A Focused Business Strategy should Lead to a Focused Marketing Strategy.

Yesterday I was putting around Orange County in my favorite little car, a 1966 Mercedes 230SL.  There is something mystical about this car that creates an immediate love or hate response just like Beetles and Mini Coopers do.  The people that own them are more often than not smiling while they are driving around.  There is just something fun about it.  The controversial Pagoda Top of the late 60’s model Mercedes SL’s  has been the butt of jokes by many great automotive writers.

For me however, there is nothing cooler than putting up PCH in my little convertible.  The only thing missing is a cup holder.  As a Porsche engineer once told me “We make cars to drive, not to enjoy a Coca-Cola.”  Since I still have an addiction to Diet Coke, I am pretty familiar with every McDonalds in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area and Orange County, my two major hangouts.

As long as I can remember I have been going to McDonalds and In-n-Out.  My dad liked the chocolate milkshake and coffee at McDonalds better so we went there more often, at least that was his story.  I think it was because the owner of the McDonalds franchise next door to his office was a patient and we were getting free food.

The thing about McDonalds and In-n-Out is that they were always the same.  It didn’t matter which one you went to, they looked the same the food was the same, sometimes you couldn’t name the city you were in because the McDonalds looked so similar.  I remember the first time I saw the McDonald’s built into an old train in Barstow California.  I didn’t believe my dad that it was a McDonalds.

Today something is amiss today with McDonald’s strategy, and I am not sure what it is.  In business schools across the country, McDonalds is a case study in real estate management.  The champion of the “location location location” mantra of real estate.  Rarely do you see a McDonalds close, pick any other chain and they are closing at a regular basis.

Several years ago Starbucks showed up and created a $3.00 coffee and the “third place”.  The strategy of creating the “third place” worked very well for Starbucks for many years.  Lately a few  of their store have received the ax.  Now Starbucks has received the other end from McDonalds. 

The family friendly McDonalds I grew up with that had playgrounds and Burgers is being turned into McCafe’.  It will be years before this strategy is finished and the answer to the question of its success may even take longer.

Right now, if you go to a McDonalds that you have never been to, you never know what you are going to get.  In Kingwood Texas the owner build a hybrid, funky McCafe with a playground.  Yesterday I stopped in a McDonalds in Irvine California near the John Wayne Airport and might have thought I wandered into a Starbucks.  There was a plasma display with the prices of at least two dozen drinks, all unique and separately listed like commodities on the big board in Chicago.  Do the prices change so fast they need a plasma TV for this?  Or maybe the product mix is changing so fast?

Either way I could see confusion on several people’s faces as they looked around and ordered.  Being near the airport it was clear most of the people were passing through, not regulars on a Saturday morning.

There were a few people probably affected by the economy glad to have a Latte for a dollar less than the Starbucks right across the street, the rest were confused like I was.  A little boy walking in as I was leaving said "Mommy, this isn't McDonalds, there is no play place."

I ended up buying Oatmeal instead of my usual Egg McMuffin, and sat there wondering, “What is next for McDonalds?”  Today I am wondering, "Do they even know?"  

Whatever you do in life or with your business, pick a direction, and go there.  Never let anyone take it away from you or derail you from the path to your target.  Your path to success and fulfillment will be shorter and easier if you stick to what you do, than if you don't and keep trying new things.

The family that owns In-N-Out hasn't changed much in the thirty plus years I have been going there.  They added indoor dining and self serve drinks, and that is about all the change I can think of.  I don't hear anyone in there wondering what is happening, or if they have a strawberry-fat-free-coffee-mocha-caramel-macciato.  I just hear them telling their friends "You gotta try animal style protein dude it's like on the Atkins diet and stuff." 

Set your target, relax, have fun and hit your target dead center every time.  As the title of this article said “A Focused Business Strategy should Lead to a Focused Marketing Strategy” and the same is true for life. Get focused, stay focused and have some fun.