Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy.
Interpretation
Lowering prices isn't a long-term solution for business success.
In this quote, Howard Schultz emphasizes that frequent price reductions or sales cannot serve as a sustainable strategy for a business. Instead, businesses need to focus on providing value, quality, and exceptional service to ensure long-term customer loyalty and profitability, rather than relying on temporary discounts to attract sales.
In practice
In a business seminar discussing effective strategies for success.
The rules of engagement around building a brand have changed significantly over the past 10 to 15 years. Where companies at one time could spread their message through traditional marketing, consumers now seek an enduring emotional connection with the companies they patronize. The foundation of that connection is the most important characteristic of building a world-class brand: trust. Trust with your people and trust with your customers.
The future of America is not an entitlement. We have been given a treasure chest of gifts and opportunities, but some people are being left behind, and success is not sustainable unless it is shared.
Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.
While their service is ending, our responsibility is just beginning!
In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity or you can pick yourself up and say listen, I have to be responsible for myself.
When I first discovered in the early 1980s the Italian espresso bars in my trip to Italy, the vision was to re-create that for America - a third place that had not existed before. Starbucks re-created that in America in our own image; a place to go other than home or work. We also created an industry that did not exist: specialty coffee.
The most efficient way to produce anything is to bring together under one management as many as possible of the activities needed to turn out the product.
What is good for our customers is also in the long run good for us.
If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.
If the employees come first, then they're happy. A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders. It's not one of the enduring green mysteries of all time, it is just the way it works.
Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two - and only these two β basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are 'costs'.
Management innovation is going to be the most enduring source of competitive advantage. There will be lots of rewards for firms in the vanguard.
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