Starbucks CEO: Very superficial for money entrepreneurship

A month ago, I was in Luanda on the African continent. I have been there three times in the past five years. There have been many incidents in Luanda and genocide, but with the leadership of their president, they have finally passed through this difficult time. Starbucks opened a second office in Luanda to support farmers so that farmers there can achieve sustainable development and earn more money in the future. We were sitting in a government helicopter and going to a coffee plantation. Before we landed, we saw it from the window, and there might be 5,000 people waiting to meet us there. I got off the plane and was suddenly overwhelmed by great enthusiasm. I told the government officials if I could let me spend five to ten minutes with these farmers alone. I want them to tell me in their own language how their life in Luanda is, and I can help them do something. At first the conversation progressed very slowly. What surprised me was that a female farmer stood up and said, “Can you buy me a cow?” She said she needs fresh milk to feed her children. Our company has more than 17,000 coffee shops in 51 countries with sales of more than 10 billion US dollars, and this lady only needs a cow, which makes me feel very shocked, and the contrast is great.

From this matter, what kind of responsibility do we have as a person and as a citizen? If I am a business leader, what responsibility should I have? In order to answer this question better, we have to return to our Starbucks business.

Driven by dreams

I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was born in the "public housing." My father’s salary has never exceeded 100,000 yuan a year. Many other people have a lot of things that I have never had. One thing that happened when I was seven years old finally changed my world view. My understanding of other people, the whole world, and sense of responsibility has completely changed. I went home from school that day, and I walked into our little room. My father was lying on the sofa with a blanket on his body. He is a blue-collar, a truck driver. He has no education and life is not easy. He is not respected in his place of life or in the workplace. Many people do not respect him because he has no education and no culture. On that day, around 1960, he fell and fell on his hips. In fact, in the United States in that era, in the 1960s, you had a work-related injury, no medical insurance, no compensation for work-related injuries, your career. It is over. At that moment, I saw the true meaning of the so-called "American Dream." I don't know that I would bear such a big responsibility in such a day, and that day taught me how to see the world.

I used to face huge challenges in financing. We were small at the time and probably smaller than the ones present. Can you think of it in 1984 and 85? How do we finance the concept of a coffee shop? Unlike traditional coffee shops, we are growing faster than they are, and we have to give every employee medical insurance and care for them. In fact, many people do not believe that it took me more than a year to get 3.8 million US dollars. At that time my wife was pregnant and pregnant with my first child, and my job was to finance Starbucks without pay. Her father pulled me to go for a walk with him. We sat down, he said, "Howard, I know that you have a dream, but you have no job, you have to have a practical job." I told him at that time, and what I am going to tell you now is that There is a very subtle difference between victory and defeat. It may be just a step, and this step is passion, commitment, and sometimes a little luck. There are a lot of people who have told me to do something else, do some safe things, and do some insurance. I want to tell everyone, don't let anyone, including your parents, your friends, your colleagues, don't listen to them saying that your dreams can't be realized, don't be influenced by their words.

It is difficult to find funds in the early stage of the venture, but I always dream of it every day. I think if you have a dream every day, your dreams will become bigger and bigger.

Starbucks is not a perfect company, we make mistakes every day. Our business model may not be better than others, but it is different, which is related to my background. From the first day, our business model is to strike a balance between making money and social responsibility. We must make money and give back. Looking back at the growth and success of Starbucks, the first reason is not that we are doing well in real estate, not that we do well in coffee – of course our coffee quality is the best, and the method we do is very fine. But not because of this, but because people are such a company like Starbucks, such a consumer brand is full of trust.

Today, when you create a company, your responsibility is to make everyone you contact with a sense of trust and to do things with a sense of morality. If you can't exceed your customers' expectations, you can't build a good company. But in order to meet or exceed their expectations, you must first exceed the expectations of your employees – no matter how small the company is. I suggest that you do not take shortcuts, the most important thing is to attract people who have the same values ​​as you.

At Starbucks, I recruit people, don't care how high their IQ is, how smart they are, I care more about the other two qualities, I call it CQ and EQ. CQ is curiosity. I hope that people have a curiosity about the world. I hope they can explore what will happen in the future. I hope that they will continue to innovate and constantly improve themselves if they do not meet the status quo. EQ, as you know, is emotional intelligence. In this complex world, you need to have a certain emotional intelligence. Of course, if all three are there, it is Kobe Bryant, but after all, such a person is a minority.

There is another question. If you recruit people, what should you do next? In my opinion, although it is said that a company needs different departments, different functions, etc., all people need it, but the most important one is - the most overlooked is the human resources department. You have to build a great company, no great people can't do it; without a good environment, they can't work together, that's not enough.

