Combining This with That

If you would like your business to be more successful, remember that the modern business model combines two (or more) unlikely things in order to differentiate yourself in the market and add more (real and perceived) value for your customers. How about pet food and oil paintings?

Huh? What’s that you say?

This $880 million per annum revenue

5-year old

startup, Chewy.com, sends each of its 3 million pet-owning customers a handwritten thank you card via snail mail when they sign up and create a customer and pet profile on the site. Furthermore, they’re entered into a lottery to receive an oil painting of their pet–a surprise on the upside.

As Zappos.com showed in shoes, you can compete today based on extraordinary customer service and providing clients with a great experience. That’s what Chewy.com is doing in a very competitive pet food market where they compete with humongous companies like Amazon and PetSmart.

Yesterday, realtor Nick Cripps and I visited a flooring supplier who are the sole source in our area for carpet that is piddle-proof; ie, pets who are incontinent can urinate on the carpet and it will not soak through to dampen the underpad or floor so no mold can take hold and no linger smell linger.

Nick suggested that the store might want to have a large sculpture erected outside of a urinating dog NOT ruining your carpet. It’s gross but it’ll attract attention, and for sure become a sort of icon for the area as in, “Let’s meet at the place, you know, where the dog…”

Or how about this? A friend of mine and a coaching client, John McMahon, sends me a photo he took of a Dick’s Last Resort restaurant where they  put “silly messages on people’s heads. Next to them is ping pong, sac toss and tables with chess on the other side.”

He also reported sac toss in action on Martha’s Vineyard:

And finally, he said, “Here’s a storefront with a secret front entrance, and a silly photo section for kids. Plus there’s an interesting shared business concept inside.”

There’s no doubt that John gets the concept. It’s a “combining this with that” idea to create animation/amazement/delight.

It also reminded me that I suggested to BurgerBuilder.ca that they put out trivia cards on their tables (one side of the tepee with questions, the other side, with answers) but all of the questions would be of the “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader” type…

In real estate, we combine things like backyard games, maker space, storage sheds, tech packages/home automation with rental property to surprise, delight and please renters on the upside.

Here’re a few examples of that:

Or how about making one entire outside wall of a hotel a climbing wall as the Whitney Peak Hotel in Reno Nevada did, https://whitneypeakhotel.com/service/outdoor-wall/

Lastly, there’s the matter of Dymon Storage adding new elements to its storage model including:

Boardrooms, a wine-storage centre, an on-site sommelier, a lounge – those are just some of the perks an Ottawa-based company is promising as it builds a massive self-storage facility in Toronto, https://obj.ca/article/ottawa-self-storage-firm-dymon-plans-80-new-gta-properties-part-expansion?utm_source=objtoday&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=08_14_2017

Prof Bruce

Bruce M Firestone, PhD, real estate investment coach, Century 21
Explorer Realty Inc broker, Ottawa Senators founder 6137628884
bruce.firestone@century21.ca

source: Bloomberg Businessweek, Dec 4, 2016

Bruce M Firestone, PhD, real estate investment coach, Century 21
Explorer Realty Inc broker, Ottawa Senators founder 6137628884
bruce.firestone@century21.ca