How to Stand Out in a Crowded Market: The Purple Cow Principle

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishima Aidi. I solve sales and marketing challenges and I'm making today's recording outside of church 'cause my kids are having catechism classes. So expect to hear some interruptions in the background, you know, people walking by, other people jisting and giving all kinds of instruction classes. Now, the goal of this podcast is not to talk about my kids or my church, rather we're here for business education.

So please spread the word so that friends and family members in Nigeria and abroad can benefit from the questions that we tackle. They can do that by subscribing on Spotify, YouTube, Apple or any player of their choice. And if you'd love to connect with me, then call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Now today on the podcasts, we are going to be looking at purple cows. Yes, I repeat, you heard me exactly. Today we're going to be talking about purple cows.

And it's not because there's any such a thing as purple cows that exist. Excuse me. Especially since in this part of the world, we know that cows are either, you know, white or brownish or black. And then for those of us who lived in the UK, you know, in Scotland for a while, you know, you have reddish kind of cows, like brownish. But no, we're not talking about real cows. We're not talking about animals in the bovine family.

We're talking about a book called Purple Cow that was written by Seth Godin in Child. What was he written down? I can't remember. I didn't write it down anyway. But the book is titled Purple Cow. Transform your business by being remarkable. Again, the author of the book is Seth Godin. That is Seth as in Seth, same guy in the Bible. Then I mean same name in the Bible but not the same guy of course. Then Goldin GODIN and the title of the book is Purple Cow.

Then the subtitle Transform your business by being remarkable. Now, the reason why I want us to look at this book is because I've seen some chatter. I've seen some talk about how we can make our businesses purple cows. And yes, the book is a business book. Now, the thrust of this guy's book, Seth Golden is this. Oh, by the way, he has a blog where he blogs almost everyday. He blogs everyday shot. And to be honest, when I started off with my podcast, I figured I

would, you know, do things in sort of like the same way that he's been doing it because he's been publishing his blog posts every day. And, you know, if you like it, you like it. If you don't like it, you don't like it. You know, if you don't like it, you can just go. You can buy a hog transformer. So that's his attitude, basically. So it's part of what inspired me when I started off this podcast. Like, OK, I'm going to be doing this thing every single day is going to be around sales.

Sometimes we'll talk about things marketing related and you know, it's not this sexiest topic in the world. I knew it was not the kind of topic that will make lots of people come and listen to me. But you know, I forget what the heck. You know, if you like it, if you like it, if you don't like it, go on hog transformer. But you know, people who are interested in these sorts of things will come. So Seth Godin, SETHGODIN, you can check out his, his, his blog.

So now Seth Godin's thesis in the book is this. Seth says that if you want to succeed in business, you know, you want to hammer like you want to thrive, you want to colonize the market, you want people to know who you are, you want everybody to feel you. That is not enough to just be good or it's not just enough to be very good. Let me repeat, There are lots of us who are starting off in business and want to be good at what we do or we want to be very good.

And that's what we're hoping is going to take us through. Now, Sir, Gooding is saying if you're trying to be good or if you're trying to be very good, that Omar is not enough anymore. Because with the kind of marketing that we have nowadays, you know, marketing messages everywhere, whether TV or radio, online, offline, billboard, any which way, advertisement, advertisement everywhere, being good or being very good is not enough.

Because marketing saturated advertising, saturated content, marketing excess, there are lots of things that are pulling for people's attention. So he says if you're good or if you're very good, it's not going to cut it anymore. And in a way I agree because my, my, my own parents were old school, you know, professionally trained journalists. And of course, we're involved in media. So in that generation, they believed that, you know, why should I go and chase anybody?

Like, I am who I am. I'm doing my thing. I'm a professional. The quality of my work will speak for itself. My professional reputation will speak for itself. So my parents didn't see any reason why they have to go and chase somebody. And it's part of what my father did when he started his own consulting practice when he was retired. He actually did not believe in chasing anybody as far as he was concerned. You know, my reputation precedes me.

I will be here. People will come and look for me. And I can tell you first time, unfortunately, that you know, that's, that's not the case. Maybe there was a time in Nigeria when that was the case. Because let's face it, my own parents, I mean, I mean, at least my own parents anyway, that generation of Nigeria that were coming out from a lot of them who are getting jobs in the civil service or in the private sector, you know, the world like first or second generation.

