Starting A Business For Money Is Superficial

Starbucks is not a perfect company, making mistakes every day. Our business model is not better than others, but it is different. From the first day of the company's establishment, our business model is to achieve a balance between making money and social responsibility, both making money and giving back to the society.

The growth and success of Starbucks does not mean how good our coffee is, but that people are full of trust in such a consumer brand.

Driven by dreams

I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in the "public housing". My father's salary is not high. Many things that are very common to others, but I have never got them. When I was 7 years old, something happened that finally changed my world view. My understanding of other people, the whole world, and my sense of responsibility changed completely.

One day, when I came home from school, I went into that small room. My father was lying on the sofa, covered with a blanket. He is a truck driver, uneducated, and his life is not easy; He was not respected in life and work because he had no culture. On this day, he fell and hurt his hip. In the United States at that time, there was no medical insurance and no work-related injury compensation, and the career ended. At that moment, I saw the true meaning of the so-called "American Dream".

I have faced great challenges in financing. From 1984 to 1985, we planned how to finance the concept of a coffee shop. Starbucks is different from traditional coffee shops. It is developing faster than them. In addition, we should provide medical insurance and care for every employee. Many people don't believe that it took me more than a year to get 3.8 million dollars. At that time, my wife was pregnant with my first child, and my job was to finance Starbucks without salary. Her father took me for a walk with him. We sat down and he said, "Howard, I know you have a dream, but you don't have a job, you have to have a real job."

What I still want to tell you now is that sometimes there is only a very subtle gap between victory and defeat, which may be just a step away. This step is passion, commitment, and sometimes a little luck is needed. Many people have told me to do something else, do something safe and do something safe. I say to you, don't let anyone, including your parents, your friends and your colleagues, say that your dreams cannot be realized, and don't be swayed by their words.

It was difficult to find funds at the beginning of entrepreneurship, but I kept repeating my dream every day. If you have a dream every day, your dream will become bigger and bigger.

Human factor

Today, when you create a company, your responsibility is to let everyone you contact build a sense of trust and work ethically. If you can't exceed customers' expectations, you can't build a good company. However, in order to meet or even exceed their expectations, you must first exceed employees' expectations - no matter how small the company is. I suggest not taking shortcuts. The most important thing is to attract people who share your values.

At Starbucks, I don't care how high their IQ is. I care more about the other two qualities, which I call CQ and EQ. CQ is curiosity. I hope people have a curiosity about the world, hope they can explore what will happen in the future, hope they are dissatisfied with the status quo, constantly bring forth new ideas, and constantly improve themselves. EQ is emotional intelligence. In this complicated world, you need to have a certain emotional intelligence. Of course, if there are all three, it is Kobe Bryant, but after all, there are only a few such people.

Another question, what should you do next when you recruit people? In my opinion, although the achievement of a company requires different departments, different functions, etc., the most important department - often the most neglected department - is the human resources department. If you want to build a great company, you can't do without great people; Without a good environment, they can't work together, which is also not possible.

We have established branches in 51 countries. All employees are our most important assets, and the experience of different countries in cultural integration is crucial to us. Moreover, no matter in which country, we are people-oriented and very committed to providing services and coffee for local people.

We just talked about the difficulty of financing, not only in China, but also in the United States. The most important thing is that we stick to integrity and gain the trust of consumers and customers. We can see that the financial crisis originating from the United States has not stopped until now, and the American economy is still in a state of depression. Moreover, the business model we are using is no longer traditional. We should constantly adjust and change ourselves with today's changing environment. I think the most important thing is to innovate and start a business. In addition, entrepreneurs with innovative spirit are more likely to succeed if they have the courage to break through the rules and traditional principles and laws.

Branding does not depend on advertising

When Starbucks was about to open its fourth branch, I joined the company as its marketing director. Less than a year later, I was sent to Italy to participate in a local coffee trade show. When I came to Milan and walked into those cafes, I must say that I was overwhelmed by the harmonious atmosphere and mellow fragrance.

