is a need to think mass. If it doesn’t appeal to everyone, the thinking goes, it’s not worth it. No longer. Think of the smallest conceivable market, and describe a product that overwhelms it with its remark-ability. Go from there.
Outsource. If the factory is giving you a hard
time about jazzing up the product, go elsewhere. There are plenty of job shops that would be delighted to take on your product. After it works, the factory will probably be happy to take the product back.
Build and use a permission asset. Once you have the ability to talk directly to your most loyal customers, it gets much easier to develop and sell amazing things. Without the filters of advertising, wholesalers, and retailers, you can create products that are far more remarkable.
Copy. Not from your industry, but from any other industry. Find an industry more dull than yours, discover who’s remarkable (it won’t take long), and do what they did.
Go one more. Or two more. Identify a competitor who’s generally regarded as at the edges, and outdo them. Whatever they’re known for, do that thing even more. Even better, and even safer, do the opposite of what they’re doing.
Find things that are “just not done” in your industry, and do them. JetBlue almost instituted a dress code for passengers. They’re still playing with the idea of giving a free airline ticket to the best-dressed person on the plane. A plastic surgeon could offer gift certificates. A book publisher could put a book on sale. Stew Leonard’s took the strawberries out of the little green plastic cages and let the customers pick their own—and sales doubled.
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?”
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