Jane Gets The Mom Factor
August 24, 2005
The Mom Factor: What Really Drives Where We Shop, Eat and Play by by Nora Lee -- is a book Jane thinks all businesses should buy and read carefully. Published this year by the Urban Land Institute, this book SHOWS how powerful the Mom factor is. Nora Lee doesn't just give stats, she gives examples -- and descriptions.
Jane is a big promoter of Moms. We talk about Moms all the time. Moms are the best. But, beyond the fact that Moms rule, is the fact that almost all products and services have to pass the Mom test to be successful. We're proud to say, Nora Lee's book tells you why, so Jane doesn't have to!(but you know we will)
However, this is a review so let's get to it. Lee's opening statement in her preface, "What is a Mom?" sets the stage perfectly: "What is a Mom? Poets, artist, writers, musicians, and many other creative people have tried to answer this question...[A mother] comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. She may have tatoos and piercings or smell of corn silk face power and wear a girdle."
As you can see, dear reader, a mom is a lot of things, different things, diverse things. At the end, a mom is interesting and compelling, and above all else, she is a woman. As Lee goes on to note in her preface.
Although Lee used many stores and locations Jane is not familiar with, she also used dozens that we are familiar with. We liked her descriptions and explanations, for instance, when talking about the Farmer's Market (p.10) she says, "The most wonderful thing about the Farmer's Market is its authenticity." She's speaking of HER Farmer's Market, but...we have one right here in good old Rochester, so...Jane just naturally thought about OUR Farmer's Market and we concluded that Lee is right. It's real, authentic, and honest. Gee, haven't we been touting those qualities lately?
Lee writes in a conversational way. Just like Jane! We felt as if we were sitting across from her, having a conversation, saying, "Yes, I remember shopping at ...such and such a place, and you're so right, the customer service was so bad, it was invisible!"
We imagined ourselves on her trips -- she's a traveler, folks, a lady who likes to get around, and take the family with her -- Just Like A Mom! -- whether that was camping or Disneyland or Hershey Park, or any of the number of places she wrote about. We even started reading passages out loud to our fiance, Tom, because they hit so close to home!
Why, when we got to p. 77 and Lee had written, "I had a conversation with my optometrist. She's a wonderful woman on the far side of 50 and she said, 'Your next book should be the Grandmom Factor," we just about cheered! We hope Lee is writing that book because there are a lot of Grandmoms out there, waiting for businesses to 'get it' -- to really get it, to understand the buying power Grandmoms have. By golly, Jane is one of them!
While Jane will admit to some disconnects with Lee, just in a few instances, places where we thought she was a bit too centered on her world and not ours, (we do think the cover does not do justice to the title...the mom is not only faceless, what we can see of her face seems stern; we would have like to see her face, with a big smile on it -- gee, maybe with a smiling baby, too. JOHO) overall, this book is a goldmine of great ways to show Mom you want her business. 
You do, don't you? Want Mom's business? Of course, you do. Where would you be without it? From the preface to Chapter Three's "I'm Not Cooking Tonight," to Chapter Five's "Theme Parks," to Chapter Seven's "Zoos, Museums, and Aquariums Spell Relief for Mom"...we were so busy underlining and jotting "right on!" in the margins of this book, we think we might have missed something, so we're going to start at the beginning and read it again.
Lee ends with, "Conclusion: Listen to Your Mom!" Gosh, Jane couldn't say it better.
What's not to like about that?
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