BEING 7LUCKY & GOOD
Steps
To Being Lucky & Good
In the past year or so , I ’ ve been asked to speak on the subject of innovation about 14 times . As the economic screws tighten , it seems like the pressure increases to invent the culinary equivalent of the next iPhone . People from the press , business schools and bigger companies keep asking me to predict tomorrow ’ s big breadwinners and to foretell the food world ’ s future . I ’ m honored to be asked , but there ’ s little that we do here that ’ s about being predictive — Zingerman ’ s isn ’ t now , nor has it ever been , about catching the next big wave .
So what ’ s the secret to success ? Well , I can tell you some of the things that we ’ ve done in focusing on quality and using the food we make , serve and sell to create the foundation of a sustainable , high-energy business . I ’ m not 100 percent sure that the seven points that follow are the right ones for everyone . But I ’ m pretty sure that they ’ re the approaches that have been working here for nearly three decades now .
1 . MAKE SOMETHING SPECIAL .
If we want to have a special business , the products we sell have to be special , too . I ’ m not saying they have to be expensive , just special . Exceptional . Engaging . Interesting . Different . And better still , unique . Selling stuff that everyone else is selling — even if they ’ re moving a lot of it — is almost never where we look to put our energies . What we want to work with here is the stuff that ’ s NOT selling — at least not yet . We want to put something out there that people will get excited about , take note of , talk about and want to actively get behind .
2 . CREATE SOMETHING PEOPLE ARE GOING TO WANT .
I almost skipped this one because it ’ s so obvious but , yeah , making a distinctive product of exceptionally high quality that no one is going to like or be interested in paying for isn ’ t going to get us far .
How do we know what people are going to want ? One option is learning to go with our gut and find those foods that feel right even though anyone in their right mind would tell us they ’ d never sell . Having done that dance dozens — actually hundreds — of times over the years I ’ m well familiar with it . Seriously , it ’ s safe to say that nearly every significant product we have here was either
( a ) unknown in Ann Arbor ,
( b ) something most everyone said would never sell or , in many cases ,
( c ) both .
One of the ways we do it here at Zingerman ’ s is to hone in on foods that hardly anyone in our part of the world has ever eaten but that are traditional and popular in their place of origin . To me there ’ s not much research needed for this stuff : people from the American South , Tunisia , North Carolina , southern Italy or almost anywhere in the Badger state will tell you exactly how good these foods are . So it ’ s not a huge leap for me to forecast that as-yet-unsuspecting Ann Arborites are going to like them , too .
3 . YOU ’ VE GOTTA BELIEVE !
I ’ ve come to realize over the years that what we sell has to be special , not just so that it stands out in the marketplace but because the people who work in our organization absolutely have to believe in what they ’ re doing . When this is the case , employees feel comfortable selling the products , press people like to report on them and customers like buying them . Because there ’ s nothing to hide , you can just come at it from the heart and know that the more customers learn about a product , the more they ’ re going to like it . And from there , we generate the solidity , trust , calm confidence , appreciation and abundance mentality that are found in any mutually rewarding relationship .
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