Whom Shall We Disappoint?

I came across this passage in Seth Godin's book, We Are All Weird, and wanted to share it with you:

If you persist in trying to be all things to all people, you will fail. The only alternative, then, is to be something important to a few people.

And to get there? To get there you must disappoint some slightly engaged normal folks, who, to tell the truth, can probably live just fine without you.

The ski area at Jackson Hole has a choice: to become even more welcoming to extreme skiers who seek out the expert trails, or to dumb the facility down to be more open to the average skiers who represent the bulk of vacationing travelers who might consider a trip.

You can probably hear the argument in your head. "But if we don't open more beginner slopes and build a new lodge, we'll lose these customers to Aspen!" It's not easy to walk away from average, because average represents mass, or the promise of mass. The chance to become the next Wonder Bread/Budweiser/Chevy is seductive, but no longer practical. The field is too crowded, and there's not enough upside after you build a middle-of-the-road normal brand.

If you cater to the normal, you will disappoint the weird. And as the world gets weirder, that's a dumb strategy.