I suddenly realized that Starbucks has nothing. From 1971 to 1982, Starbucks never sold a cup of coffee. We only sold domestic coffee beans in two places according to the weight. I hurried back to Seattle. What Milan saw and what I had in mind excited me. At first, the founders of Starbucks did not agree to enter this business field. For two and a half years, I kept trying to convince them that they finally agreed to open my first Starbucks coffee shop.

Today, we have opened hundreds of chain stores in China. I think one day, there will be thousands of Starbucks in China. However, it should be pointed out that although we have achieved success in so many parts of the world, success is not bestowed anywhere, especially in China. We must win the respect of Chinese customers, respect and feel the way of life of Chinese people.

If you look at Starbucks as a business case, you will find that our business model is completely different from that of ordinary consumer brands. To be specific, most of the consumer brands that have emerged in the past 10 to 20 years have been established by traditional marketing and advertising methods, while Starbucks does not advertise.

Many people think that we are a company that builds its brand by relying on a large amount of marketing. In fact, we spend very little on marketing. We spend more money on personnel training rather than expanding-
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Notice.

Starbucks was founded initially, but lack of funds. We had no choice but to find another way. But I want to emphasize one thing: we build the Starbucks brand by customer experience; Looking back at the history of Starbucks, we built our brand by the exquisite experience in the store. The slogan of Starbucks is that only by first exceeding the expectations of employees can we exceed the expectations of customers. This means that we must respect our employees. Everyone hopes to be a part of something greater than themselves, and in the end, there will be their efforts in this success.

I don't think Starbucks coffee is very expensive, but high-end products should have high-end prices. This "high-end" is reflected in what we can bring to customers. The coffee beans we bought are much more expensive than those in other coffee shops. In addition, with the experience of tasting coffee in Starbucks, people will feel that it is worth it.

Shallow goals

It is a very superficial goal to start a business for money, and these entrepreneurs are often not successful. The greatest success of an entrepreneur is to enable people to share his ideas and values.

In the past five years, I have been to Rwanda, where there has been genocide, but with the leadership of the President of the country, I have finally overcome this difficulty. Starbucks opened a second office in Rwanda to support farmers, so that farmers there can achieve sustainable development and earn more money in the future. We were taking a government helicopter to a coffee plantation. Before we were ready to land, we could see from the window that there might be 5000 people waiting there to meet us. When I got off the plane, I was overwhelmed by great enthusiasm.

I asked the government officials if I could spend 5 to 10 minutes alone with these farmers. I want them to tell me in their own words how life is in Rwanda and what I can do to help them. To my surprise, a female farmer stood up and said, "Can you help me buy a cow?" She said she needed fresh milk to feed her baby. Starbucks has more than 17000 coffee shops in 51 countries, with sales of more than 10 billion dollars. This lady only needs a cow, which shocked me very much.

So when I heard the Rwandan lady saying that she wanted a cow, we were no longer onlookers. It was a responsibility for us to be involved. I believe that if a company wants to achieve truly sustainable development, it must find a balance between the pursuit of interests and social responsibility.

I actively encourage employees to realize that Starbucks' success is not given, but earned. Only by thinking about customers as always can we keep ahead. But we need to maintain a balance: the rapid changes in the world bring more choices to customers. Therefore, it is important not only to "keep pace with the times", but also to maintain and strengthen our core business, so that we will not be distracted by other things.

Fortunately, looking back on our initial plans, it is not difficult to find that most of the things we have done are consistent with our original dreams. Our initial business model is to balance profit and social responsibility, build trust between employees and customers, and create a leisure environment outside of home and office. On the basis of maintaining our tradition, I think the challenge for the future is how to keep close contact with employees and customers.

When we made our business plan, we didn't expect to have 17000 chain stores today. You know, when I first started raising money for Starbucks, my plan was to open 100 chain stores. But it was very difficult to raise funds. I could not even afford to reprint the plan. I had to change the chain store to 75.

We pay great attention to the quality of our products and provide customers with an elegant environment. We will not, and will not, reduce our requirements for the environment of the store in order to expand. It is a long-term battle and challenge to keep close contact with employees and customers while developing the enterprise. With the development and progress of the company, we cannot break the tradition.