Pink Goldfish: Defy Normal, Exploit Imperfection and Captivate Your Customers

Companies need to stand out in a crowded marketplace, but true differentiation is increasingly rare. Based on over 200 case studies, Pink Goldfish provides an unconventional seven-part framework for achieving competitive separation by embracing flaws, instead of fixing them.

It explores the need to embrace weirdness and amplify weakness to differentiate in business. We reveal how everything we've learned about weakness is wrong. We'll show how every weakness has a corresponding strength. We examine the seven reasons to embrace weirdness. The section ends with an explanation of our metaphor of the pink goldfish where we'll share the symbolism of the goldfish and the reasoning behind the color pink.

We examine the concept of being F.L.A.W.S.O.M. This is the idea of embracing your flaws. You can succeed because of your flaws, not despite of them. We use F.L.A.W.S.O.M. as our acronym for the seven types of pink goldfish. We share our flaunting matrix and each pink type: Flaunting, Lopsiding, Antagonizing, Withholding, Swerving, Opposing, and Micro-weirding. This section points out the ways to stand out by doing more of what makes you weird and less of what makes you normal in business.

Here we share the process of finding your own pink goldfish. We delve into the four A's. The first A is assess, and it involves understanding what makes you weird or weak. The second A is appreciate. Appreciation is accepting and taking ownership of your uniqueness. The third A is amplify. Amplification is the process of turning up the dial to bring your differentiation to life. The final A is align. Aligning involves looking at those areas of weirdness and weakness that resonate with your customer and create meaningful differentiation.

"Don't hide the weird and the wacky parts of your organization. Use them to stand out from the crowd. Forget about strengths (or set them to the side for a minute). Leverage your weaknesses into the unique qualities that set you apart. These are the core messages of this smart book... Think about it. All the other goldfish are, well, gold. Imagine how you might thrive as the only pink goldfish in the pond."-- Daniel Pink, author of WHEN and DRIVE

"Packed with incredible examples, this book will have you spotting Pink Goldfish everywhere, and inspire you to breed your own, ASAP!" -- Jay Baer founder of Convince & Convert and author of Hug Your Haters and Talk Triggers

"Pink Goldfish offers a smart, powerful, and vibrant framework for any company that wants to stand out. Filled with fascinating case studies, this book shows how businesses can turn perceived flaws into strengths and connect authentically with their customers." -- Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You and Stand Out, and adjunct professor, Duke University Fuqua School of Business