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The Fathers of CrossFit Page 1 Whole Foods Boosts Retail Organically Featured Athlete: Alison Scudds Page 2 Affiliate Spotlight: Noah LaPorte Core Values Are Vital — But How Do You Create Them? Page 3 Business Must-Read: ‘Small Giants’ Page 4
‘‘CHOOSING TO BE GREAT INSTEAD OF BIG”
CHANGING OUR IDEAS OF SUCCESS
“You can’t will a baseball glove to be broken in; you have to use it. Well, you have to use a new business too. You have to break it in. If you move on to the next thing too quickly, it will never develop its soul.” –Bo Burlingham At some point, a business has to decide how much growth they want to pursue and how quickly they want to pursue it. O2 was no different. Early on, I remember wondering whether I wanted our products to be in every Wal-Mart in America and if that would require compromising the focus on quality that’s been a value of ours since day one. To be honest, I needed guidance. And I found it, along with plenty of inspiration, in Bo Burlingham’s “Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big.” “Small Giants” is a reminder that there’s no prescribed path a business has to follow. In the book, he profiles 14 companies that set their own goals and march to the beat of their own drum.
While each of the businesses profiled — including Anchor Brewing, Clif Bar, and Righteous Babe Records — is unique, Burlingham discovers some surprising similarities about their philosophies. One of the chief commonalities, Burlingham writes, is “clarity about and confidence in their decision to put other goals ahead of revenue or geographical growth.” In a rush to get as big as possible, many people don’t take the time to reflect on the cost at which that growth comes. All of a sudden, a CEO wakes up in charge of something that looks nothing like their original vision. Danny Meyer of the Union Square Hospitality Group, one of the “small giants,” calls the quality he wants to preserve “soul.” “A business without soul is not something I’m interested in working at,” he says. There’s no wisdom more refreshing than that, especially for business owners. I like to think O2 has a lot of soul, and I hope you do too.
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