10/10/2026
Seth Godin tells a story about driving through the French countryside.
For the first few miles, everyone in the car stared at the cows. Postcard cows, everywhere. Twenty minutes later, nobody looked up. A cow is a cow.
Then he imagined a purple one. Everyone would look. Everyone would talk about it at dinner.
Most of us run our businesses trying to be a little better. Better quality, better service, a slightly better price. But customers canât see âbetterâ from the road. To them, itâs another cow in another field.
Remarkable doesnât have to mean expensive or loud. It can be small and specific:
- A promise nobody else makes: âWe answer the phone on Sundays.â
- A detail people photograph: a handwritten note in every order.
- A story that fits in one sentence, so customers can retell it.
The hard part? Itâs tough to spot from inside your own business, because youâve been looking at the same field every day.
So hereâs a question for the weekend: what do customers say about you when youâre not in the room? Thatâs where your purple cow is hiding.
Which local business is the purple cow in your town? Tell us below and letâs give them some love.
