Professor Elam

DMN columnist Cheryl Hall has a great column on Barney Adams. Barney designed a special golf club for duffers. He was trying to sell it as a golf club. He finally realized he was not in the business of selling golf clubs. He was really selling better ball flight. Here is the link to the Amazon review on The Wow Factor.

The Wow Factor is not a system, it is an attitude, one you have to ingrain throughout your organization. And it keeps you from playing the thinnest margins game. Wow supersedes price, absolutely.

Elam take-he got that right. Here are some examples

Apple has created a WOW factor, there were people lined up overnight for the intro of the latest Apple i Phone. Meanwhile DELL is selling their product on the thin margin strategy at Wal Mart.

Toyota’s Prius is  a runaway hit, they cannot make them fast enough. But Honda just canceled the Accord Hybrid, why?  Because the Accord Hybrid looks like a regular Accord with a different small nameplate. The Prius is instantly recognizable, it has no regular engine counterpart, so everyone KNOWS you are green by driving it.  This is why it is the car d’jour
 to arrive at the Academy Awards.

Mark McCormack describes an incident when lunching with the head of Rolex Europe. Someone came over and asked how the watch business was. The Rolex guy replied, I don’t know I am not in the watch business!

Okay great answer, now, what business is he in?

One of your assignments will be to describe what your organization does in Thirty Seconds. I post this article to get your thinking about your real product. Last year a couple of million electric drills were sold in America. But no one wanted a drill, they all wanted a hole…..