55. Start Something That Matters | Business Book Club

Your products and the community backing them really can make a big impact on the world at large. I think you'll love this business book club episode about a popular shoe brand you see on today's store shelves.

Grab your copy of Start Something That Matters here (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/4huLpZC

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Transcript

 [00:00:00] Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business. In this episode of the Business Book Club series, I'm sharing my takeaways from Something That Matters.

 An idea, a story to tell, a product to sell. Why am I sharing this book? This book talks about building a promise for a better tomorrow. It talks about having a why that's bigger than yourself to keep you going when running a business gets hard. It talks about how having [00:01:00] something that matters acts as built in accountability.

How leading with a story from the start funneled excitement towards the brand this book is telling a story about. And if you're anything like me, you'll love hearing how this company rethought shoe themed titles and office space within the organization to ensure everyone always felt like a valued, important member of the teamwork.

This book reminds us that a profits only business focus is shortsighted, both when it comes to customers and team members. And as we dive into the holiday shopping season, I think many of us are really thinking about where we want to spend our dollar bills more than ever. So this book reminds us that customers don't buy products, they buy solutions, and they're looking for solutions to the big problems in the world, the small problems in the world, and the problems in their daily life.[00:02:00] 

Customers in this day and age think big picture, and our businesses need to do the same. So something that matters is written by the CEO of TOMS, who you know as a shoe brand. That's a little background on this book. They talk about a lot of other brands along the way, but the story of that brand is a big part of this book, and they're talking through the different decisions that lots of brands have made to encourage us to think about our businesses in a different way.

I loved the discussion in this book about talking to consumers while developing the product. I know when I am in creation mode, I tend to put my head down and really keep to myself and get creative in a vacuum. But it is really important to go out and touch grass and talk to our customers along the way and make sure we're on the right track.

We have to stay really humble. It's not about fighting about whose idea is right and who owns the bright idea. All that [00:03:00] matters is what the market says, and so we wanna know what customers think about our product as early on in the process as possible. There's a story in this book about the red shoes.

The first person, the owner of the shoe company, saw outside their circle of friends and family wearing the shoes. A woman with the red shoes. He stopped her to talk about the shoes and she, not knowing who he was, shared the story of the brand and the mission of the company.

And so it's a moment of pause. Does your brand have a powerful story that they can't wait to share with strangers they see on the street. Tell the story. Tell the story in a way that others can tell it too. Share the story far and wide.

And others will share it far and wide also. When you tell the story, notice what resonates with listeners and what doesn't. Refine the [00:04:00] story and keep testing. There are so many examples of customers spreading the word of a brand in this book, it really caused me to pause and think about my own brand story and my own elevator pitch

and ask when the last time is that story was refined and shared.

I loved hearing about this large well-known business and how it got its start running out of an apartment living room. So many businesses and brands that we know have this humble beginnings story at the start. It reminds me that so much is possible for a business when we keep our expenses as lean as possible.

The author shares a story about wearing mismatched shoes, knowing they would draw attention and spark conversation and open up a chance to tell the TOMS story. What a powerful creative marketing angle that costs $0. Commit to telling the story at every possible turn. Be resourceful without resources.

, Of [00:05:00] my favorite teachers to learn from that's been their core mission. At the beginning of a business's story, there is no money to reinvest and business owners get so, so creative. And later as the bank accounts grow,

it's so tempting to over invest and spend and spend and spend. But if we continue to really focus on making thoughtful decisions like we did at the very beginning when resources were so slim, sometimes that's when our best creative problem solving comes up.

This book talks about limited funds as a strength. It pitches limited funds in a positive way, and I think that's a really powerful reminder to reflect on. The author even shares some examples of companies that had too much cash to work with and how that ultimately was their demise. During this volatile moment in capitalism, the author encourages us to play by a new set of rules.

Customers can be our [00:06:00] supporters. They want to be part of the story, and giving from the start was a bold model for this shoe company. Customer loyalty made Big brands with big pockets want to join in. They wanted to be a part of this mission. So if you think your profits are too meager to share with others, this book might challenge your mindset in the best way possible and help you see these lean times as a true opportunity and help you see how you can invite others into the mission that's important to your heart.

If others help you, you can help others in a bigger way, and people love to say yes to being a part of that. In this book, we heard about customers feeling connected to the story and the mission. Toms is as much a story as it is a product according to the author. As you list the groups you belong to and brainstorm ways to connect your brand to those communities you're already connected to, you'll see that there are so many [00:07:00] creative ideas bubbling up.

