Category: Other Stuff

“If your sole goal is to maximise profit you are on a collision course with time”
“There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility… The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money”

“Business leaders cannot be bystanders”

These are the powerful words of somebody who knows about business success as they are taken from a recent Fortune magazine interview of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Schultz should know what he is talking about as he has presided over a company with an annual growth rate of 49% for the last 8 years.

Amongst Schultz’s commitments is an initiative called ‘Create Jobs for USA’ which involves selling wristbands at all it’s US stores for $5 – it does what it says on the tin!

The Starbcks Foundation recently donated $5 million to help create jobs for Americans and Schultz and his wife donate substantial sums of their own.

At Jungle Property we donate 1% of our turnover to community projects such as the Red Brick Building project – helping our clients help the community.

What is your business doing about social responsibility or are you too busy worrying about growth?

• Believe in your customers
• Believe in your employees

Remove small print, red tape and all those barriers that get in the way of placing total trust in your customers. Instead of building barriers build trust and you are on your way to being a loved company.

Believe in your employees too – scrap rigid procedures and processes that stop great people doing great work. Do what you can to remove the roadblocks these great people face each and every day. If you are not doing this as a business leader you are failing your employees.

At Jungle Property we have total trust in our customers. We don’t shackle them with contracts designed to penalise – if a customer wants to end a contract let them do it on their terms. My retired solicitor friend thinks I am crazy to allow customers the chance to walk away from a contract and not part with any money 🙂

So you have decided you want to be ‘the best’ but ‘the best’ at what? This is where many businesses get it so wrong. Winning businesses choose a ‘position’. They clearly target customer groups and aim to be ‘THE one’ for those customers. Too many businesses try to be all things to all people. They’re ‘ok’ but not ‘brilliant’. The result is ‘blanding’, not ‘branding’.

Good examples of this in our own industry are the estate agents who also ‘do lettings’ on the side, will have a go at residential and commercial property and for the right commission turn their hand to auctions and will even sell you some financial products as if they haven’t taken enough money off clients already.

When was the last time somebody won an Olympic gold medal at the 100m and the marathon? Decide what you are best at and become brilliant at that event.

Are you branding or blanding?