Risk Versus Reward - Are You Smokin' Your Competitors?

Recently, I struck up a conversation at a football game with the mom beside me regarding holiday travel plans. Airline preference came up and she said, "We will only go Southwest. The bags are free."

I love Southwest Airline's free bag promotion. Talk about taking a standard industry revenue producing policy, and by eliminating it, creating a differentiator that generates huge market share. Not to mention, it makes their competitors look, well, really greedy. It's a beautiful thing, really.

As the continued race for occupancy escalates across the country, it would be prudent to sit down with your team and brainstorm ways to, rather than cheapen up your offering, set yourself apart from your competitors by differentiating yourself, through policy or positioning strategy. Where do you find yourself "following the pack" ? How can you shake it up a bit?

Take for example, pet policies, deposits and rent. What if you were the first in your market to do away with pet rent or pet deposits? I can hear the collective gasp now, but hear me out. Understandably, many communities make substantial revenue from pet fees. The question is, can you make more by positioning yourself differently? Based on current occupancy rates across the country, the answer may be yes, if you can fill additional apartments without giving away free rent, or fill what wouldn't have been filled under normal circumstances.

It's a different strategy, dependent on the community, market and economic drivers, and it definitely needs the right marketing campaign, but it has appeal. It's one of those ideas I have had for a while that just keeps staying with me, which usually means it has merit. If you decide to give it a go, let me know and I will assist the first five respondents in developing your marketing message for free.

I liken it to Dyson. After inventing his bagless vacuum cleaner, (and by the way, I covet mine), he tried to sell it to Hoover. They turned down the concept, with the rational that it wouldn't be worth losing the income from the vacuum cleaner bags.

Ten years later, more than half the vacuum cleaners sold in the UK were made by Dyson, and market share for Hoover had fallen 10 percent.

Conditions are ripe for innovation and an about-face in the way we market our products. Quit following the pack. Run your own direction and think about what today's renters will really respond to. Then try it. You might lose. Then again, like Southwest and Dyson, you might smoke 'em all.