What’s the opposite of a purple cow?
Seth Godin defines a purple cow as a business that’s remarkable. More often than not we encounter truly unremarkable businesses, and more often that not businesses that are remarkably bad. It’s not the remarkably bad businesses Seth had in mind when he coined the phrase.
Still, it got me thinking what the opposite of a purple cow might be. I’m going for dead sheep. Here’s how to be a dead sheep.
1. Don’t answer the phone in under 5 rings.
2. When you do answer the phone, don’t ask my name, don’t check my customer history, and whatever you do don’t do an early home delivery for me - it would break the rules.
3. Don’t deviate from your inventory, list of services, menu, whatever. The customer’s not got enough taste to demand these things!
4. Don’t store my details on your website. After all it shouldn’t be easy for me to re-order.
5. Make sure your ecommerce process is beautiful. Lots of Flash, lots of stages where I can exit. And best of all make sure the final payment page is in a screen popup that will be blocked by 90% of today’s browsers.
6. Never offer refunds without a fight to the death.
7. Deliver my stuff late, without an explanation.
8. Spam me with lots of offers I didn’t ask for.
9. Don’t stock things people will want, and direct them to online competitors.
10. Reduce your staff levels in a bid to cut costs, the customers won’t notice really.
This list of 10 (I’m sure you can add more), was gleaned from real experiences with Jersey businesses this week. The good thing about a recession is that dead sheep might bleat for a while, but eventually they’ll be properly dead.
Care to share some dead sheep experiences?