The Big Moo: Stop trying to be perfect and start trying to be remarkable:[i] is a follow-up to Purple Cow. Godin enlisted 33 amazing business authors to help him reimagine business in light of the Purple Cow. The authors wrote with one voice (so you don’t know who said what exactly) and they included such luminaries as Tom Peters, Malcolm Gladwell, Mark Cuban, Dan Pink, Tom Kelly, and Seth Godin.[ii]
Even better, all proceeds were given to charity.[iii] That is kind of remarkable, isn’t it?
A Review of Purple Cow Thinking
Echoing his past writing, Godin wrote: “Advertising cannot spread the word about your product. The only tool available to you is a fundamental one. The only tool left is tot stop hyping the product and start making things worth talking about.” In another place, he wrote, “The only way to grow is to be remarkable” and “the only barrier to being remarkable is your ability to persuade your peers to make it happen.”
So What is a Big Moo?
A big moo is a purple cow on steroids. The authors explained:
A big moo is the extreme purple cow, the remarkable innovation that completely changes the game. The idea stuck with me. Yes, a purple cow is what you need, but the big moo goes a step further. In order to grow at the pace the markets demand, you and your colleagues must find the big moo, the insight that is so astounding that people can’t help remark on it.[iv]
What Does It Look Like?
He offered a few examples to help us reframe our thinking.
- “Harry Houdini was a lousy Magician….How did a lousy magician become such a spectacular success? Simple. He wasn’t a magician. Harry Houdini invented an entirely different sort of vaudeville attraction. He was not a magician at all, but an escape artist.”
- Juggling isn’t about catching the ball. It is about throwing correctly. “If your balls are well thrown, the catching is effortless. That’s part of the secret of becoming remarkable. Don’t spend any time at all worrying about catching. Let your co-workers do that. Instead, become the best thrower there ever was. If you become good at throwing, you’ll find that you’re irreplaceable. Organizations need really good throwers.”[v]
The Big Moo and You
Are you competing head to head with everyone else, selling the same thing in the same way? Or have you found your Big Moo—the distinguishing factor that sets you apart, the factor that makes it clear to everyone how you are better, different, or somehow unique and that we would be crazy not to come to you.
If you follow Godin’s suggestions in Purple Cow and The Big Moo, marketing is no longer marketing (at least not in the traditional sense). The product is so game-changing that, for the most part, marketing takes care of itself. This is the topic of our next lesson: Free Prize Inside.
What About You?
What is your Big Moo? How can you repackage your product or service that is different enough to sell itself?
References
[i] Godin, S. et al. (2005). The big moo. New York: Portfolio
[ii] A complete list of authors include Tom Peters, Malcolm Gladwell, Guy Kawasaki, Randall Rothenberg, Jackie Huba, Promise Phelon, April Armstrong, Polly LaBarre, William Godin, Julie Anixter, Dean DeBiase, Red Maxwell, Alan Webber, Heath Row, Mark Cuban, Dave Balter, Lisa Gansky, Kevin Carroll, Robyn Waters, Carol Cone, Lynn Gordon, Marcia Hart, Tim Manners, Dan Pink, Jay Gouliard, Marc Benioff, Donna Sturgess, Amit Gupta, Jacqueline Novogratz, Robin Williams, Tom Kelly, Chris Meyer, and Seth Godin.
[iii] The charities are the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Acumen Fund, and Room to Read.
[iv] Godin, S. et al. (2005). The big moo. New York: Portfolio
[v] Godin, S. et al. (2005). The big moo. New York: Portfolio
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Dr. Darin Gerdes is a tenured Professor of Management in the College of Business at Charleston Southern University. All ideas expressed on www.daringerdes.com are his own.
This post was originally created for Great Business Networking (GBN), a networking organization for business professionals where Dr. Gerdes is the Director of Education.
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