Friday, February 5, 2010
BIGGBY COFFEE and Focus Magazine -- SBAM
Positive Energy Should be Your "PE" Ratio
By Bob Fish, CEO and Founder of BIGGBY Coffee. He is also sits on the SBAM Board of Directors. From SBAM’s member-only Focus on Small Business magazine.
Click here for original article
WARNING, WARNING, WARNING! This is an essay…it may be too serious for some, so I want to stop you right here if you’re not in the right frame of mind. But if you want to know my thoughts on PE ratio…here they are ( at your own risk!).
PE Ratio...the definition?
”The P/E ratio (price-to-earnings ratio) of a stock (also called its “earnings multiple,” or simply “multiple,” “P/E,” or “PE”) is a measure of the price paid for a share relative to the annual income or profit earned by the firm per share.” – Lifted from the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PE_ratio.
What???? Fine and dandy if you’re a publicly traded company and what you are doing is serving Wall Street, but where in this definition is the word ‘people,’ whether it be ‘customers,’ ‘employees,’ or your ‘local community’? Where is the word ‘service’ or ‘quality’? These words are blatantly missing. Oh yeah, I understand that all these things are built into the numbers and should be a reflected in the final results.
But this is where I think things get lost. Are profits important? Absolutely! It is a measuring stick of success in a capitalistic society. In any good company – profit is reward for performance.
So if profit is the reward for performance, then profit itself cannot be performance, only its reflection. I think some companies out there have lost their way because they have become focused on profits and not on the performance that produces profits.
So what is the performance that produces profits? Well in my opinion, it begins with people and the investment into those people. This investment is evenly distributed between employees, customers, and the community you live and work in. If a company does not put a hyper conscious effort into each of these areas it will fail. It will be a charlatan, it won’t be believed or respected, or returned to.
In the end, it takes a person to sell and it takes a person to buy, and if a company does not invest in both sides of that equation then simply put, there will be no buyers and no sellers for that business.
Is the product important? Yes, but I think that almost goes without saying. Whether the product be a service or a widget or some combination of both, without a person nothing will happen. People or even a single person is what makes the difference. Think about it. Think about the last time you went out to eat, or went to the mall, or were in any retail transaction. Think about one that you can remember, one that you can remember that was a good experience. I bet you can pin that good experience directly to an interaction with a person – with a personality, and I bet you considered that a ‘positive’ experience.
We absolutely crave positive experiences, but generally they are very hard to find. But when we do, they impact everybody and it becomes contagious. The ‘giver’ feels good, the ‘recipient’ feels good, and they in turn spread that positive energy.
This then leads me to what I actually think PE ratio should be. PE ratio should be the Positive Energy ratio. I know, I know – it sounds a little ‘new age’ and ‘spiritual.’ But I come to this conclusion from honest experience. I have asked myself, “why does one business grow when others falter?” I can see similar products and services, I can even see that there is an investment in people, but what is the ‘x-factor,’ what is the variable that really sets one business apart from another. I’m telling you – it’s the Positive Energy. Even within our own system, those operators that have a higher P/E ratio inherently do better by leaps and bounds.
You can have all the tools, all the mechanisms, and all the people and it simply won’t be enough. Have you ever heard the words ‘smile, it’s contagious?’’ It’s true, and that’s what I am getting at here. Positive Energy output begets positive results, conversely Negative Energy output begets negative results. Think about it this way – think of Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion:
Third Law… Whenever particle A exerts a force on another particle B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A with the same magnitude in the opposite direction.
This law is often simplified into the sentence, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
Let me say it again this way…”Every positive action has an equal and opposite positive reaction.” That’s right, your Positive Energy will come right back to you and if one uses that positive energy on employees, and customers, and community, it will all come back. And when it does, that’s when you will find a profitable company – with a good PE Ratio!
Click here for original article
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
BIGGBY ART SHOW !!
THANK YOU--to all of the parents, families, and staff members who came to support the Crossroads Art Department at Biggby on Sunday! Also, thank you, students, for your dedication and hard work in art class! Keep it up!