So it's not as if there were that many professionals around anyway. So in a small pool, if you are the dawn, how what you do, Of course, everybody will come and find you because you're a big fish in a small pond. But now the size of the pond has been drastically increased. Think about it, yes, If you want to look at my own family, my own small family, I think lawyers, if you take Parsi's generation and then my own generation, if you want, if you want to count the lawyers in my family, I

don't think we're more than 3 or 4. Well then step back and look at things on a national scale. And Nigeria is producing hundreds of thousands of lawyers annually. So if it is a matter of big fish in a small pond in my family, I can sit down and you know, broad my chest, I say I'm a senior lawyer. But on a national level that means absolutely nothing because last year hundreds of lawyers, hundreds of thousands of lawyers were pumped into the market.

This year, hundreds of thousands of lawyers be pumped into the market. And guess what? Next year, hundreds and thousands of lawyers who will be pumped into the market. So the era of big fish in a small pond does not exist anymore. The era of local champion does not exist. Again. You can say you're going to be good or very good, and that is what is going to make you succeed in business. Now, to that extent, I agree with what my man said.

Gordon is saying I agree, So what do we need to make us successful in business? Now that's where Sir Gordon came in with this metaphor. He say you have to be a purple cow. Some of you are wondering what does cows have to do with anything? And this is it, Sir Gordon says you have to be a purple cow because look at it this way. So the Gordon says, if you're driving, let's say you leave Abuja, you want to drive to Jaws, you want to drive to, to Marco.

Do you want to drive to your Bay or you want to travel back to Lagos? You're going by Rd. if you're going now. And then you see all this Malo people pushing their their cows and you see, OK, white cow, white cow, black cow, white cow, white cow, black cow. All of a sudden you see purple cow, you say you match break and you slow down. You say purple cow, you will stop, you will take notice, you will talk about it. You call your wife as in babe,

you don't believe I'm on my way to you be right now and I have seen a purple cow as I am looking at the purple cow right now in front of me. This cow is purple babe, you don't believe. In fact, let me snap picture and I sent to you. So that's what Seth Godin said. And when you're driving down and you see cows just moving and you see one of them that is purple, you will stop. You will take notice, you will talk about it.

So for Seth Godin, the purple cow is a metaphor in business, meaning that you have to make your business remarkable. You have to make your business exceptional. You have to make your business unique. You have to make your business worth talking about that that's the only way we can blow. Now. People have to see your business and say what? And then they stop. They notice and then they talk about it. And that's the only way we're going to blow because people are producing too much content.

People are advertising too much on TV, too much content, Netflix, too much content, YouTube too much content. We need to be able to break out somehow. Shah, you know, breakout is when people see us, they stop, they notice, and then they talk about us. So I said Gordon says everybody's business should be a purple cow. What he's saying is just that you have to build a remarkable business straight up. And in that extent, you know, in a sense, I'll agree with him in a way.

You will listen to the podcast. You already know that I disagree with him on one or two things, but you know, we'll get to that later. Let me start on where we agree. So, so Godin says that is how you build a remarkable business. He says that you should not be marketing driven. I repeat. So Godin says you should not be marketing driven. This is where me and him will start to disagree, small, small, small. Now, when he says the marketing driven business, this is the idea.

There's some people that when they're ready to come into the markets, what they do is they create the product and then they make sure that, you know, you push out advertising or you push out the sales force or something like the thrust of the growth of the business is clearly marketing driven. You're trying to push the thing out into the market. Seth Godin is saying instead of thinking this is how we're going to market, market, market, he said, build a product or build a service that in itself is noteworthy and exceptional.

And because of that, people will start to pursue you. I can see this where me and him start to disagree. This whole thing of product selling itself when we sure, let me complete what the guys book is saying. So he's saying that look, don't focus on marketing. Let your product, let it be noteworthy, let it be exceptional, let it be a purple cow. People will notice and people will say what? And they will rush to you. That's what said Gordon is saying.

