Moxie

Philip-C-Wolf-of-Phocuswright-IMG_9490Philip C Wolf of PhoCusWright

What the hell is Moxie?

One of the gurus in travel marketing is the very passionate Philip C. Wolf, president and CEO of PhoCusWright, a travel marketing think tank. At one of his conferences, at ITB Berlin 2009 he teached his audience that under the present economic circumstances “You need a lot of Moxie”. I didn’t have a clue what that meant. It was later explained to me that maybe you can translate this into “You need a lot of balls” or, “You need a lot of creativity”, or “You need a lot of perseverance”. So far so good.

Until today another passionate marketing guru and gifted blogger and speaker, Seth Godin posted a story on his blog: Everyone is clueless about a guy with a lot of Moxie, John Ness of Galoco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles:

You don’t want to [adress] everyone. You want [to address] the right someone.

Someone who cares about what you do. Someone who will make a contribution that matters. Someone who will spread the word.

As soon as you start focusing on finding the right someone, things get better, fast. That’s because you can ignore everyone and settle in and focus on the people you actually want.

Actually that’s my whole point. That’s what I’m trying to as a hotelier when I want to convince someone to stay in my little luxury hotel.

At the end of the video below John Ness explains where Moxie comes from. You can drink it and he sells it: “It’s is the only soda that made it into the dictionary with it’s own meaning”.

Great story of John Ness. Wow! If only I could get such a thumbs up by Seth Godin:-)

So I learned a bit more about Moxie. Thank you Philip, Seth and John Ness for sharing this. (afterthought: John would be an excellent blogger)

How would you explain Moxie?

4 thoughts on “Moxie”

  1. Wow – great video. should be required viewing for every hotelier – Hits the essential themes –

    Understanding your customer, competitive positioning, what makes a great product, and most importantly, really knowing the business and having a passion for it.

  2. Guido,

    You are already a “Moxie Happy Hotelier”

    Maybe a new branding name for you 😉

    In french, I will translate moxie = courage

    have a great day with your customers

    Best

    Claude

  3. This is inspiring for anyone. Do you think his customers are looking for the cheapest price? I very much doubt it. This is the kind of added value that makes the price secondary.

  4. Moxie for me is determination, believe in what you are doing and why you are doingen it and of course put in the hours to make it work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.