Break From the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Economy

8. Take Your Customer to an Impossible Place

To achieve the kind of customer relationships that separate you from the pack, you must understand the power of taking your customers to an impossible place.

To help you do this, I will tell you a number of stories over the next few pages. The reason is that if I expect you to take your customer to an impossible place, I must take you, the reader (no doubt an analytically astute intellect), to a place you might consider impossible: a place of images, feelings, and impressions. Stories are often the best way to do this. So let's begin with two unorthodox tales.

Organization Bob

My home is 35 miles away from San Francisco International Airport, and I travel frequently. One day several years ago, I ...