We have created our divisions in 51 countries. In these divisions, all employees are our most important assets, and the experience of cultural integration in different countries is a crucial experience for us. And no matter which country we are, we are people-oriented, and we are very committed to providing services to local people and providing them with coffee services. We have just talked about the difficulty of financing. This problem is not only a problem that arises in China, but also in the United States. The most important point is that we stick to integrity and gain the trust of consumers and customers. We have seen that the financial crisis originating in the United States has not stopped yet, and the US economy is still in a state of depression. And the business model we use today is no longer traditional, we have to constantly adjust ourselves and change ourselves with today's changing environment. I think, for me, the most important point is innovation, entrepreneurship, and the courage to break through the rules and regulations, and to break through the traditional principles and laws, entrepreneurs with innovative spirit are more likely to succeed.

Honesty is word of mouth

The establishment of our company is non-traditional, no advertising, no marketing. So how do you know where Starbucks comes from?

In 1996, we entered the international market outside of North America and opened the first Starbucks store in Tokyo. The third-party consultant we hired wrote a very thick report saying that if Starbucks went to Japan, it would fail. why? Because you can't afford the room, the price in Japan is very high, and there is no culture of coffee. Then what do we do? Is it necessary to enter the Japanese market? At that time, we no longer hired this consultant and decided to enter the Japanese market anyway. My colleagues in the United States told me at the time that CNN would also broadcast live for us in Japan. This is a good news. We opened at six in the morning and saw a long queue at the door of the store. I was very surprised to ask the people below, did you hire these people to line up, how do they know that Starbucks is opening here? Later, I thought, they know that they are Americans, Japanese and Chinese, etc. The true nature of human beings is a feeling that everyone in the world has, that is, they will respect certain values. They want to be connected, they want to form a community, and they can communicate and maintain their feelings in this community, which is actually a kind of marketing.

In this era, trust is a very fragile thing. In many private companies, in many organizations, there are absolutely no ways to continue to implement some traditional communication channels and communication methods in the future. So how do you get useful information? It is through friends and partners to get information, rather than relying too much on advertising information. Therefore, the integrity of a company is word of mouth, and it must be linked to humanity. Every company has many competitors in the market, and many companies advertise and advertise online. But what is the key? If everyone is doing the same product, the customer searches the website for a variety of information, he will not pay attention to what the company's values ​​are and what the vision is. As a consumer, comparing two companies, I want to tell you that a successful company should be able to show honesty and take a part of the income to return consumers. Such a company will be the winner of the competition.

Let me talk about another interesting story. It was in London at the time, I walked into a cheese shop, in fact it was on a very busy road, and there were many fashion stores next to it. Suddenly, I went to the door of a small shop that read "cheese." I think this style is not the same as the store around. I walked in and saw a man standing behind the counter, wearing a ragged shirt and a hole, not too decent. I talked with him very respectfully for five to ten minutes. I feel so surprised: in a shop like yours, you can really sell so many cheeses to pay for your costs. How do you do it. He turned and told me, "You are right, young people, I can't afford this cost, I am the owner of this house." Then he told his story. I want to have my own story behind the scenes, and these stories are an opportunity to make a statement, because everyone has a need to communicate emotionally. The story of this man at the time was: The store has been open for more than 100 years, and why he came here to work every day, in fact, is a word, "integrity", the word has not been paid attention to in today's society. What is integrity? He explained, "It’s my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather was engaged in the cheese business. I can stand here today to extend their career and show them a respect." One of my sons was on the farm, and on the farm run by my grandfather, these cheeses were produced, so our business is a family business. We hope to show respect for the history of the family business, and we hope to continue this tradition. "For him, running this cheese shop is not for money. He can describe every piece of cheese I taste, very accurately describing its source. I spent $30 in this store to buy his cheese.

Telling this story is to show that you really want to start a business for money in this society. It is a superficial goal, and often these entrepreneurs will not succeed. Behind an entrepreneur must have his ideas and values, and his greatest success is that people can share his ideas and values. So today we are also struggling towards this goal; I am also visiting Luanda for this purpose. I hope that everyone in the world today will bear a responsibility for what you hear, what you see and what you decide. When I heard that Luanda’s lady said she wanted a cow, we are no longer a bystander. We are among them. This is our responsibility. As a company, I want to be kind to our employees and be able to move towards this goal, providing financial support to Luanda’s families and individuals so that more such women have a cow. Therefore, I believe that in order for a company to achieve truly sustainable development, it is necessary to find a balance, that is, to find a balance between interest pursuit and social responsibility.