In today’s competitive environment it’s more important than ever to have a competitive advantage – something that puts you above the general fray of your industry.

Maybe you have a unique technology advantage…a patented something or other that no one else has.

Maybe you were first in your space and really own the marketplace (95 of the top 100 companies use our service…).

Maybe you’re faster, better a different business model – there can be lots of ways to build a competitive advantage.

However if you’re stuck on what yours might be, you should look at your core values and your vision as a possible way to stand out and make yourself different from the crowd.

Do you have customers that buy from you because of what you stand for?  Great employees that do more than you expect because they believe in the bigger picture of where you’re taking the business?

I’ve written before about how to find your core values, but even more importantly you can actively use those core values as a differentiator…a competitive advantage.

(photo by Zach Dischner)

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photo by Yodel Anecdotal

Seth Godin makes me nervous – but for all the right reasons.

Godin published ‘Purple Cow – Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable’ in 2002 and he explains the title in the first chapter by talking about a trip his family made to France where they were amazed at the pastoral countryside with lots of cows:

“Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring.  They may be perfect cows, attractive cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by beautiful light, but they’re still boring.

A Purple Cow, though.  Now that would be interesting!” – Seth Godin Purple Cow

I love the idea of being successful by being remarkable…worth talking about, standing out – but it can be a challenge to figure out how to do that.

Here’s Mr. Godin’s definition of being remarkable:

“…a lot of people appear confused about just what “remarkable” means. It’s not elitist. It’s not weird. It’s not cheap or expensive or big or small. It’s any or all of these things… it’s just something worth talking about.”

It’s the essence of word of mouth – generating business and interest from referrals and getting people to talk about you (in a positive way).  The opposite of being remarkable isn’t low quality – the opposite of remarkable is…boring, middle of the road, average…by definition not something that someone would talk about.

Think about the last ‘average’ movie you saw – it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great or particularly noteworthy in any way.  Did you tell anyone about it?  Probably not.

Now think about your business.  You do a good job when it comes to delivering your product or service – you might even do a great job, but is it remarkable?  Does anything stand out?  Do you create a ‘wow’ moment that people will talk about?

Let’s look at few examples here in Kansas City:

Shatto Milk

Most people in Kansas City have heard of Shatto Milk by now (if not, you might want to check out this article I wrote almost 2 years ago about winning the Missouri Business of the Year).

Shatto milk is the ultimate story in remarkable.  They took a total commodity (dairy products) and turned into a premium specialty that people love to talk about.

How did they do it?  Quality is part of it – as an example their chocolate milk was recently picked in the top 3…in the world!  But there are several other keys that really make them stand out:

• Their story (they almost went out of business and reinvented themselves),
• Their commitment to different ideas (using glass bottles, focus on freshness, using the farm as a tourist destination) and
• Their willingness to try out new and interesting products and flavors (my son loves the root beer flavored milk)!

Successful? – you bet, they’re stocked in almost every grocery store in town and sell (well) at a premium price.  Remarkable? – try their chocolate milk and see if you don’t find yourself telling someone about it!

Square One Interiors

There’s a pretty good chance that you haven’t heard of Square One Interiors yet – it was only started last summer by Courtnay Bradley.  Square One specializes in creating productive and practical commercial and office spaces.  If you’re moving into a new business space – Courtnay can get it built out for you.  If you’ve got an existing space that just doesn’t work very well, she can help you make it work…increasing productivity for you and for your employees.

There are a lot of companies in town who sell office furniture and a lot of them are similar – but there are a couple of things that set Square One apart:

1. They’re easy to do business with – Courtnay’s approach (and a big reason she decided to go out on her own) is to make it all about the customer and to focus on being easy to work with.
2. Courtnay is all about relationships…with her vendors, her partners and most importantly with her customers.  She did a great job describing her approach in a blog post a couple of months ago – It’s not business it’s personal!

Is she successful?  She’s still in start-up mode but she’s growing faster than she expected and all of her business so far has been from referrals and relationships – which also answers whether she’s remarkable!

Grinders

Grinders is a pizza joint in the Crossroads district – at first glance you might not pick up on anything different.  But this isn’t just any pizza place – it’s a dive…a dive featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives!

What sets them apart?  Why are people talking about them?

It could be the food – they feature some unusual things like the Chili Bomb – Tater Tot Chili Pizza, the Bengal Tiger Pizza (really interesting India inspired pizza) and they are famous for their insanely hot ‘Death Wings’!

