Doug West and The Maytag Company

Doug West was our Maytag rep when I was about 15 years old. He taught me about the appliance business and certainly more about sales in general. One of our first conversations was about Maytags'founder, Frederick Maytag. Fred, it seems was a bit of an eccentric, wearing the same clothes for days or weeks at a time then pulling out a wad of dough to buy a car with cash. The lesson was never judge people by appearances. Car dealers still have this problem especially with women according to many sales experts.

Freds' company after reaching its zenith in 1997 with the successful launch of its Neptune series crashed to earth, when it failed to respond to its inherent flaws. A couple of poor CEOs finished the job. Whirlpool bought the exhausted Icon in 2005.


Its been a mixed bag for Whirlpool as they entered the fast growing bottom mount refrigeration business, but they also inherited inefficient factories and plenty of poor products. As I said in the last post, their attempt at marketing the Maytag name with a high end top load washer is lamentable.

Lets look again:




The product has 4 speed and probably 20 cycles and a stainless tub. All are nice, but hardly necessary. You can buy a front load Frigidaire for less money, which will be 35% larger and $100-$175 cheaper to operate. Still, Some people will buy the Maytag, because of the marketing or past experience.


Just do not be one of them


Have a nice weekend