Small Business, Big Lessons - Season 1, Episode 1: Getting better at staying small

Key Takeaways

welcome to small business big lessons a buffer original series my name is Ash Reed head of content at buffer and throughout this series we're going on a journey to understand how great work happens we're telling stories of unique businesses and meeting the incredible people behind them examining how they're doing things differently and what we can learn from their Journeys in today's episode and this whole series really we're looking into what makes a business great but we won't be focused on the traditional measures of success like growth sales and revenue instead we'll be looking at the intangible things that make a company truly exceptional the things that make people want to work for them make customers want to buy from them and make communities proud of them and we'll be exploring how companies can do all of these things while staying small this episode is about a company called askinosi chocolate but it's also about something bigger it's a case study on how a small business can have an outsized impact on the world and serves as a shining example of how you can Succeed in Business and do good along the way I'm Bill Burlingham I am the author of small Giants and companies that choose to be great instead of big I mean have you had Oscar nosy chocolate well you're missing out it's it's going to be better than any chocolate you've ever had and that's where it starts with ask a nosy chocolate but there are other things about it I mean you interviewed Sean and so you know what a wonderful company what a wonderful philosophy he has of course his own personal story is also very very interesting I don't know if he talked about how he was a defense lawyer in Missouri my name is Sean askinosi and the company is escanosi chocolate and we are craft or small batch Bean to Bar chocolate makers and I've been doing this for almost 15 years now traveling around the world buying cocoa beans and we make chocolate prior to making chocolate as Beau mentioned Sean had another career as a defense lawyer he was hugely successful in his profession and never lost a criminal jury trial but eventually he had to find another passion in life and another way to make a living when I was a lawyer nothing was missing I loved everything about it I loved the idea of it so when I was in college and and in law school I felt really lucky to be in law school it's easy to look at a person at one's career in the rear view mirror and make reflective sort of opinions about what why when and how for me when I was trying cases and practicing law and really enjoying it I had no idea that the train was about to stop it was very abrupt for me but when I have the sort of luxury of reflection I I can say oh well I can see that it was most certainly going to stop because normal people can't do this kind of work for 20 years it's just too much I specialized in murder cases he can only just really do that for so long a body mind and soul can only take so much of that when I had that let's call it the courtroom moment it was five years between then and when I started making chocolate I could feel it in my body in my mind it wasn't working and I I kept trying to practice and I did practice the whole five years and it was hard I started having these little mini panic attacks in the courtroom I didn't know what that was I didn't know what a panic attack was then never even heard of such a thing but my doctor thought it might be a heart attack but I tried to keep doing this but because I loved what I did so much and then I didn't that really kind of threw me off it it it surprised me and it I I I was sort of aimless when I was a lawyer I had no Hobbies my hobby was getting ready for the courtroom or you know studying about criminal evidence DNA blood spatter gunshot residue these kind of things that was a hobby for me when Sean realized he needed a more well-rounded life he began seeking out something new to try so I thought you know I need to get some hobbies and I tried a number of things I started doing yoga and that was really nice and I started grilling on my big green egg so I started you know just making all kinds of things from barbecued ribs and hamburgers and chicken and all of that to eventually baking I started baking and then I started really just becoming obsessed with cupcakes and I actually thought my future would be in cupcakes I went to New York City not for Broadway but to see Magnolia Bakery which was a famous cupcake place back then and yes I was you know trying to get these Hobbies but why because I thought that somehow a hobby would turn into my next career another passion and inspiration so for me the search was for a passion and an inspiration what what could that be what could be the next thing that I can love to do during the day you know people say that if you live a fairly long life you're going to spend about 80 000 hours at work so I wanted to do something that I loved and I was passionate about so that's why I started getting these Hobbies but it wasn't coming I wanted to start another business from these and it just wasn't happening I could feel I wasn't inspired by these things like I went all the way to New York and looked at Magnolia Bakery and I wasn't inspired by the cupcakes I thought I would be I wasn't but it led to chocolate desserts and then from chocolate desserts I had this idea one day I was driving to the funeral of a distant relative by myself in the car and I thought you know maybe I should just make chocolate from scratch and I had no idea where chocolate came from I I had no idea it came from a bean or a pod I thought it was like a just a chemical substance that a factory made out of you know just nothing I had no idea but within three months of this uh kind of light bulb moment if you will I was in the Amazon studying how Farmers grow cocoa beans and how the way they grow and harvest cocoa beans influences the flavor of chocolate it was a transformative experience for me on many many levels to be in the Amazon in primary forest and I went back from that trip and I started buying equipment bought a building and here we are chocolate as Sean began to learn about chocolate making he also started to explore how