Judge Scott Fairgrieve and Joel Harris of the Kiwanis Club asked me to give a talk on branding your business.
I will be speaking on April 18 at 8 a.m. at the Kiwanis Meeting at Ihop in Williston Park. Here’s what I’ll say.
Growing your business brand requires hard work, social skills, capital and timing. But there is also something else one needs.
You will need The Wow Factor.
The Wow Factor is, simply defined, any customer experience which produces a wow in them. It means they see a noticeable difference between your product and all the others. And when they experience this it is called one-trial learning and they become a loyal customer on the spot. And they will remain loyal provided you maintain quality.
The Eiffel Tower has the Wow Factor. Carmel-by-the-Sea has the Wow Factor. The Ritz-Carlton has the Wow Factor and so does The River Café in Brooklyn.
Louis Vuitton handbags have the Wow Factor.
As a sport psychologist I have worked in the sports industry for the past 25 years and a few years ago I selected four golf products that had the wow factor.
Here is how it all started.
I was at a golf writers outing and the head of marketing for Tour Edge asked me to hit one of their new Exotic Fairway woods in the development phase.
The first time I hit it I was sold and thought this company is going to make a fortune. That’s the Wow Factor.
David Glod put the Exotic Fairway woods on the map. His product is so good that tour players use them all the time without receiving any endorsement money.
That by the way is unheard of.
That experience inspired me to research the topic of the Wow Factor.
How do the truly iconic products come to market.
I interviewed Peter Samuels of Ping Golf to find out the back story of the Anser putter, which revolutionized golf. I went to Steve Asman, the guy who makes Gustbuster Umbrellas.
To give you an idea of how popular they’ve become look carefully the next time you see a Donald Trump aide use an umbrella to shield him from the rain because he’ll be using a Gustbuster. And I interviewed some of the designers for J. Lindeberg Clothiers who singlehandedly changed the look of golf fashion by adding color and form fitting slacks.
Here is what I found:
First, see a need: All these manufacturers could clearly see that there was a lack in the field.
Karsten Solheim saw putters with poor moments of inertia, Lindberg saw ugly clothes that looked old fashioned, Asman saw poorly made umbrellas that broke down and Glod realized that fairway woods presently in play went nowhere.
Second, fall in love with the product: Each inventor or manufacturer discovered something that they fell in love with. When David Glod first saw the Exotic fairway wood prototype he said to himself “this is it!” When Solheim finally invented the Anser putter by working in his garage for seven years he screamed “I have found the answer!”
His wife shouted back at him “Go wash your hands, it’s dinner time.”
Thirdly, ‘You gotta believe’: Initially there was resistance and even ridicule of the product. I remember reading about the Herman Miller office chairs that looked so strange that focus groups panned them mercilessly. The Miller office chair is now the industry standard. I paid over $800 for mine and it was a good buy.
Fourthly, patience and capital: There was enough capital to invest over time so that the project was able to be maintained for the years of slow sales until it made it big.
Fifth, quality control: The product’s excellence was maintained with great quality control over the years. Asman, Glod, Solheim and Howard Shultz of Starbucks fame are noted for being fanatic about quality service. My favorite story about quality service occurred to me and my wife while staying at the Ritz in Key Biscayne. We got back to the hotel very late one night and wanted to take a swim. We looked in the pool room and saw it was closed so we went to the concierge and asked if we could go for a swim. He immediately replied “Of course you can. I’ll escort you there and open it up for you.”
Everyone loves excellence and will pay almost anything for it. Whether you are the owner of Louis Vuitton or the owner of Hildebrandt’s there are secrets to success.
I think it goes something like this 1. identify a need in the market 2. discover or invent an element of service or product that is unique and better than all the rest, even lightly better. 3. hold fast to your belief and do not waver.
My branding is that I believe it’s important to understand the athlete’s unconscious. I was laughed at for years but just last week I was interviewed by a grad student in Great Britain who is doing his dissertation about my work 4. have enough capital to survive for the long haul, all business is a marathon not a sprint 5. maintain quality control over your product or service.
Howard Schultz made millions with Starbucks by exercising quality control.
Carmel-by-the-Sea is the finest small city in America largely because the city planners exercise insane control over every inch of turf in town.
By the way if you want to see any of those magical golf products I described go visit the PGA Tour Superstore on Corporate Drive in Westbury.
They have all the Exotic woods, Anser putters and Gustbusters umbrellas your heart desires.
