THE Widget, Revealed
Once upon a time, the Acme Widget Corporation revealed The Widget of the Century!
Oh, what a Widget!
It would do ANYTHING, and everything that’s important!
It knows how you feel, what you want, who you “really” are, how to make you happy…
And it delivers that happiness, day after day, like magic.
Critics raved.
Bloggers celebrated its genius.
Steve Jobs could be heard wheeping from the grave, for not having thought of it.
Crunch Time
Then it hit the market.
The marketing campaign was unprecedented.
Acme Widget Corporation negotiated its placement on the home page of Google.com — a feat never before accomplished by ANYONE, not even Google!
They bought full, front page ads in every U.S. newspaper!
NBA backboards were plastered with images of the Widget.
So were NFL scoreboards, UPS trucks, NYC billboards, NPR programming, and every show aired on ABC, CBS, NBC, HGTV, MTV…………AND Nickleodian!
They even commandeered the International Space Station to project the Widget’s image ON THE FACE OF THE MOON, full size!
The entire world could see it, knew it by name, and WANTED IT!
The Crux
But Acme Widget Corporation and their be-all and end-all widget… were destined for failure.
The widget wasn’t flawed.
The marketing was beyond world class.
The sales channels were wide open gulfs of easy navigation.
The buzz was electrifying.
The timing was perfect.
The world was in need, like never before!
The Goof
But the price, ooohhh the price.
Acme botched the price, the price of the widget.
They reasoned:
“No one else sells this widget.”
“Nothing else is like our widget.”
“Everyone is in love with our widget.”
“So they’ll overpay!”
Oh dear.
Oh, Acme… Acme……. Acme.
How could you miss that memo, of all memos?
The Truth
Design matters, but can be flawed.
Marketing is important, but can be limited.
Sales channels need to be there and open, but can be restrictive.
All those things, ultimately, take a back seat to proper…
PRICING.
And this is true of every widget.
The whole world can know about your widget…
and even want your widget.
But (unless the buyer is the Federal Government) if you overprice it…
you can expect the whole sales cycle to sit there like a rusty, iron tractor.
Un-moving, un-selling, frozen in space.
The Bottom Line
Houses are widgets, too.
Dude …. a Steve Jobs grave reference so soon …. thats rough.
So your saying a house is a commodity, which seems to fall in the downer camp, and is probably not NAR approved. Do you believe that the natural price for a joe blow house in a community should be around 3 times the average household yearly income? Joe Blow being a 2 bed, 1100 sq ft house in the lettered district.
Hope you and yours have a happy Holidays Brandon …
Downtown! What up?! You think i was rough on Steve? I disagree. I think he’d want to be included in any conversation about world class widgets. And i won’t be surprised to see him remain part of the scene for years to come. Rumor is he left Apple with, what, 4 years of product launches all ready to go?
Ahh… gotta run for a bit, but I’ll hit your other comment today, promise! XO
Downer, you ask if a house is a commodity? Let me approach that in my next blog post, and I’ll include some thoughts on whether prices should equal 3X annual average salary. Say, on another topic, is your lovely and talented partner in crime committed to a team already for 2012 Ski to Sea? If not, have her e-mail me, would ya? Cheers, and a hearty Merry Christmas to you too my friend.