Brian, Thanks for the straight talk about BIGGBY :)
Click here for the original article
COFFEE TALK
Questions for Bob Fish, Biggby founder and social media guy
There are 112 Biggby stores and you're going to open 35-40 more in the next few years. Do you have a concern that coffee shops might become the next passing fad in the quick-serve industry?
No. We have a better product than anyone else. We have a highly addictive, legal product that people like to drink.
You worked in a flapjack restaurant in college and after you graduated. What did you learn slinging eggs and flipping hotcakes that translates to the coffee business?
Everything. The first day I walked in there, they explained to me that the customer was king. Believe me, 10 years of serving two eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns and toast for $1.99 teaches you to how to be smart in terms of customer service and getting people to come back.
Is that the "Biggby Way" as it's called in your bio materials?
There is no such thing.
Huh? I think you need to talk to your marketing guys.
The fact that you know about the Biggby Way means I don't have to talk to my marketing guys. I ask people - customers, staff, owners - to describe, in their own words, what the Biggby Way is. What comes out of those conversations is what we teach. The Biggby Way is any good experience that happens in our stores. It's whatever you want it to be.
So it's not written down on parchment paper and hung on the walls of every Biggby franchise, then?
I can't imagine anything as trite as writing down what the Biggby Way is. We do have our cultural values: Be happy. Have fun. Make friends. Love people. Drink great coffee. If you do that everyday, you'll be ok.
What if I don't drink coffee?
I know some people don't drink coffee, but I don't really understand it. I have to teach people - and this is my other mission in life - that with coffee, anything is possible.
Let's talk about social media.
Sure. I'm in a natural business for it, but I'm an unlikely person for it.
Why?
I'm not that hip. I'm unlikely in one way, but in another way, it's an absolute extension of everything we do here. As CEO, I'm kind of removed from what goes on behind the counter, but Twitter lets me have the same kind of dialogue that I would have with a customer that just came into a store.
You've got like 3,000 followers on Twitter. What's more important with Twitter - talking or listening?
There's no "more important" there. It's a leg of the media like outdoor billboards and radio. Twitter has some real advantages in terms of output and I can do it with a lot of frequency.
Isn't that the problem with Twitter and social media - that it all becomes clutter and noise?
It's only noise if it's irrelevant or boring or trite or just corporate crap. It has to come with personality and tell a great story and not be what you'd expect everyday. So it's a little tricky when you're trying to maintain the output level. I'm not going to get up and post, "Hey I just brushed my teeth." And I'm not just sending out coupons either.
You send out coupons on Twitter?
Absolutely. We have a program called E-wards that have tags on the bottom. We send it out and people can forward it. So we're talking about total proliferation of a coupon.
What's with the frogs in your stores? They seem like a non sequitur to me.
Frogs are happy. Have you ever seen a sad frog?
Did you do some focus group or market study on that?
Market study...are you kidding me?
So you probably didn't do an extensive review to select Lansing's legendary funny-folk-rocker Wally Pleasant as Biggby's jingle guy and pitchman. Why is he the right spokesperson for Biggby?
I don't know the answer to that, but he's perfect. I called him up and said, "I don't know you, you don't know me, but your sh-t is funny. I want you to make up a song for me." He came up with a song called "Biggby Coffee is My Happy Place." He set it to a beat and a rhythm that are different than everything else on the radio. So when his Biggby song plays, you hear it.
Is Biggby Coffee your happy place?
Absolutely.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED AND EDITED BY BRIAN EDWARDS, PHOTO: COURTNEY BAKER
Click here for the original article
BIGGBY Marketing Position has been filled....
While sitting at the desk of @BIGGBYfelicity I noticed sheets of paper with marketing ideas in storyboard format...I found out that they had been created by Hannah and Bailey nieces to Aunt Nicole (aka 'Cole) (aka BIGGBY Felicity.) Can I just say ...they get it!
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