Property Tribes Book of the Month, March 2013

What’s So Special About You?

Seth Godin’s Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable is not a title that first comes to mind when looking for a property book but it is a terrific insight into the way the buyers are changing. Focusing on business in general, it discusses the value of being different and doing things differently.

Something of a phenomenon in the world of modern marketing, Seth Godin is a champion of doing things differently as his blog and the titles – and content of course – of his many books confirm. I confess to only having read Purple Cow and Tribes so far, but have others on my list.

Many of us in property have businesses. These may or may not be related to property, but arguably each property investment that we have is a micro-business in its own right. We have ‘buyers’ whether they are potential purchasers or tenants.

Advocating the concept of being different right from the beginning or design stage of the product or service cycle, and by marketing to smaller but, in his view, more important sectors of the market than the masses, he argues the point for making your product / service special. We need to attract the attention and buying power of the people who have the social influence to pass on the message when they find a great product/service. And by social influence, I mean face to face communication as well as social media.

Even as investors and landlords there is a message for us here. The times they are a-changing. What is special about us? What are we doing to stand out from the crowd?