By Christopher M. Leporini, REALTOR® Magazine
Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable By Seth Godin (Portfolio, 2003) 145 pp., $19.95
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The traditional P’s that marketers have used for decades to get noticed—such as product, positioning, promotion, publicity, packaging, and pricing—are no longer enough to succeed, writes author Seth Godin in Purple Cow: How to Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable. To be successful, businesses need to add another P—the Purple Cow.
Godin uses the purple cow to symbolize the creative, innovative, and remarkable ideas necessary to differentiate a business from its competitors; brown cows are invisible and boring, but purple cows stand out from the herd and generate word-of-mouth buzz. It’s a silly image with serious implications. Purple cows, Godin writes, have built-in remarkable elements that sell themselves, rather than requiring companies to prop up an average product or service with advertising. The book includes case studies on how companies, from Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corp. to Google, have distinguished themselves from their competitors. A companion sequel, 99 Cows, features 99 examples of people, products, services, organizations, and projects that represent Godin’s purple-cow philosophy. This e-book is available at Amazon.com, and proceeds from the sale go to charity.
Purple Cow supplies a catalyst for innovation, but you have to come up with your own “big idea.” The book explains the qualities that make a service or product remarkable, and provides examples of how purple cows have driven other businesses to success, but you must make your own leap of imagination to apply these principles to your own business or career.
Godin is a best-selling author of Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends and Friends Into Customers, Unleashing the Ideavirus, and Survival Is Not Enough. He has started several successful companies and is a contributing editor at Fast Company magazine.
Tips for Real Estate Professionals
- Please the sneezers, not the masses. Sneezers, according to Godin’s definition, are people who are so excited about your services that they infect all those around them (friends and family) with information about you and what you have to offer. They are the desirable demographic for your marketing, and you should spend all your energies pleasing this group. Godin recommends that you differentiate your customers, and find the group that’s the most profitable and the group “that’s most likely to sneeze.” Figure out ways that you can grow and reward this group. “Ignore the rest,” Godin writes. “Your ads (and your products!) shouldn’t cater to the masses. Your ads (and products) should cater to the customers you’d choose if you could choose your customers.” Do you have the e-mail addresses of the 20 percent of your customer base who loves what you do? If not, Godin suggests you go out and get them. And then concentrate on making this 20 percent deliriously happy.
- Don’t flock, and don’t be safe. According to Godin, trying to play it safe is ultimately riskier than innovation. Playing follow-the-leader in your industry makes you disappear into the crowd. Innovative companies, by definition, try tactics that competitors don’t … or won’t. Herman Miller took a radical risk when the company introduced the $750 (gasp!) Aeron chair into the office furniture industry in 1994. “They launched a chair that looked different, worked differently, and cost a bunch,” the author writes. “It was a Purple Cow. Everyone who saw it wanted to sit in it, and everyone who sat in it wanted to talk about it.” What tactics does your company use that follow the leader? Godin suggests that you’ll never catch up with your competitors by being the same—instead make a list of ways you can succeed by being different.
- Are your business cards brown cows? “If you’re in an intangible business, your business card is a big part of what you sell,” Godin writes. But most business cards are brown cows—boring and indistinguishable from one another. Imagine what a business card might look like if reinvented by Milton Glaser, a graphic designer who created the “I NY” logo. How can you make your card stand out? Godin cites the example of an ice cream store owner who placed a stack of large business cards on the counter that said, “If you have any comments at all about the store, please call me at home.” It listed the owner’s home telephone number. People who visited the store noticed and talked about it. Godin suggests that you go out and make a second business card that makes people talk.
By Christopher M. Leporini, REALTOR® Magazine
Harvard Business Review on Finding and Keeping the Best People Harvard Business School Press 221 pp., $19.95
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Harvard Business Review on Finding and Keeping the Best People assembles strategies from academics, authors, and business owners for creating a workplace that will attract—and keep—top-quality workers. Harvard Business School Press released the title as part of it’s “Harvard Business Review Paperback Series,” which comprises more than a dozen titles designed to provide managers and professionals with the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-paced business environment.
This book isn’t real estate industry-specific; however, it addresses issues confronting managers in any field. The book’s eight articles cover topics such as the hiring process, reverse mentoring, and retaining valuable workers, and are written by well-respected experts, authors, and academics. Some of the authors include James Waldroop and Timothy Butler, both from Harvard Business School; Suzy Wetlaufer from the Harvard Business Review; Peter Cappelli of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; and Betsy A. Collard of Stanford University. Each article begins with an “Executive Summary” that provides an overview of the article’s key points.
