In 1980, Scandinavian Airlines was facing $20 million in losses. To avoid bankruptcy, SAS executives decide to take drastic measures and reposition the airline as “the business traveler’s airline.” [1]
The naysayers had their concerns. “What, and sacrifice tourist travelers?!” But the executives won their plea, and the airline was repositioned as planned.
In his book, Selling the Invisible, Harry Beckworth writes,
SAS created EuroClass for business travelers. Euro-Class have olives in the martinis, bigger seats, phones, telexes, a separate four-minute faster check-in counter, and free drinks, newspapers, and magazines.
The move was just what the airline needed, netting $80 million in profit in EuroClass’s first year alone. But something else also happened: the airline attracted more tourist customers.
Beckworth continues,
Because business travelers fly at full fares, airlines earn much bigger margins on business travelers. By filling up so many seats with full-fare passengers, SAS could afford to dump prices on the remaining seats. That is, they could offer even lower fares to tourists. […] Soon, SAS was blessed with the highest percentage of full-fare travelers of any European airline—and the lowest tourist fares in all of Europe, too. [2]
As it turned out, SAS could have its cake and eat it, too—it just needed to get its priorities in order, first.
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We tend to want the best of everything. A better car. A higher salary. These things are fine, of course. Wanting more—for yourself, for your family—is admirable. But rarely in our pursuit of everything at once do we achieve anything worthwhile.
It’s far better to focus on one thing at a time—one habit, one goal—and then add to our repertoire. “Success is sequential, not simultaneous.” writes Gary Keller in The ONE Thing. Once we make traction, we gain confidence—confidence we can parlay into other pursuits. [3]
You can’t have it all. That’s a certainty. But you can have more of what you want. Be patient. Build one wall at a time, brick-by-brick. Then move on to the next.
Footnotes
[1] Positioning involves promoting a product, service, or business within a particular sector of a market. To learn more about positioning, I recommend reading my book summary for Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout.
[2] Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith [Book].
[3] The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller.
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