So he's saying don't just be very good, the product should be different. And then he talks about something he says design marketing into the product. So design it in a way that the product is worth talking about. Then Seth Gordon also says you should target early adopters. That is people who are eager for new ideas and people who are willing to talk about new ideas. He says go and chase those people because those are the kind of people that will sample your product or service and will call other people and say, oh boy, you won't believe what I

found that babe, you'll believe what I just saw. So that's what he's saying. Then said Gordon also says embrace innovation and risk because if you play it safe, you'll be overrun. And in that case, I agree with him. If you're trying to play it safe, let us build a nice, OK business. Whatever, you will be overrun. Something will come out that is faster, cheaper, better, hotter, sexier, you know, whatever, you will be overrun.

So we don't want to agree with him. So please, let's stop playing safer. That's not playing safe. Trust me, that's the reason why I started this podcast. If I was going to build my consultancy practice and build it the same way other people have were building the consultancy practice, there'll be no way for me to stand out. I needed something, so I took a gamble. I said OK, in Nigeria, people don't listen to podcasts, but I'm thinking that might change.

And when that time changes, I want to be the only sales podcast on the Internet that Nigerians are going to flock to. And that was my goal. I haven't gotten here yet, but I'm making progress because lots of people when they find me, there's one thing that I hear like like 1 Babe said where have you been? All my life I have been looking, where have you been? I said I've been here, I've been here and people are glad when they see it.

Now. I've been looking for a podcast that has to do with business growth, but from a Nigerian perspective because I'm tired of listening to American podcasts. So this is me. I'm not saying my own business is Purple Cow. I'm not saying that this is me trying not to play it safe, looking for a new angle, looking for something so when people see it, when they hear it, they will say what? You will not believe what I have heard.

So that's my own angle so that people will say, babe, you told me you're looking for material how to grow your business in Nigeria. You don't believe what I just heard. There's something like this in Nigeria. The guy has been going on for close to like 5 years now, over 1000 episodes. You will not believe. Here's the link. So yes, me too. I'm playing some of these games now. Basically this what's up good in saying in this book, your business should be remarkable,

your business should be exceptional, your business should be unique, your product or service should be unique and you should be worth talking about. But now I want to examine some ideas about how it overlaps. Now the book into how it overlaps into traditional sales, traditional marketing. Oh, by the way, in case I haven't figured out, I'm talking about this book from a very superficial level from the top. But I would beg of you that you guys go, if you can find the book and read it in a much more detailed level, you know, so you can understand it for yourself,

chew it up for yourself, and so that you can also come to your own conclusions just in case. Me, I'm biased in the way that I am assessing the guy's work. So this is how I think is a book relates to traditional sales. Now, Seth Godin is doing this thing that lots of modern people like to do. And I'm sure that some of you who like that way of building business. So Seth Godin says, let's focus on attracting instead of selling.

Again, Seth Godin says let's focus on attracting instead of focusing on selling. He's saying that we should let the product generate its own demand. The thing you are designing, the thing you're selling, you should let it determine its own demand. Of course, you already know what my thoughts on these things are, that there is no product that generates its own demand because even if the product has been made, it still requires a human being to talk to somebody about it, to position it a certain way.

You know, you can't cut yourself out of the loop. But anyway, this is what says Gordon says let the product generate its own demand. And then he says that what we now need to do is to focus on educating the customer, on guiding people or facilitating conversations so that people who are already interested can buy. There's a problem that I have for people who are not sales professionals who start writing books like this.

If you've been listening to my podcast from Day 1 / 1000 episodes, when I talk about selling, what exactly is it that I tell you guys to do? If I, if you listen to the last episode, the one that I made with the case study about the case study for Chinedu is in graphics design. How people who are in graphics design, how they can create brand ambassadors. Doesn't it sound like what I was telling you guys yesterday? Educating your customer, guiding your customer, facilitating the purchase through conversations?

Is that not what I preach already? Is that not already the definition of sales? But then you have people who are not trained in these things, who are writing these books, very good at building all kinds of brands, and they make it look as if selling is one thing and then what they're preaching is something else. What Uncle Seth is preaching actually is sales. That is what we should be doing as sales people. Well, don't be naive.

I have this podcast. I'm trying to sell you something. I'm trying to get some coaching engagement from here. Am I not educating you guys? I'm not. Am I not guiding you guys a longer conversation? I'm not trying to facilitate certain things. Why do you think I'm putting my phone number out here? Yeah, I'll be cool with a bunch of you. But the whole, the whole, you know, guys, is the guest on business from this. It's precisely what selling is.

