When Wilkes Bashford opened his uber high-end menswear shop in San Francisco 40 years ago, a lot of young men were partial to sandals, jeans and tie-dyed tee-shirts. The result seems surprising in retrospect: The birth of one of the most wildly successful retail clothiers in the City's history. Since then, he's weathered the "dress down" Friday phenomenon and regular waves of fashion fads. No matter, Bashford prevailed. Read about it in ON TOP OF HIS GAME - High-end haberdasher Wilkes Bashford has been a San Francisco icon since 1966. More than an icon, Bashford is a walking, talking Marketing Gene because of his uncanny knowledge of his customers: who they are, what they want, when they'll want it and how much they'll pay. Isn't this what marketing is about? Point is, it's not enough to simply "know" who your customers are in the quantitative sense. You must anticipate tastes, guess correctly, hire and retain employees who share your sensibilities, and cultivate intimate understanding of why your target customers buy, as well as what they're buying. Whether you're marketing network servers, hotel rooms or Brioni suits, these principles hold true every time.
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