he wanted his business to work and what goals he had we spoke to Beau birlingham the author of the book small Giants he studied companies that have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals goals like being truly great at what they do creating a meaningful place to work and making a difference to their communities Beau believes that eskenosi chocolate is a small Giant and he explained why he thinks the company is so special I would say the first thing they do is that whatever it is that they produce whether it's a product or a service has to be really outstanding and I can tell you from personal experience that askinosi chocolate is the best that's out there so that's number one is that it has to be great the other thing is is it has to be doing things that is customers and its employees think are really great and that make them proud to be associated with the company you look at ask a nosy chocolate and it has to do with their relationship with the farmers and they really sort of have from the beginning going out of their way to develop these very close relationships to them and you know their ability to do that works on several levels number one most people think it's a good thing to recognize the farmers and number two it reminds people that the price product doesn't just appear that it starts someplace and where it starts is on these Farms all over the world and that there are people who are working hard to create the ingredients that Sean then uses to create this fabulous product that is the sort of thing that leads people to become raving fans of the business I knew when I started the company that I wanted to work directly with farmers my grandparents were farmers and an inspiration to me just very kind people who lived a simple life they weren't highly educated and I wanted to honor them I wanted to sort of continue their legacy if you will by working with farmers in places where they grow cocoa beans I wanted to meet the farmers I wanted to see them I knew that I wanted to work with students in the neighborhood of the factory this was kind of a poor neighborhood in my town so I did not have a Grand Vision for a multi-billion dollar company born of these things which I just described you know when I list those things that I just listed it's hard to imagine that the end of that would be oh how can I scale this thing up to get to five billion dollars the quickest so there wasn't a grand plan but there was a plan to honor Farmers work with students and be able to do that as long as I could Sean's upbringing encouraging to work so closely with farmers and really influenced how he built his business throughout this series we'll continue to explore this theme the importance of understanding yourself so you can fully understand where you want to take your business my grandparents had a small farm near my town growing up and I spent a lot of time there it was only like 30 minutes from my house so a lot of weekends a lot of time in the summer and really I loved that place but I love it more in retrospect than I did at the time and what I mean by that is I didn't want to bail hay I did not want to break the ice in the pond so the cows could drink I didn't want to hold a garden I didn't want to do that stuff and especially in my teenage years I was a little jerk about it you know I just didn't want to do it and I so wish that I could you know talk to my grandparents and let them know that I'm sorry for behaving that way because there's such an inspiration to me now uh just the way they were that they're being and so I knew going into this business that I wanted to travel to meet farmers and so I started doing that before I even started the actual business so that's what I did when I went to the Amazon I met with farmers and I still meet with farmers and I talk to Farmers routinely through our field rep this morning I talked with farmers and so that has carried through for almost 15 years and it's a way for me to honor my grandparents and the way they treated me and the way they treated others and it's also a way for us to make great chocolate because I can go and my daughter can go with me and others and we can look at the cocoa beans before they're shipped out on a container Sean's way of doing business is incredibly transparent even in his days in law all the company's finances and operations were open for anyone in the company to view and discussed and we've asked an icy chocolate transparency is a key value they can trace every bar back to where the beans were grown and Farmers also get a cut of escanosis Revenue and we can profit share with the farmers which we've done since we started we translate our financials into their language so they can understand the profit share calculation so the last time my daughter and I were in Tanzania our financials were in Swahili so they can see how we calculate the profit share but this is about relationships some of these Farmers I've been working with since the beginning are more than 10 years I mean I'm dealing with their kids now in some cases so it's deeper than transactional it's much deeper than transactional I remember a few years ago when I was in one of the elders homes in the village he wanted me to explain what nursing homes were and he just couldn't understand it and the people in the room they could not understand what that was culturally that it just made no sense and so he asked me when it came time for me to be in a place like that would I please move there so they could take care of me and they weren't kidding they were serious and I'll never forget that and I've thought about it you know foreign ERS need growth to some extent but the amount and the speed at which you grow can have massive implications and often there's an inherent tension between the pull of growth and achieving the broader outcomes you want to see in your business but achieving those broader outcomes are what makes a business a small giant a company focused on being great not big Sean sees those important trade-offs as something that can be managed by carefully debating the reasons for growth the philosophy of getting better at staying small doesn't necessarily mean never getting bigger just the growth for growth's sake is rarely the best strategy everybody tells us