There are some great examples shared in the book for ways to include consumers in the story of a brand. Take your time when you read this book. Pause, brainstorm, and really stretch yourself to see how these ideas might make new things possible for your type of business. Media and attention are so much more fragmented than ever before.

And advertising has to shift from what worked back in the primetime TV commercial era. People have personally curated internet experiences, and if we want our brand to become part of their personally curated internet experience, that means we are going to have to think creatively. For example, I watched TGIF as a kid and I'm sure that advertisers paid top dollar to run a commercial

through that two hour time window when so many people were tuned in on that one [00:08:00] channel. The world isn't really like that anymore. I personally haven't subscribed to live cable TV in over a decade, but I do watch a lot of content every day and in order for a brand to get an ad in front of me, I guess it has to be on a podcast I listen to or shared with a creator that I watch on YouTube or on Instagram.

My attention is in a personally curated internet bubble, and so advertisers are really thinking very, very differently in the current day about how to get their product into other people's lives and into other communities and into other groups of people where they can then share the brand story and the mission organically.

I absolutely loved that there was an entire chapter of this book devoted to keeping it simple. So many ideas of how a business could level up and could add something new. But they stopped and said no, because that's [00:09:00] not actually the core of what they wanted for their business.

This book reminds us that when a business is kept simple, it's easier for others to raise their hand to know it's a match for them. When a brand is simple, it's easier for others to know who to share the brand with. And if you feel like you don't have enough take home pay to pay yourself, nevermind

share the extras with a cause on your heart, it could be a sign that the business has strayed from the simple starting point that was the secret sauce when it first started. I'm in a season of subtraction rather than addition, and I think that's been a theme on the podcast this year. I loved hearing how scheduling limits decisions and allows you to be present for what's already on your calendar.

I felt this peace with a busy schedule in high school, and I know my own children benefit from the same structure. They feel much more safe zipping through a busy itinerary than having white space on their calendar and [00:10:00] trying to figure out what they want to do with it. I loved hearing the idea of a not to do list, this idea of finding out what's eating up your time and giving you nothing to show for it. And I was so grateful to hear about no

Email inbox checking before 11:00 AM because the stronger boundaries I hold on my email inbox, the more I get done each and every day. I also loved a reminder that we heard in the customer service episode of Business Book Club about how simple values for a brand can also empower team members to make decisions in line with their brand values.

So in my season of subtraction, I love taking things off my plate and seeing if the business still runs just as well, if not better without them. And it's really interesting as you get rid of complex tech tools that aren't serving you, things that you tried for a little while, hoping they'd have an impact, but realizing they didn't.

And this also goes for your schedule [00:11:00] too.

If your business was making X dollars in revenue when you were running it only on the weekends in two days a week, and then you recently decided to work on your business six days a week, it's a great time to ask yourself: i'm working three times as much, am I making three times as much money? Because if my business is going to make the same amount of money, whether I work on it two days a week, or I work on it six days a week, then that's a really important data point for me to know, and I should take those other four days a week and make some big decisions about the best way to spend them.

Keeping things simple often makes running a business feel more enjoyable and often keeping things simple is what really leads us to the profit margins we're hoping for.

Throughout this book, the CEO talks about a leadership style that leads with a soft human touch. Maybe at the beginning, a business was about you, but business evolves and it becomes more than that. This business becomes about a mission. [00:12:00] It becomes about a community of people that you're serving. It becomes a group effort where everyone wins. And when we really address each day of our business in that way where it's larger than life and bigger than us,

I think it's a lot more enjoyable to run our business and remembering that there's human beings in the process really helps answer a lot of the questions about what we should do along the way.

So maybe you'll read this book and maybe you won't, but either way, thank you for letting me share this small story from my bookshelf and from my heart. It isn't lost on me that 50% of the proceeds of this book are set aside for a charitable fund mirroring the buy a pair, give a pair framework of the TOMS shoe brand.

Please don't feel shame or guilt if your business cannot set aside 50% of profits for a cause that's important to your heart today. But I think this book brings up some good points about modern customers and thoughts they might be having as they compare two different stores where they [00:13:00] could purchase a similar solution.

Remember, you don't have to run your business alone. Read books and talk about them with business besties. Write into my DMs on Instagram anytime to talk about the ups and downs of running a business. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share a takeaway from the book with others to help them on their journey. [00:14:00]