How To Find Your Free Prize

by John R. SedivycloseAuthor: John R. Sedivy Name: John R. Sedivy
Email: john@capecodbranding.com
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Do you remember pushing your way into a cereal box looking for the free prize? I do. The most annoying part is that the contents never quite fit back in right and I didn’t have the patience to finish off the cereal prior to claiming my prize. As a child, I was looking for something remarkable in an otherwise unremarkable product. The same holds true for consumers of a wide array of products and services – not just cereal.

Being Remarkable
What makes a product or service remarkable? Is it the high technology involved? Surely if you spend lots of money on research and development (R&D) something remarkable will come out of it – or at least something good.

Not necessarily. Check out Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin. In this book he debunks the popularly held myth that throwing enough money at a project will result in something remarkable. There are also a few other excellent points made – certainly worth your time – just like every other Seth Godin book I have read so far.

Let’s use Seth Godin’s definition of a Purple Cow; which is really just something that is remarkable. Something remarkable is just something that a customer is willing to make a remark about. Remarks promote discussion, which in turn leads to more discussion, which leads to even more discussion, which hopefully leads to word of mouth sales which multiply over time.

But how does one become remarkable? How does a product or service become remarkable? It isn’t by dumping money into R&D. It isn’t by buying big ads. If it were that easy there would be as many remarkable products as there is money – which obviously isn’t the case.

Thinking Softly
Seth Godin identifies “soft innovation” as being the path to becoming remarkable. A soft innovation is something on the side of what your product or service is, not really the primary focus – kind of an afterthought. It is dubbed the free prize because, once discovered, it has the power to bring in much more revenue than the cost of implementing it.

Free prizes are discovered by practicing edgecraft. Edgecraft is merely pushing yourself to the edges of your product or service. Conventional wisdom may be to operate in the middle ground as to not rock the boat, upset others, or take a path that is too risky. Edgecraft is counter to playing it safe and is literally pushing the envelope.

Consider the hours of a local store. Their present hours are 9 to 5. They are considering revising their hours from 9 to 5:30. If the competition of said store all maintain hours of 9 to 5, will this make a difference? Perhaps some, but not much. However if this same store made a shift from bankers hours to a 24 hour establishment – this could push them to the edge of their competition and result in a remarkable business.

I will provide a few examples of those operating on the edge who have been widely successful.

Practitioners Of Edgecraft
Seth Godin is an obviously example – he embodies edgecraft. His personal style, message, and presentation all push to the edge. Visit the business section of Barnes and Noble – I would be surprised if his latest book, Tribes doesn’t jump out at you. The original version of Free Prize Inside was packaged in a cereal box and the original Purple Cow was packaged in a milk carton. These were unconventional yet successful approaches.

Now compare this with the typical marketing or business book. Most likely the average book contains quite a bit of effort, research, and hard work. But  in general, the message is lost in a sea of mediocrity. This is where pushing to the edge pays off. People notice the edge, they generally don’t care about the mediocre middle.

A second example that comes to mind is Ann Coulter. Regardless of if you agree or disagree with her politics, she is an author who pushes the edge. This is why she stands out among political writers and continues to churn out best sellers. As she pushes even further, her popularity increase and thus the cycle will continue.

Finally, Apple is a company that knows how to turn edgecraft to their advantage. Seth Godin used this as an example in Free Prize Inside, however I believe it is worth reiterating here. Apple has turned a commodity into a high-retail item. Against conventional business advice they have physical locations in high-end retail malls and are profitable in doing so. Why? Because they are pushing the edge of their industry. Apple does not simply make computers, they design a user experience.

I urge you to consider finding your “free prize.” It may be by taking an otherwise boring and lackluster topic such as marketing and transforming it into something entertaining as Seth Godin has. It may be by pushing to the extreme of the comfort level of most people as Ann Coulter has. Or it may be taking a commodity product and transforming it into a beautiful user experience as Apple has.

The key is that there is no single answer. Know yourself and your business and imagine the edges. Find an edge and persistently push towards it and you will find your free prize!

Find your free prize by pushing to the edge!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

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