Starbucks – Flexibility At Any Size

This morning my wife and I were taking our son to this great park we found a couple weeks ago. On our way, we decided that we wanted to grab Starbucks, to hold us over to lunch.

Now, regardless of how you feel paying four dollars for a cup of joe, there is no arguing that Starbucks has one of the strongest customer service cultures. It stems from a desire to, “Be your third place.”

So, as I drive up, I expected:

• A warm & enthusiastic welcome, check.
• My favorite drinks to be available, check.
• My drink to be made to perfection, check.
• To spend way to much money on a cup of coffee, check.
• To order a sausage biscuit with egg and aged cheddar cheese on a english muffin, whaaa?!

We all know in this economy, it can be hard to justify spending thirty bucks a week at Starbucks. If you think that is a challenge, simply stop by one of your local Starbucks each day of your work week.

So what is my point? Glad you asked!

Starbucks has gone through a few changes over the past year and not all because of the economy, though this most recent change was obviously an attempt to give you another reason to spend your money with the coffee king. I’ll come back to that in a bit though…

In the past year, the company changed some of its branding considerably. It’s reason, a clean slate of sorts. Its culture and performance wasn’t up to snuff with internal expectations and there needed to be a realignment.

Next, it closed hundreds of stores. All this really means is you can’t walk out of one Starbucks and point at another. However, this was a shift in the obvious drive to own more real-estate than McDonlad’s.

And now, they are offering food beyond pastries? Actual cooked breakfasts and served all day long to boot. (The breakfast sandwiches are a really good size, so you can get past the price tag of $3.50 per sandwich.) I’d take it over a McMuffin and here is the most important part, I will.

I am one of those people, who if not for any other reason than getting caught up in our economy uncertainty, quit going to Starbucks every day to save a penny or two. (Ehemm, I mean a “ten spot” x 5.)

OK. So, what can a SMB learn from Starbucks recent moves?

1. Know Thyself – In business, we get to caught up in numbers and bottom line thinking and forget what we are about and where we want to go. Know your business well enough to see what it could be, where it should be, not just were it is.

2. Adapt - There are few truly adaptable Small Businesses out there. Why? I believe it’s a few reasons.

* The owner is THE decision maker and they’ve, “done it this way and always made a profit.”
* The company lacks vision. Even if they wanted to adapt, what should they do?
* No guts. I know, the big boys have more money… blah, blah, blah. We are in the middle of a social media revolution, the fall of traditional marketing, two major industries collapsing and our financial system under reconstruction. Where exactly is it safe? This is the time to be gutsy, swing for the fence and be the one company not tucking tail and waiting it out. There is opportunity everywhere!

3. Stay Young – When you were young, you had ideas! You saw opportunity on every corner and you had the energy to innovate. Just two things here:

* Embrace that there is a better way to do things today than there was even five years ago. The internet has changed how we sell, market, manage and produce because it has changed us as people.
* Re investigate your company culture! In the midst of change, knowing who you are is the key to success.

4. Make your own luck – Work hard and face the reality that it is going to be hard, but it can be done.

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