I once heard someone really intelligent (can’t remember who) tell me how clever Porsche were in that their marketing suggests that if you bought one of their cars you would be truly unique, when infact, their goal was to sell as many cars as possible – making you not unique.
I had an interesting experience recently when my wife bought a new car (a Seat) We had a conversation with a girl in the sales department who used to work for BMW, who said she was amazed that people hadn’t yet got the point that BMW’s were no longer unique. Anybody can have a BMW, you just need to sign the finance forms, is what she said. I was struck by that, because people continue to aspire after these things when infact, as I drive around now I see BMW after BMW after BMW. It has lost its way by trying to appeal to the bigger mass market and trying to increase sales over everything else.
I really don’t think we want to do that as a business and I really want to try and avoid it. I would rather be the independent guy, the smaller guy, the guy who is able to completely control quality and to share the vision with everybody and not just chase a balance sheet all the time. I don’t want to be BMW – super powerful, all knowing and now just the same as everybody else. I want us to be different, to offer an experience to patients that is truly different and inspirational everytime they come – I want to exceed their expectations.
I used to own a BMW, 2 infact. They never ever exceeded my expectations - I don’t want to be like that.
Leave a comment