Tips for Real Estate Professionals
- Avoid common biases during the hiring process. Conscious or not, biases that cloud your hiring judgment can cost you in turnover later on, writes Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a partner at Egon Zehnder International, in the article “Hiring Without Firing.” Be aware of and try to avoid the following biases: 1) the “halo effect,” letting one positive characteristic obscure other shortcomings; 2) stereotyping, assuming that certain traits are based on race, gender, or nationality; or 3) the “just like me” bias, which is the tendency to overrate a candidate who is the most similar to your background and training.
- Influence who leaves and when. Some turnover is inevitable—it’s how you manage it that makes the difference. “The old goal of HR management—to minimize overall employee turnover—has been replaced by a new goal: to influence who leaves and when,” writes Peter Cappelli in the article “A Market Driven Approach to Retaining Talent.” Cappelli points to Prudential’s hiring and retention policies, which take into account the reality of today’s mobile workforce. “Prudential has begun doing what most companies avoid: making a truly honest assessment of how long the organization would like employees to stay on board,” Cappelli writes. “Such an analysis inevitably reveals that different groups of employees warrant a very different retention efforts. … Once you know which employees you need to retain and for how long, you can use a number of mechanisms to encourage them to stay. The key is to resist the temptation to use the mechanisms across the board.”
- Minimize conflicts when incorporating reverse mentoring. Reverse mentoring, in which a younger person instructs a more experienced coworker in an area such as technology, has the potential to educate and energize your workforce. However, it also can represent a powder keg waiting to explode, writes Diane L. Coutu, Senior Editor at the Harvard Business Review, in the article “Too Old to Learn?” In order to make sure that the reverse mentoring succeeds, position your program as an opportunity for mutual learning and carefully match the communication styles of the mentor and protégé.
By Christopher M. Leporini, REALTOR® Magazine
Terri Murphy’s E-Listing and E-Selling Secrets for the Technologically Clueless, 2nd Ed. By Terri Murphy (Real Estate Education Company) 235 pp., $25.45
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Terri Murphy’s E-Listing and E-Selling Secrets offers solace to technophobes and online neophytes uncertain how to incorporate the Internet into their business strategy. The introductory-level book instructs real estate professionals on how to use the Internet to prospect, build their brand, and provide better customer service.
The book includes step-by-step instructions on basics such as setting up your e-mail, choosing an Internet service provider, and understanding netiquette. It also addresses more advanced concepts, such as selecting content to maximize your Web site’s effectiveness. The book’s “Tech Tips,” concisely reinforce must-have information throughout the book. Additionally, the book includes appendixes containing suggestions for data backup and sample e-newsletters.
Author Terri Murphy, GRI, CRS, has sold real estate for more than 20 years and is a speaker and consultant on real estate and technology issues. She also is the author of Terri Murphy’s Listing and Selling Secrets: How to Become a Million $ Producer.
Tips for Real Estate Professionals
- Use your domain to brand “Your Name.com.” Selecting your name as a domain makes it easier for past or potential customers to remember your URL. “For personal branding and marketing reasons, your own name should be your domain name,” Murphy writes. “Your domain name becomes the basis for both your e-mail and Web addresses, and is how people will find you on the Internet.” For instance, Murphy’s Web site is www.terrimurphy.com and her e-mail is Terri@TerriMurphy.com. Don’t forget to include your e-mail and Web site URL on business cards and marketing materials.
- Encourage regular visits to your Web site with renewable content. Consider what types of information might appeal to your customer base. Content such as links to sites on home improvement, schools, weather, financial information, and demographics can keep customers coming back. This is essential for today’s information-hungry consumer. “Helping direct your clients and customers to the information and services they may need creates a ‘need’ to be part of their real estate transactions,” writes Murphy.
- Organize e-mails into electronic folders for each transaction. Your e-mail inbox can quickly grow unwieldy without proper management. Separate electronic folders for individual prospects and clients not only cut clutter, but speed retrieving relevant correspondence. You might even mention to prospects at listing presentations that you will maintain an electric folder for all communications and leads relating to their transactions, Murphy suggests.
- Build long-lasting relationships using permission marketing. Keep a contact database to manage your data-mining efforts. Ask past clients or customers’ permission to send them information as it becomes available. E-newsletters present a great online permission-marketing tool, says Murphy. Creating a listserve can help you to dispense an e-newsletter containing useful information—for instance about a neighborhood school issue, tax referendum, or neighborhood watch—to customers at minimum expense and time.
- Maintain a password list. It might sound obvious, but forgetting or confusing your passwords for access to your MLS, ISP, lock box access, e-mail, or company directory can create headaches. Murphy recommends keeping a “black book” of all your passwords, remembering that many passwords are case sensitive.
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