Now, if you thought selling was something else, now I'm telling you, wake up. You've been learning from the wrong people. This is exactly what selling is. Well, anyway, that's what Uncle Seth says, attract people, don't sell. Then Uncle Seth also says that we should focus on remarkable experience instead of features and benefits. Focus on remarkable experiences. Yeah. With that one, I will agree with him that traditionally some people get carried away saying I'm the greatest, I'm the brightest, I'm the fastest.

My product comes with red, blue, pink. It comes with 5000 MW. This, that, that, that, that, that, that. Yeah, I admit some sales people get carried away with features and benefits. So what he's saying is you should be focusing on remarkable experiences. You should be talking about not what your product does, but how it makes people to feel. And with that, I agree with him. He's 100% on point. It's not so much their product is the greatest, fastest,

longest, brightest, you know, whatever, but it's about how it makes people to feel. And that is why for that podcast episode, what was it about the one I was talking about credit bureaus. Yeah, credit bureaus in Nigeria, because credit bureaus in Nigeria, you know, they talk about risk mitigation. This, that, that, that, that, that, you know, all those, all that highfalutin language, but that's not really going to sell anything.

By the time you get one-on-one with people and you tell people that my services help you to avoid bad debt. That is a feeling anybody can key into. I have lent somebody money before. Until today, I have not seen that money and I know that I'm not going to get that money back. So when you say avoid bad debt in Nigeria, everybody understands what bad debt means. You're cutting straight to the chase about how people feel.

So yes, I agree with Uncle Chef on that one. It's not about products and features, it's about how your product makes people to feel. Keen on that one. Then he also says we should focus on product development, and I'll focus on selling. Product development is, you know, how you build the product and all that. So for those of you in the software space, in apps, you know, stuff like that, yeah, it makes sense. You should always make sure that your product development on points, you know, no bugs,

everything works well, what else? But I won't say you should ignore selling. Then he says you should. Uncle Seth also says we should focus on niches instead of mass appeal. You know, look on on that. Look at the small group of people who are going to be able to feel what it is that we're talking about instead of trying to appeal to everybody. And on that one, I agree with Uncle Seth. And actually that's something that we're doing traditionally in sales, you know, marketing people try to reach everybody.

But sales, it always starts with the ICP ideal customer profile, who is the person that might have the most resonance, the most need, the most desire for this product, for this service. And then we go straight to those people. So that's what we've always tried to do in sales. So in that, in that sense, I agree with, I agree with Uncle Seth. So I don't really focus on mass appeal, but let's start with the niche. Eventually, don't worry, we will, you know, we will broaden,

you know, we will blow, you know, it's like in the beginning how only a few people used to wear Nikes, but now Nikes is a universal thing. So he's, you know, it's like that or like how Gary used to be a Nigerian thing, but then now with branded, branded package Gary goods. I mean, people, we both people in in, in the UK are now eating Gary. Who knows, maybe one day Americans will even be eating Gary as well. So, OK, 20 minutes.

Let me bring this to a close because last night I went on for 15 minutes. So let me not go on for too long. Is this a good book to read? Yeah, in my own opinion, I'll say is a good book to read because, you know, I'm not the alpha and the Omega and, you know, I don't know everything. I will never lead you guys astray, especially when we're talking about particular sales tactics or strategies that we need to do. When I talk about those sorts of things, yes, by all means,

listen to me. I will not lead you astray. But on larger strategic issues, yeah, Well, of course, the more opinions that you know the better. And in that case, I'll say said said Gordon's book Purple Cow. Yeah, I'll say read it. There's another one I'm going to review for you guys later. This all go chapter by chapter. That one is called, was it called Red Ocean Abbey, Red Ocean strategy or something like that? I can't remember, but that's red ocean in contrast to Blue oceans.

It's just that the problem that I have with this book and let me be frank with you guys, whether it's purple cow or whether it's a Six Sigma thinking or whether it's a red ocean strategy or whether it's, you know, all these fancy, fancy title is they always try to get a lot of us thinking about strategy, mindset shift, blah, blah, blah. All these things that we're starting a business. But to be honest, the average business person, that is not what we need when we're starting a business.

