See You at the Cheesecake Factory

While on vacation recently, my family and I were biking the beautiful trails of Beaver Creek, CO. As lunchtime approached, we began searching for a nice lunch spot. A place where we could find a nice salad, some refreshing iced tea and enough fuel to get us back to our final destination.

We rode thru a quanit mixed-use shopping center housing some trend retail stores, your corner coffee shop and a handful of restaurants - all of which would likely satisfy our hunger after two hours of biking. After skipping over three or four dining establishments, our interest was piqued by the line of people waiting outside of a normal-looking cafe. Just like that our name was on a list (behind 13 other people).

The last thing we wanted was to wait 30 minutes to silence our growling stomachs. We could have easily walked across the street and grabbed a table for five and finished our meal by the time we were seated at the first place. But we didn't.

So, there we were, like the dozens and dozens of patrons with handheld pagers at The Cheesecake Factory, waiting for a table. The same people I mock every time I go to the mall. What in the world would cause someone to wait in line (sometimes hours) for an average meal, with average service at an average price when you could go across the mall for the same thing? BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT.

Human beings like to be led. In other words, humans like to follow (See Seth Godin's, Tribes). A select few (people, restaurants, amusement parks, automobile manufacturers, athletes) choose to lead. Learn how to lead and the people will follow. Add incredible service, great value and quality products and you'll have people waiting in line to buy from you.