One of the least remarkable things on this planet is the poor old potato. They are everywhere, but it is really difficult to make a good living selling just potatoes. In the UK nearly every town and city has at least one stall selling baked potatoes. The hot street food of choice from the vendors is the baked spud. They are totally unremarkable, very similar stalls, similar menus and similar staff. When you next walk past a potato stall, or even when you are buying one, take note of the number of people queuing. The answer will almost always be very few. More in the winter than the summer but not many. They are unremarkable.
When you have done that go to YouTube and type in Spud Man and suddenly you will see how to take one of the least remarkable products on this planet and make it one of the most remarkable. Spud Man has huge queues of people buying his potatoes, the same potatoes that everyone else is selling, it’s just that he has made his remarkable. He is regularly interviewed on television, radio and social media. He has said that he has sold more than 1,500 potatoes in a single day and has several YouTube and TikTok videos showing his initial quest to sell over 1,000 in a day.
I can hear you asking, “I don’t sell potatoes, what has this got to do with me or my business?” The answer is literally everything. If you have an unremarkable product or service then the best you can hope for is to sell similar amounts to your competitors at a similar price, and hence a similar profit. The only way you can increase profits is to either cut costs (not sustainable in the long term) or reduce price to sell more (not sustainable in the long term). However, if you are remarkable then you can actually increase price, and probably sell more as well. This is the holy grail of profitability.
When I speak with clients about this I usually get some version of this reply, “it’s alright for [ insert company name such as Louis Vuitton or Google or whoever] they have a name and unusual product or service but ours is just a standard [insert name of product or service]” If Spud Man can make the humble potato remarkable then you can make your business, or indeed yourself remarkable. It just requires effort.
An Exercise For You
Take a piece of paper and give yourself two minutes and a maximum of two sentences to write down what is remarkable about you and / or your business. Don’t con yourself by writing down the usual meaningless things such as “the best” or “loyal” or “our people” You need to be able to write something that if you said it to a stranger or a current or potential customer their response would be “wow, tell me more”. If you are in business then ask a couple of employees or, if you want to be really adventurous a couple of customer what is remarkable about your business. Both you and they are only allowed two minutes and a maximum of two sentences.
If you and / or they can’t do it then don’t beat yourself up. In my experience almost nobody can, and that’s what gives you the advantage here. In a world where almost nothing and almost nobody is remarkable the competition to be remarkable is small and the benefits huge.
Now the difficult bit. Take time out to find ways to make your product or service remarkable. You don’t need to go through huge product or service changes, you don’t need huge meetings or PowerPoint presentations, just a pen and paper will do. At all times just remember, a potato is a potato, and if it can be made remarkable then you can make what you sell, or what you do remarkable as well. It will take time and effort but it will be totally worth it. Once you have achieved your goal then getting new business at higher prices, retaining existing and getting new customers will be much easier, and won’t be entirely priced based. Profits will increase and even more important your vulnerability to sudden change will decrease.
Some Examples To Help You
Let’s start with the food industry and something most people will have heard of. There are loads of companies producing sauces in a bottle and many of them producing very good ones, but the remarkable one is Reggae Reggae Sauce made remarkable not by the sauce but by one man and a guitar, namely Levi Roots. The brand which is forever associated with one song on Dragon’s Den which made it remarkable is now worth around £30 million.
Gyms are generally pretty unremarkable but Alex Hormozi started Gym Launch and was remarkable in that he sold customers to gyms but did not require the gyms to pay anything. The gyms get new customers and he gets the money from first sign ups. Alex Hormozi is now worth around $100 million
The UK clothing manufacturing industry has been decimated by unremarkable brands from overseas and cheap imports. Patrick Grant has a company called Community Clothing selling what would normally be pretty unremarkable cloths such as everyday socks, underwear, shirts etc. Except his clothes are remarkable in that they are specifically designed to be long lasting, affordable and UK produced. He successfully uses sustainability and community to make everything he does remarkable.
There are thousands of people doing marketing and providing marketing services and advice but only one Rory Sutherland. His ideas, in a market where others churn out the same old stuff are remarkable. Initially kicked off by an only partially serious comment about the channel tunnel his idea of “the opposite of a good idea can often be another good idea” makes his services remarkable.
I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the idea. No matter what your product, service or what you do as an employee, the most effective way to make it more profitable it to make it remarkable.
A Couple Of Final Points
- Being remarkable is about being remarkable to others, it’s not about being remarkable to you. We see this all the time in advanced manufacturing. Just because something is amazing to you and your colleagues doesn’t mean it is remarkable to your customers. A better mousetrap might not be remarkable if the old one works well enough.
- As soon as you become remarkable others will try to imitate you and so you must constantly be looking for the next remarkable thing. Being effectively remarkable is an ongoing project. A television that lets you view programmes on demand was remarkable and now is standard. Spud Man is finding others are starting to imitate his style.
- If you are effectively remarkable, you are by the very nature of this fact not all things to all people. You will probably polarise views of you and / or your company. The only way to have a product or service for everyone is to to have one that everyone can make and sell and that’s a recipe for disaster. It’s much easier for SME’s and individuals to provide remarkable services and products than large organisations. If you have a large business then it is far more effective to make your people remarkable than your product or service. The effect of increasing profitability is the same.
- Consider why you are remarkable very carefully – remember you can be remarkable for all the wrong reasons as well as the right ones. Being remarkable is only effective if it helps you move toward your objective. Please have a look at What’s Caught My eye below.
- If you want to get into the mindset of being remarkable please read “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin and “Alchemy” by Rory Sutherland.
Finally, What Makes Us Remarkable?
There are literally thousands of consultants around the world who appear to do what we do. What is remarkable about us is that we help individuals and businesses to be effective in a world where most concentrate on productivity and efficiency. Being effective at what we do and helping you to do the same is really remarkable.
If you feel that we can be of assistance we have space to work with a small number of businesses. If you want to apply to see if we can help you become effective and build profitability then please CONTACT us.