“Two Buck Chuck” as a Metaphor

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In the world of wine-making, as in the world of real estate, consumers have many price/quality choices.

With
wine, the sky’s the limit, although most of us expect an expensive
bottle to deliver a wonderful taste with minimal hangover the next
morning.  One might buy a bottle of, say Wine Spectator Magazine’s
Wine of the Year (Casanova di Niri from somewhere in northern Italy)
and spend around $70 a bottle.  Or…

A few years ago, my old
roommate from New York invited me to dinner.  She and her husband
introduced me to Charles Shaw wine – available on the west coast for
$1.99 a bottle (hence the Two Buck Chuck moniker) and here in
Washington for $2.99 a bottle (we call it "Three Buck Chuck" -
something to do with shipping costs).  It is offered for sale at the
Trader Joe stores and has become my favorite loss leader when I shop in
their new Washington store.

So last week, as I drove home from a
showing appointment, I was pleased to hear Steve Inskeep on All Things
Considered report that Two Buck Chuck’s 2002 Shiraz won the coveted
Double Gold Medal in the 28th Annual Eastern Wine Competition.  In a
blind tasting, it beat out 2300 other wines.

As a wine drinker, this was great news!  Yeah for the underdog!  Then I got to thinking.

I
work for a firm that raises full-service to an art form.  Our broker
almost obsesses over the quality of service she provides her
associates, as well as what we provide for the firm’s clients.  If
there was a Real Estate Spectator Magazine, we’d right up there with
that bottle of Tuscan wine.  But what if, I won’t name names here, but
the Two Buck Chuck of our profession found a way to do what we do but
do it for a fraction of the cost.

So far, that hasn’t happened,
at least not in my market.  But I think that those of us who are
full-service agents are going to have to start focusing more than we
have in the past on how to deliver a wonderful taste with minimal
hangover the morning after settlement!

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