that we need to grow grow grow why I mean it's it's for good reason I mean your friends want your company to grow because they know you're going to be rich your family the same way they hope your company will grow and you have more employees and more square footage and more products and more sales Chamber of Commerce wants it for your community so you'll have more jobs in the community but what I'm saying is can we take a step back a moment and ask if there's a way for us entrepreneurs who are starting these companies to stay small and push against this cultural conditioning that we have of scale at all costs and the reason is because I think that scaling is a strategy that is not without sacrifice now it's okay of course there are many conditions where we must scale to solve world problems like hunger and pandemics and malaria and these things of course we need to scale but what I'm saying is in scaling business as we entrepreneurs start things we will sacrifice something and what that something is is a connection to the reason we started the business in the first place if it was for something other than maximum profit or maximum shareholder gain and so my proposition is can we start a company and find a way that we can be Tethered to the things that Drew us to start the company to begin with this is a discipline and by tethering I mean can we stay connected for example in my company I might not have had that experience with Mr Livingston in his home about him saying that I should come there when I'm too old and they would take care of me maybe I would have delegated that trip to someone else because I'd be too busy managing people and writing checks and finding a way for the company to grow and grow and reach more sales and I might not have gone on that trip that would be delegated to someone else I can talk for another hour on the if I could say Divine experiences that I've had at work and especially traveling that I might not have had if I would have just been growing the company at all costs so I am not suggesting that scale and these experiences that I'm describing are mutually exclusive what I am saying is that if you're not careful you'll lose it you will lose the reason that you started the company to begin with I don't care who you are I don't care how big your company is if you don't find a way to practice this tether and make it a discipline in your life you will lose it and you will look back and say where did it go why am I here I am now lost how do I get back Sean's work and life experiences led him to write a book called meaningful work a quest to do great business find your calling and feed your soul in the book Sean explains how he discovered the secret to purposeful work in business and how we can make those same discoveries no matter what work we do the chapter in my book is called how much is enough and we are in this world conditioned to think that a Relentless focus on profit must be Paramount but it is my belief that companies can and should be participants in the Sorrows of the world to sort of paraphrase a Joseph Campbell quote where he says we are joyfully called to participate in the Sorrows of the world that's as people but why can't we do that as companies as corporations and do it in a way that is not just a bunch of marketing window dressing can we really do it can we really do something in our neighborhood on our street in our community to participate in these heartbreaking issues that face us locally and globally every day Gandhi said if you want to find yourself lose yourself in the service of others what better job benefit could we offer employees than a small chance maybe a modicum of a chance to find themselves and maybe they'll quit maybe they won't keep working for the company but what a service we can give to employees and to humanity if we if we do this and so I am you know or my company I should say is living proof of the fact that a small company can do some good things and still be profitable we have funded over a million school lunches between Tanzania and the Philippines and nutrition programs and we did it all without any donations we did it all sustainably through elementary schools and ptas in the Philippines and in 10 Tanzania and we're only 17 people full time that's it 17 people over a million school lunches we have a chocolate University program where we engage elementary school middle school and high school kids to teach them that business can be a force for good in the world and that there is a world Beyond Springfield Missouri we profit share with Farmers as I said and we do all this stuff and we're profitable we are not hugely profitable however so one question might come up would be well wouldn't you make more money if you didn't do these things maybe I mean I spend a lot of my time raising money for chocolate University we not too long ago 13 months ago built a preschool in Tanzania it's called a checkachea there are 85 students there right now preschool kids in that they had no early childhood education in and or around the village and the farmers wanted to do this the farmers are running the preschool we built it my company doesn't make enough money to build a preschool but I found a donor who would do it and so I spend a lot of time not just making and selling chocolate but also finding donors to come alongside us in our passion to do these things but I can tell you right now that my company is less valuable because of the fact that I have focused my efforts not completely and solely on ebitda noi and massive growth in gross revenue but we're profitable we can service debt we can pay employees a little bit more money each year the Journey of growing a business is full of changes and Sean has learned that the goal posts are always moving and the important thing for him is to focus on getting enough instead of chasing more just for the sake of it one of the things that I've heard is that more is not enough and I love this because it's true when we haven't asked ourselves how much is enough and this idea comes up a lot where I talk to people in their 20s and they say well yeah yeah I mean I I think I know how much is enough but it's not going to be the same in my 30s or 40s or 50s and my answer is right but my message is and I get really excited