[WR #08] The $3 Billion Business Strategy You Should Definitely Be Using
I'm a bit of a weirdo when it comes to business strategy.
To grow and scale their purposeful brands, I advise my clients to do all manner of crazy, nontraditional things, like:
Abandoning social media if they don't like it
Eschewing paid traffic campaigns because they're impersonal & annoying
Actually building real, deep relationships with clients & treating them like friends because - gasp! - it feels good
So when I hear the news that another business weirdo, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, made a bold, crazy business decision, I get pretty excited.
If you didn't get the memo, Yvon and his family - who own Patagonia, a $3 billion privately held company - transferred ALL of their ownership to two different organizations they formed, whose sole intent are to combat climate change.
Patagonia's always been a brand I admire, specifically because of their willingness to do things like this.
No matter how crazy or unpopular or nontraditional or seemingly "stupid" their decisions may appear to anyone else...
Yvon and the company live their values.
And THAT is powerful stuff.
And, oh, btw, remember how I mentioned they're a $3 BILLION company?
Clearly something about that is working...
When we're truly living our values, there's no drag or resistence available to hold us back.
Which means we're able to respond to what's in front of us faster and more easily.
And that anyone else's opinion of what we're doing or why simply doesn't matter.
It elimiates decision-fatigue and frees us to up to work - and live - more efficiently, and joyfully.
And we get better results. (Like the $3 billion kind.)
When I help my clients make crazy decisions like the ones listed above, it's with this exact thing in mind.
And it gets results...
The client who left behind social?
- She filled her retreats before they even opened registration for them.
The one who said, "Heck no!" to Facebook ads for her last two launches?
- She got BETTER results and was 25% MORE profitable.
And the one who decided to go deeper instead of wider with her community?
- Her people are lining up in droves to jump into her program each time we open the doors.
Aligning our activities with our values makes everything eaiser and more fun.
And...
Making the decision to do it can often feel a little edgy.
Yvon Chouinard seems like a pretty powerful guy.
He's spent the last 50 years at the helm of Patagonia leading with his and the company's values at the core of everything they do - from marketing to procurement and beyond.
But he's also a human.
And the human in us can make it feel tricky to do crazy, bold, nontraditional things.
Our human gets scared that we're going to be judged (because in all likelihood, we are...)
And it worries we're going to be shunned from our tribe (because sometimes that happens...)
And at the bottom of that rabbit hole, it's most concerned that the crazy decision we're about to make is going to end with certain death (because all unknowns feel like that one; the ultimate unknown...)
But at the end of the day, the bold decisions rarely kill us :)
And, in fact, they make us better leaders, business owners, and humans.
The other day, my best bud, Kelly Sheets, and I had a lengthy discussion about values, and Yvon's decision with Patagonia, that we shared with our community over at the Epic Experiment.
I'm including a quick 4-minute clip of that convo here for you to check out.
In this part of the conversation we focused on what we both found to be the most influential, impactful, and inspiring element of Yvon's big crazy decision.
And how each of us can incorporate that same thinking into our day-to-day as well:
TLDW? Here's a one line summary:
Truly great & powerful leaders are willing to act boldly in ways that serve the good of ALL.
Since that conversation with Kelly a few days ago, I keep asking myself,
"What else can I do here - in my life and business - that lets me live my values AND serve EVERYONE?"
I don't know the answer to that yet, but I'm willing to get - and stay - curious about it.
Committing to our values is a daily practice with benefits that build over time.
And it can feel tricky to do...
But it doesn't have to be.
It can start as simply as assessing your business activities (like the list at the beginning of this email) to see if the "doing" you're doing is stuff you enjoy, or stuff you do because you "can" or "should".
And then it can grow from there to things in the rest of your life that matter, like your purchasing decisions, family-time, and community involvement.
The more you're willing to flex that muscle, the easier it gets - and the more powerful you become.
You don't have to be a billionaire to make an impact with your values.
You just have to be willing to be a little bit weird, and a whole lotta curious.
See you on the other side...
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