The problem that the average business person has is they do not know, forget the strategy, they don't know the next step, they don't know what to do. And that's my problem with this book. If you read Seth Godin's book, Purple Cow, by the time you close the book, you'll be amped up. You know, you will talk to your friends, you talk to mom, see you talk to everybody. Like, you know what, Purple Cow, my business would be remarkable.

You know, Purple Cow, I will stand out. I'll be distinguished. You know, I'll be laudable, I'll be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you'll be amped up, amped up as hell. Then you wake up tomorrow and you don't know what you're supposed to do next. That's my problem with these books. Very nice, very sweet, very strategic. We'll be thinking hi, thinking lofty. Now wake up tomorrow and we don't know what the hell we're supposed to do next to build a remarkable business.

For those of you who read the book, tell me if I'm wrong by the time you finish. Tell me, OK, what was his prescription that Step one, do this. Step 2, do this. Step three, do this. Step 4, do this. If you've read the book and I think I'm wrong, please, I give my contact details at the beginning and at the end of every episode, reach out to me and tell me, bro, you're wrong. Like, dude, relax. You're overthinking this.

This is what the guy is actually saying. You've got me wrong. So please reach out to me. Excuse me, Tell me I was wrong so I can come back and make another podcast episode and say, OK guys, you know what? That time I said this, you know what, I was in the right headspace. You know, so actually this is the way. So strategic thinking, mindset, mindset shifts, all these things very, very important. Let's keep reading all these books.

I will keep reading these books and I'll keep talking about them to you guys, but that is not really the problem that you're facing in your business. The problem you're facing your business is you don't know what next concrete step to take. And for those of you that know, you don't have the willpower to follow through. So, you know, that's another conversation, but the next step, that's what we're supposed to be thinking about.

So in my own opinion, I'll say after reading this book, sorry, I haven't read it. I just know of the book and I've, you know, schemed a couple of lines here and there from the book and stuff like that. So in my own opinion now this is the next step to take from this book. Our guy Uncle Self, he keeps talking about niche audiences and things like that. Now remember what we've been talking about over here on the podcast and we'll talk about ICP.

I do customer profile. In his own case, he talks about the MVA. He says the minimum of viable audience. So these are what we should be. That's the next step. Now for whatever business it is that you want to start, who is your ICP? Their do customer profile. What is your MVA? Our self Gordon calls it your minimum viable audience. The smallest audience who might be interested in this thing, they can go and start a conversation with, start writing it down, start plotting it out and then who knows, maybe you can come up with an MVP.

That is the minimum viable product, the smallest version of your product that people can see, can touch, can taste, can smell, can try out so that they can say what? This is extraordinary. I would say from being exposed to our cassettes, Purple Cow book. That's the next step. Who is your smallest audience? Who are your niche? Who is your ideal customer profile, your ideal customer avatar? Who are they? Write them down tomorrow.

The next thing I'm supposed to do is to come up with a plan to start interacting with them, expose them to your product, start getting some feedback. Excuse me? The feedback they get from them is what it's going to help so they can refine your product to make your product not worthy or make your service, you know, not worthy. That's how to start. But my own personal warning, my own personal whatever is, you know, please, all these people that keep talking about product that's selling itself, you know,

there's an element of truth there. You know, that's why everybody in Nigeria is driving Toyota these days because you know, Toyota, you know, you can drive that thing for 15 years. No, really, in case you don't know, maybe one of those people who doesn't drive yet, you know, actually you can drive to ETA 1520 years. Those of us who are buying what's it called? A second hand car, you know, America, America second hand.

I mean, what do you think we're driving while driving 1015 year old cars now? Just one check. So yeah, you can drive these cars forever. They are remarkable. That's why Nigerians keep on driving to Utah's. So there's an element of truth there. But if you believe the whole thing hook, line or sinker, and you believe that because your product or service is the bomb or whatever, or your professional reputation should precede you, you will be like people in my father's generation who believe that.

Look, because I'm the best, I don't need to. I don't need to also, I don't need to whatever. Let me just chill. People will come and meet me. And I really think that time was passed. So that's all for today about Seth Godin's book. Again, if you have read the book, you have a different opinion. I would love to hear from you. So hit me up, call me, SMS me, WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention.

I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.