They have a great beer list and they go out of their way to find interesting craft beers to feature on the menu.

They also do a great job supporting the local music and arts scene and they’ve inspired a loyal following.

Successful?  They’ve been up and running for 5 years and they continue to grow.  Remarkable?  Let’s put it this way – my brother from St. Louis came into town and it was the one place he wanted to go check out since they had heard about Grinders from different people (and on TV)!

Being remarkable isn’t easy, but it is something that any business can do.  Come up with whatever is authentically different about how you do business and get people to start talking!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on other remarkable businesses in Kansas City – share them below in the comments!

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

In the spirit of the season, I wanted to share some really cool ‘gifts’ that I ran across this week – fascinating, helpful, interesting and fun.  I don’t know if you’ll get stuff this cool at home during the holidays (apologies if I’m spoiling you). 

Gift 1 – the Gift of Challenge

Hopefully you’re familiar with Seth Godin – his approach is unlike anyone else on the internet.  I’d suggest that more people should emulate him, but I’m not sure it would work – he’s interesting and unique and he does some really cool things that are just him.

His latest cool thing is organizing a free eBook he’s giving away on his site.  It has some ties to promoting some charitable organizations, but mostly it’s a series of 1 page essays written by a very diverse group of authors and experts with a general theme of what they are all thinking about and doing now.

It’s called What Matters Now and it’s well worth the download – go check it out.

I especially enjoyed Hugh MacLeod, Howard Mann, Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell, Daniel Pink to name a few – who challenged your thinking?

Gift 2 – the Gift of Tech

Special thanks to Don Rossberg of KCDataworks – he was the first to point out Seth’s eBook to me and he also wrote a great blog post recently on the 12 Days of (free) Tech where he shares 12 online tech tools / gadgets that are free and more importantly really helpful stuff.  He covers everything from Xobni (check it out – highly recommended) to a way to print things easily and quickly to a PDF format.

By the way, if you are a business owner who’s struggling with the appropriate tech support and you’d like to work with someone you can trust, someone who can actually talk to you like a person AND knows what they’re talking about – you should meet with Don.  He’s a great guy and would be a huge benefit to any small business owner!

Gift 3 – the Gift of Ooooh and Aaaaah

One of the reasons why I like Twitter is that it’s a great way to find stuff that you’d never come across on your own.  It’s like walking along a beach and getting to see all sorts of interesting stuff wash up.  One of the things that washed up this afternoon was a really cool photography site that will grab your attention and make your jaw drop.

The first post is a set of 360 degree panoramic photos from stunning locations (like the top of Mount Everest)!  I’m not sure how they got some of these shots, but it is very cool (make sure to click through to get to the actual 360 shot).  You can find the panoramic gallery here.

As if that wasn’t cool enough – the same site has a set of extreme macro photos of Snowflakes, which are amazingly beautiful and a lot more varied and interesting than I would have thought – check out the Snowflakes here.

What cool online things are you sharing these days?  Share them in the comments below – I’d love to check them out.

Shawn Kinkade Kansas City Business Coach

A couple of weeks ago Seth Godin blogged about The Talking Pad (and the following post was a variation called the modern talking pad).  The concept is when you’re talking with someone either 1 on 1 or in a small group, instead of using a powerpoint presentation, you should walk them through the discussion with a simple piece of paper that you can write on in front of them.

The alternative is to use a thick pen or marker and a legal pad.

Whenever you mention a number or make an assertion or promise, write it down. The act of writing is a verb, it’s the process of putting it on the page that underlines what you’ve said, that highlights the moment.

Seth’s point is that the talking pad can help you control the discussion and can add credibility, but I think there are a couple of other really strong reasons to use it.

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It would be easy to dismiss Seth Godin’s latest book as a way for him to cash in on his (hard earned) reputation as the Marketing Genius of our time.

For those that don’t know him – Seth Godin (you can read his frequent updates at Seth’s blog) is an author of many books, including Permission Marketing, Purple Cow and Meatball Sundae.  Not only is he a compelling writer, but he also has a history of illuminating (perhaps leading) changes in the marketplace that we’ve been seeing the last 10 years.

At first glance, Tribes appears to be more of the same – written in a stream of consciousness style almost as a collection of blog posts (which is likely where they started).

However the real value of Tribes is the ideas that get sparked from the conversation it feels like you’re having with Mr. Godin.  Here are a few that came to me when I read it:

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