about this is can you just ask yourself the question I don't care how old you are I don't care where you are in life I don't care where you are in your career can you just ask for now this is a moving Target so if in my 30s I can just I can just back up enough to take a few deep breaths and say how much is enough right now how how much is enough how many Instagram likes do I need how many Facebook followers how many you know retweets do I need I mean how much money do I need just now just right now what what is enough for me right now that is the place where we can begin and if we get into this habit then it's okay if the target moves yeah it's gonna move and when we apply this to the corporate landscape yes it will also move as we have different corporate goals that we want to achieve for example we want to be able to pay people more money so then yes we're going to need to grow the company a little bit how much do we need to grow how much more do we need to grow so that we can pay these people on this team some more money how much more do we need to grow so that we can service debt pay off debt or have better cash flow when we spoke to Beau the author of small Giants he told us that he studied hundreds of companies that do good while doing well like ask an OC chocolate for his research he's been able to uncover the most important factor in building a business that's truly great the most important thing is to have in your own mind a vision of what the company is going to look like once you build it what kind of a product is it going or service is it going to provide what is going to be the relationship with customers what is it going to be like as a place to work you know when you get right down to it what is a business after all a business is a group of people who are trying to create something that other people want to pay for and in fact they like it so much that they're willing to pay you more than it costs you to create it that's your profit and in that sense profit is sort of the Applause that you're getting from your customers I I do think that if if you really want to build a small giant what you need to do is focus on the relationships that you're going to have with all the people you come into contact with and that means your employees obviously and your customers and your suppliers and basically that's what a business is it's a whole bunch of relationships and if you want those relationships to be something that those other people value as much as you do then you have to work on that you have to have some skill in terms of being able to figure it out what it is that's going to make those people happy just as individuals can have a personal vocation Sean believes that companies are living entities and should have a calling that gives meaning to the work of the organization and by having a collective vocation that focuses on more than just products and profits you can create the space to prioritize and accomplish the work that goes beyond your bottom line the vocation of the company is to make great tasting chocolate which supports a sub-vocation or a vocation within a vocation of working directly with farmers and Community Development where we can in those places where we buy beans and another sub-vocation of working with students and working with students and Farmers supports our vocation of working with this idea of making the best tasting chocolate in the world so that's a circle they feed each other and if you were to eliminate one of them then we wouldn't be asking OC chocolate and the chocolate wouldn't taste the same I could give you my cocoa beans in my recipe and my equipment and you could make the chocolate but it wouldn't be the same chocolate and I believe that this chocolate that we make is a product of who we are so all of this stuff is all swirled in together it's all the same there is no vocational Mission part of the business and the real part of the business of making chocolate and selling chocolate it's all wrapped up together it can be messy it can be Tangled Up and sometimes one of them is a priority over the other so there are times when for example we may prioritize feeding children in our school lunch programs over cocoa beans and yes that's happened but it was not a difficult decision to make because it's all wrapped up together Khalil Gibran said that if you bake a bread with indifference you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger well we don't make bitter bread and it's not just bread it's whatever I don't care if you sell insurance or cars or whatever whatever product or service you provide it's a product of Who You Are I started this episode by asking what makes a business exceptional I wondered whether a small business could achieve outsized results do good for the world and provide meaningful work without chasing endless scale and growth after hearing from Bo and Shawn I think we all know the answers to those questions businesses of all sizes can be great and building a truly exceptional impactful business isn't all about growth you can build an incredible company and stay small askinosi chocolate is a perfect example small businesses have the power to change things to change the future of work to redefine Industries and to challenge what it means to be a business because there's more to this world than profits growth and Instagram followers as you think about your business or even that business idea you haven't been able to shake ask yourself this what does it mean to you to build a business that's truly great in the next episode we'll be focused on what it looks like to stay true to your why in business and the amazing things that come from that decision this episode of small business big lessons was written by me Ash Reed script edited by my teammate Ariel Tannenbaum and produced by Rowan Bishop at message heard we're making this podcast because we believe in a different way to do work and we want to share the stories of the businesses inspiring us we also share our own story transparently over at buffer.com forward slash open if this episode has inspired you or is helping you think about building your business in new ways we'd love to hear from you tweet us at buffer head to Apple podcast to leave us a review and be sure to subscribe [Music]