In the previous article we saw that being good is no longer enough: if you blend in with the rest of the herd, you're invisible, and the invisible doesn't sell. The way out was to become a purple cow, a memorable business.
And this is where almost everyone gets it wrong.
When someone hears "you have to stand out," the first thing they think is: I need to shout louder. More ads, more promotions, something flashy, some stunt that goes viral. And that's exactly the trap. Being remarkable has almost nothing to do with volume.
The most expensive misunderstanding
Think about how many times you've seen this: an ordinary business that starts shouting. The biggest ad, the loudest promotion, the flashiest sign. And what happens? You forget it the moment you walk past.
Turning up the volume on "we're good" doesn't make you memorable. It makes you a brown cow that also shouts. You can spend a fortune advertising a run-of-the-mill product, and people will keep forgetting it.
Noise isn't differentiation. You can be the loudest one in the market and still be perfectly forgettable.
So what does "remarkable" mean?
The word says it: remarkable means worth a remark. It's something people take note of. Something that earns a comment.
A remarkable business is one its own customers talk about, on their own, without you asking them to. That "you have to go to…", that "you won't believe what this place does…" that one person blurts out to another with no one paying them to say it.
And the other way around: if no one feels the urge to talk about you, you're not remarkable yet. No matter how loud your advertising is.
What almost no one gets
Here's the key part, the one most people miss.
What makes you worth talking about isn't the advertising. It's the product or the service itself.
If what you offer gives no one anything to talk about, no ad will get people talking. Let me show you what I mean with two examples.
Picture Andrea
Andrea has a small bakery. She could do what all of them do: good muffins, tasty cookies, a decent loaf. And she'd be good… and invisible. One more.
But Andrea does something else. She reinvents the everyday cookie into flavors that tug at people's hearts —brown butter with sea salt, chai, lemon and lavender— and gives each one the little story of where that flavor came from. Her customers don't just eat them: they photograph them and, more importantly, tell someone. "You have to try Andrea's lavender cookie."
Notice: Andrea didn't shout louder. She baked something worth a comment into the product. If she ever runs an ad, that ad will only point to something that's already worth talking about. Meanwhile, the bakery down the block makes "good cookies" and hands out flyers nobody remembers.
And it's not just for pretty products
You might think this works for a bakery, but not for what you do. It works for the less glamorous trades too.
Picture a mechanic who, before fixing anything, sends you a 30-second video showing you the worn part and explaining why it needs to be replaced. Nothing spectacular. But no mechanic in your life had ever done that with you, and suddenly you trust him. And what do you do? You tell everyone: "go to that guy, he shows you everything, he's genuinely honest."
The remarkable is baked into the way he works: total transparency. It didn't cost a dollar in advertising.
The question that changes everything
So ask yourself this about your own business, with complete honesty: if a customer left happy today, would they have any reason to mention you to someone else?
Careful, not "were they satisfied?" —satisfied is the minimum, we already saw that—. The question is: would they talk about you?
If the honest answer is "not really," then you don't have an advertising problem. You have a not-remarkable-yet problem. And that isn't fixed in the ad: it's fixed in the offer.
That's why, when a business comes to DISSAU asking for "more marketing," the first thing we look at isn't the ads, but whether there's anything to talk about to begin with. Because advertising a forgettable offer is like pouring water into a leaky bucket.
Where to go next
Finding out whether your business already gives people something to talk about —and where it's still just "good"— is exactly what the Purple Cow Diagnostic helps you see in a couple of minutes. It's free, and it's the best place to start.
This was the second article in the series. In the next one we go after the most expensive trap of all: why playing it safe, staying the same as everyone else, is actually the riskiest thing you can do.
See you on the road. 🐮💜
