15ISSUE Welcome to the VNB magazine April 2016 issue | Page 16

MOTIVATION

Why Howard Schultz Is So Successful
Howard Schultz is the American chairman and CEO

of Starbucks. Although Schultz is most famous for his
Coffee business, he was also the former owner of the
Seattle SuperSonics and was on the board of directors
at Square Inc.

Early Career
Schultz graduated from Northern Michigan University with a
Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and proceeded to gain
employment as a Salesman, selling appliances for Hammerplast
who sold European Coffee makers across the USA. In five years,
Schultz had climbed the ladder to become director of sales and
he observed that he was selling the most coffee makers to a
small coffee business in Seattle, known at the time as Starbucks
Coffee Tea and Spice Company. He was selling more to these few
stores than he was to Macy’s.
Schultz knew he had to go to Seattle when the increase in numbers never stopped. He was selling more and more coffee makers to them every month. Schultz still fondly remembers the first
time that he walked into the original Starbucks and at the time it
was only 10 years old and only existed in Seattle.

Howard Schultz’s net worth is an estimated
$2.6 Billion
Howard Schultz and modern Starbucks
In 1982, one year after meeting with the founders of the original
Starbucks, Schultz took the position of director of retail operations and marketing for the rapidly growing coffee business.
At this time, they were only selling coffee beans and not coffee
to drink. Zev Siegl, one of Starbucks’ co-founders highlighted
Shultz’s “fabulous communication skills” as a major strength.
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Schultz was determined to have a big impact on the
company from day one and made Starbucks’ mission his
own. It was whilst travelling Italy in 1983 that an important idea struck him. He realised that Starbucks should
not just sell coffee beans but sell coffee drinks as well.
He recalls that it wasn’t just the romantic idea of coffee, it
was the sense of community and the connection between
the people, the coffee and one another. He couldn’t wait
to get back to Seattle and describe how he had “seen
the future”.

“I think if you’re an entrepreneur,
you’ve got to dream big and then
dream bigger.” – Howard Schultz
The company’s founders did not have the same enthusiasm for opening coffee bars within Starbucks’ stores
and they insisted that it wasn’t for them. However,
Schulz was persistent until the owners finally allowed
him to open a coffee bar in a new store that was due to
open in Seattle. It was an immediate success and it was
attracting hundreds and hundreds of customers per day.
However, the rapid success of the coffee bar confirmed
to the owners that they didn’t want to go in the same
direction as Schultz and they didn’t want to get too big.
A disappointed Schultz left Starbucks in 1985 to open a
chain of coffee bars on his own, called Il Giornale and it
quickly became successful.

“At an early age, my mother gave me
this feeling that anything is possible,
and I believe that.” – Howard Schultz