Genius Doer, Inept Marketer

My beautiful wife Michele and I took a well-timed trip to Scottsdale, Arizona last week.

Temperatures reached the high 60’s every day, as opposed to the record low temperatures caused by the “Polar Vortex” back home in Chicago, so we took advantage of the relative warmth to enjoy some outdoor activities.

We ate almost all of our meals outdoors, played a few rounds of golf, played with my sister-in-law Lisa’s dogs in her backyard and had a good, ol’ fashioned cookout prior to the NFL playoff games.

We also visited “Taliesin West,” the winter home of Frank Lloyd Wright for the last 22 years of his life, and also still the winter home of his “Taliesin Fellowship,” the architectural school that he founded in Spring Green, Wisconsin in 1932.

Our tour guide provided about two hours of interesting facts about both the Taliesin West grounds and the personal beliefs and lifestyle of its founder.

A few points struck me as very instructive for today’s small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Today, I’ll cover one main issue…

Apparently, Frank Lloyd Wright was a classic example of someone who concentrated all of his time and energy on being the best at his craft, while completely ignoring the money-generating aspects of his business. He was a genius architect, artist, writer, designer, speaker and teacher, and was named by the Institute of Architects’ “Greatest American Architect Of All Time,” yet he was notorious for being “chronically broke,” as one historian put it.

Our tour guide pointed out several examples of Wright’s many architectural innovations, and let us know that they are used around the world today, but also admitted that he failed to patent a single one of his inventions.

She told us that he built 532 offices, churches, museums and homes in his lifetime, yet because of his and his foundation’s consistent lack of business acumen and skill, she also told us that “we need your donations to keep the Fellowship going. Without your kindness, all of this goes away.”

With such an acute need for donations, you would think that someone representing one of our nation’s most-celebrated geniuses would take even the slightest interest in implementing some simple procedures to encourage visitors to contribute, instead of stubbornly ignoring this crucial aspect of any business.

Here are just two obvious, easily-fixed gaffes…

1. There was a very impressive gift shop filled with Wright-related books and other merchandise, and every visitor was forced to enter it in order to purchase tickets or pick up pre-paid ones. Hundreds of people per day spent anywhere from a few minutes to a half an hour or so browsing throughout the shop while waiting for their tours to begin. So far, so good.

   BUT…

   When the tour ended, we weren’t encouraged (nor forced, as in all Disney properties and many, many others around the world) to re-visit the shop.

   I remember having been somewhat interested in some of the Wright stuff while waiting for our tour to start, but (a) I figured I’d learn some things on the tour that would spark my follow-up interest in picking up a specific item or items, and (b) I hardly wanted to lug around a bag full of books and other souvenirs all over the sprawling grounds for two-plus hours (and I can only imagine how much more pronounced this hurdle is during the several summer months of 100+ degree heat that routinely strikes the area every year), so I told myself I would avoid buying anything before the start of the tour and would visit the shop after the tour ended.

   However, (a) our tour guide never once encouraged us to re-visit the shop over the entire two-plus hours of the tour, and (b) it wasn’t until we were at our car in the parking lot that we even remembered that there was a gift shop, and at that point we just said “the heck with it” and got into the car to leave.

2. About three-quarters of the way through the tour, we were led into the “cabaret” building and told that a woman was situated in the back of the room for anyone who wanted to talk to her after this segment of the tour was complete to inquire into making a donation in support of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. So far, so good.

   BUT…

   When the tour guide finished her spiel in the cabaret, she led us out the front door of the building, without reminding anyone of the woman way up in the back of the room. Even if someone was interested in finding out more about how to financially support the Foundation, they would have had to (a) uncomfortably step out of the crowd – and elbow past them – to go against the grain up the stairs and towards the back of the room, and (b) hold up the whole tour (a big no-no, as our tour guide had warned us earlier) while they checked out the various membership options.

   In other words: Not one of the 18 people on our tour even came remotely close to doing it. Everyone simply filed dutifully out of the room without a moment’s hesitation.

There are multiple tours every day at many Frank Lloyd Wright sites, and if these sins are duplicated, my very conservative estimate is that this systematic sales and marketing ineptitude is costing them a total of several millions of dollars every year.

Maybe they’re okay with that. In my experience, many business people who take pride in their expertise see themselves as “above” learning or implementing any smart sales or marketing strategies. There are many, many doctors, lawyers and other professionals who look at sales and marketing as seedy components of business that are beneath them.

That’s a shame – for all of those professionals (and all of the patients and clients who could be well-served by them, but often choose to do business with less-qualified professionals who happen to be far superior marketers) as well as the Wright Foundation people who are reduced to grovelling for donations and making excuses for why their facilities aren’t top-notch.

It is my sincere hope, dear reader, that you don’t make this same costly mistake in your business.

In next week’s post, I’ll cover the second Big Lesson I learned from my visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home.