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Our local Gander Mountain outdoor sporting goods store hung up this huge sign declaring that they will not be under sold. That is a big and bold statement in my book. I also believe a statement like that is a big attention getter as well. Over the last few months as consumer spending has dropped businesses have taken more creative approaches to gaining new customers, and for good reason.

What Gander Mountain did is said loud and clear we are your cheapest solution in town. They also stated you should come in and see if you can find anything that doesn’t fit that statement. And they did this with a huge sign on the front of their building. They are located right off of the Interstate and a busy overpass. This sign is easily visible to everyone who travels by there.

I am sure the sign will drive a huge number of visitors initially and possible steal some other customers from other sporting good stores in town, but will it last over the long run? I am not sure. Humans are funny creatures in the way we get used to things and rarely like to break away from the familiar.

I remember one time in Los Angeles driving through an intersection and seeing the gas station on the corner with more cars than it can hold. Meanwhile the one directly across the street had none. The crux of it was the empty gas station had much cheaper gas prices. What gives? I have a feeling it was partly due to preference, but more so, convenience. One gas station had an easy in and out for traffic, while the other wasn’t as easy to get to. But what if there were bigger variables at play such as time of day, going to work / coming from work, new and clean vs. not, or any other unseen reason.

Essentially what Gander Mountain is doing is making a statement, hopefully strong enough to make people break away from their life habits. They are challenging and encouraging people to visit their store with a bold declaration that they will find what they were and weren’t looking for cheaper in their store. In the end, I am sure Gander Mountain will make more money from the sign than anything, but only time will tell in the long run.

What are your thoughts?

It’s no secret that Dyson vacuums do a great job of sucking up all of the grit and grime around the house. They are known for never losing any suction power no matter what. They also do many other things like cleaning the air as it passes through and easy dumping of waste. I am sure in due time they will be automated and have dinner waiting when you arrive home from work. Only if it were soon enough.

What Dyson did is over the top for branding, but it is the combination of branding and an excellent product that leads to success. The creators of the Dyson vacuum went above and beyond creating just a vacuum. They created something that was different in its category. The biggest lesson any of us can take away from the success of the Dyson is to know that in a world of similar products and services, it is still possible to set yourself or your product apart from the rest.

In marketing, it is easy to settle for what pays the bills. But what is your goal really? Is it to be mediocre? I know my goal isn’t to be mediocre but sometimes I don’t even realize I am heading that way until I see myself surrounded by more people just like me. That is the reason I quit my last job. I could feel the walls of mediocrity closing in on me and had to make a break for something better.

The same goes for life as in marketing. The thing that sets those in the top 20% from the majority are the ones who get complacent or who settle for what is working. You ever wonder why there are always a few Realtors in town who sell the majority of the houses? How about the sales person driving the Corvette in a town full of sales people? What about the gas station across the street that gets 40% more business?

I have no doubt that the creators of the Dyson vacuum are going to keep innovating and finding new ways to break the mold of the traditional. I hear they are even creating a new bathroom hand dryer, thank god. The key to marketing and branding is to create something that is different in the world of the same. How can you take what you have and mold it into a product or service that goes above and beyond, to the far right, to the far left, the most color, twisted, unique, useful, creative in your market? I am sure with a little thought and effort it will begin to take shape into something people crave and desire.

Welcome to TEABERRY Fargo! As some of you know, I write to you primarily from Fargo, North Dakota, and like to share some marketing ideas I can easily take pictures of. This brings us back to TEABERRY in downtown Fargo.

If you aren’t familiar with Fargo, during the winter it gets very VERY cool here. As you would expect, coffee is quite the staple drink for about 6 months of the year out of the necessity of staying warm. What Fargo doesn’t have is a lot of varieties of tea outside of Starbucks or Dunn Bros. Some astute people felt that not everyone likes coffee but still like to share in the experience of those delirious hot and cold beverages, so they created TEABERRY.

TEABERRY is owned and operated by a man named Trung. He was quite busy when I stopped by so I only got a few words (that’s a good sign for a new business). By my estimate, they have about 40+ different flavors of tea and hundreds of possible combination of different flavors by adding jelly (basically a jelly bean added for a different flavor) or pearls (like a taffy that adds a little kick of sugar). My favorite tea so far has been the Aloe Vera. You can taste the chunks of aloe along with some amazing bursts of other fruit flavors such as strawberries, orange and lemon. It is quite the combination. I also hear they do serve one type of Vietnamese coffee that is super strong and dark as night. I will have to try it sometime.

The beauty of the whole TEABERRY idea is the simplicity of the idea and providing something to people that doesn’t currently exist. What a concept! Never forget that it is OK to be the only one in town, or in your niche that is doing what you are doing. When you are the only one around, people will naturally refer others to you. A while back I was looking to have some engraving work done on something other than jewelry and ended up at a very nice trophy shop at the suggestion of the jeweler. It worked out very well for me and I am pretty sure there can only be 1-2 of these in town to begin with.

Cheers!

It isn’t just trying to be bigger, smaller, faster or any of the like anymore that will classify as a niche. A niche is a world of its own. In the world of trucks, that niche would be the Freightliner Sport Chassis. This is the truck of trucks, something you should only find in the movies but low and behold it is now something anybody with a thick wallet can buy. The days of lift kits, 20″ rims, more horsepower, loud exhaust and the like are long gone when something like this pulls up to an intersection. There is a dealer not far from me that has one of these monstrosities that even comes with night vision and too many other features to list. Click here for the video of the truck.

These Freightliner trucks have made an appeal to the same people who helped commercialize the military Humvee into the Hummer by General Motors. It has even been reported that The Govenator of California is looking to purchase on of these trucks. Of course, the dealership sells many others things like horse trailers and more horse trailers, but I am sure none of those turn as many heads as this one truck.

Going to the edge of any market is where that market begins to talk about whatever product was brave enough to venture there. At the edge, half of the marketing is already done for you just because you managed to turn some heads like our truck here. The important question to ask about the direction you would like to go and how to market a product is to determine how close to the marketing edge you want to go. Another thing to consider while marketing to the fringe is that there is typically a lot less competition. Most people associate the big money to remain with the masses in the middle, but rarely do they think of the volume of competition all fighting for the same dollars. Profit margins suffer greatly the more competition that enters the market, but when you are on the edge, it is a whole other story.

To turn profits from your blog or website takes a combination of two things, traffic and authority. There are hundreds and thousands of websites that all share the same Associated Press news releases every day, and the only way they make money is by the shear mass of people going through them. On the other end, there is the site that only focuses on vintage bottle openers. A site selling and promoting these rare bottle openers probably has a leg up on all of the competition because there probably isn’t much competition. If there was any competition it wouldn’t take long to beat them out if you have a proper game plan. The whole idea is to become that truck that no one else has seen, that thing that makes you stop and stare at it for a second and ask questions, only to turn around and tell others about it later. To become an authority on a subject or in a niche takes a little time, but when established, the trust in your word can be leveraged to benefit both you and those you are helping.

Strive for the edge and set yourself apart from everyone else. It isn’t enough anymore to appear different. You have to be different.