I've heard this said so many times: the difference between success and failure is location. Is it?
Last summer, I went to dinner with my family at a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere called Dale and Candi's Cedar Lodge Restaurant in Malone, Wisconsin.
Never heard of Malone? It doesn't show up on City-Data.com! The closest city is Fond du Lac, about ten miles to the south. The other closest population centers are Oshkosh to the west, a 45-minute drive around the lake, and Sheboygan, another 45 minutes to the east. Green Bay is to the north, with Milwaukee to the south, and both are just too far away to count.
If you came to me and said this is where you plan to open a restaurant, I'd say you were dumb, incompetent, or both. The entire population within a five-mile radius is less than 5,000 people, mostly farmers who already work long hours. Few people drive far when picking a restaurant. That's why they're always located in the most convenient places possible.
We were there on a Friday night, and there was hardly any place to stand. The place was packed, with many waiting outside on the deck for a table. Apparently, this is most nights, not just the weekend. The food and service were excellent, and the place ran like a well-oiled machine. I was impressed by everything, from the food to the wait staff, to the prices. While this blog isn't about a restaurant review, I kept thinking about defying a bad location.
If you're driving out west on I-90, beginning around the Minnesota-South Dakota border, you'll start to see signs for Wall Drug. As you head west on I-90 towards Rapid City, or if you're coming from Wyoming heading east, the signs line the road with ever-increasing frequency until you get to the town of Wall, population 875. Wall Drug draws as many as 20,000 people a day, according to their website. They attract 22 times more customers than the entire population of Wall, South Dakota! Think about that for a moment.
They bought the drugstore in 1931 and were barely making ends meet until they started to put up signs for free ice water in 1936. The rest is history, combined with a lot of clever signs. The food isn't great, and there is nothing that would cause me to stop there, other than the curiosity it has become.
Once again, in the middle of nowhere. So what do these two places have in common? Oh, and there are millions like them. They both took a very long time to get there, and they did it by doing something better than everyone else around them.
That's the secret. Both places give the customer something they can't get anywhere else: an outstanding, way-over-the-top experience. It's had me rethinking the old saying about "location, location, location" and how it's everything. Yes, it still is, but it misses the bigger point: you can draw people from far away if you're doing something that is outstanding. It still takes time; neither place did it overnight, but they both persisted and refined until consumers caught on.
My conclusion is that it's less about location and more about a commitment to excellence that makes a business thrive. Examples of this same cause and effect can be found everywhere. Here I am, writing about both and sharing it with you. That's the power of excellence.