John Hersey Leadership Blog

Beverly and I recently flew to Portland, Oregon to join our friends for a week’s holiday. As we were boarding our UsAir flight a passenger asked the flight attendant a question about the baggage policy. The reply was, “We aren’t Southwest, Ma’am!”

WOW, talk about owning an advantage. When brands begin admitting that they are NOT a competing  brand,  you just know that the competing brand has made significant progress in capturing share of mind and most likely, share of market.

I have wondered from time to time why Southwest was investing somuch money advertising the fact that it does not charge for baggage. I wondered whether this was a significant point of difference. Now I know! Clearly, the passenger and the USAir flight attendant think it is a significant point of difference.

Doing something that captures the attention of your ideal prospect is what branding is all about, isn’t it?. Sometimes we so over think how and what to do to accomplish this that we miss the real advantage when it is staring us in the face.

Southwest Airlines has a serious advantage with the fact that it does not charge for baggage when every other airline is determined to nickel and dime us to death. They are pretty smart folks over there at Southwest. Of course they would make a considerable investment to leverage this advantage and turn it into increased revenue and market share. In fact, they own the advantage.

This makes me wonder what little advantages we all have that could be leveraged? What little advantages do we have that have been overlooked? Have we been concentrating on identifying huge advantages while the little advantages are stuck right in front of us?

Marketing advantages come in all shapes, sizes, colors and forms. Sometimes a wonderful advantage doesn’t even look like an advantage, until we look a second time. When airline ticket prices are $400-$1000 or more, who would guess that saving $25 bucks checking your bag could be a highly profitable advantage?

This is an interesting question, if you truly consider it. What makes this economy so interesting is that answering questions like that may well be the difference between getting by and getting way ahead. Think about it!

So, what advantage can you leverage? I’ll have more to say about this in the next post. In the meantime,

Be Well & Be Contagious,

John

When we could have purchased this light in any one of 100 places in Arizona we chose to buy it in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico? Why? Because now the light has a story and that makes it an experience. What kind of stories are you creating with and for your employees and customers? What reasons are you giving employees and customers to keep returning and expand their loyalty?

Loyalty and employee retention is all in the stories and the stories are about CUEing, Creating Unforgettable Experiences.

John lugging the infamous light through Puerto Vallarta