I had a strategic marketing professor once tell me a story of what sort of business you want to be in. Those of you who are The Experience Economy by Pine II and Gilmore fans will recognize the laddering….

This guy was in the kitchen stove business back in the ‘80s. He sold a full line of stoves. He was struggling, carry a mix of this and that….from high end to medium and low end and a full price range. Then all of a sudden he experienced a huge sales spike on one particular black, very high end stove. He was having problems keeping it in stock, so he raised the price. It still sold. It sold for a solid year and pushed his business to the next level. He stopped focusing on price and started to carry higher end stoves that the market was asking for.

Why were these stoves selling? Answer: The black stoves were incidentally featured all season long on the very popular T.V. show Dynasty.

What were customers buying? Not stoves, but FANTASY.

What kind of business do you want to be in?