I don't have a Costco card. I have a Sam's Club membership that I use maybe once a year when I'm thinking proactively and moved to buy in bulk. Other than that, my annual membership fees of something like $35 really go to waste.
But I read a few lessons about what I can learn from Costco, and so maybe I'll check them out next time I'm in the market for a 40-count of Ramen Noodles.
- Take care of your employees
We here at CoolPeopleCare have a few employees. We try our best to take care of them. And by "take care" I don't mean in the Soprano's fashion, but rather attend to their needs. We do a lot of work not face-to-face, which means other communication conduits like phone and email get used more often. And we try to do a regular check-in with employees, and not about what they're doing, but about how they're doing. As we grow, this will be more and more important. And speaking from experience, one of the best ways you can take care of your employees is the simplest -- pay them -- on time -- without fail. It is never incumbent upon the employee to ask for their hard-earned money. When an employer fails to deliver on this, the most basic agreement between employer and employee, the employee has every right to lose trust and fret. Despite the company's recent round of venture capital or the organization's endowment, an employee only sees their hand is empty, clerical errors be damned.
If you are an employer, and this has accidentally happened? Apologize. Profusely. And make sure it's only a one-time occurrence.
- Keep prices low
T-shirts - $10. Stickers - $2. Annual partnerships - $1/day. If they were any lower we'd be paying you.
- Pay attention to the customer, not the competition
We have two distinct customers -- your nonprofit partners and our Website visitors. In both cases, we exist, survive and thrive only if we're listening to what these two entities want. If we don't produce the right content, our readers don't come back and we lose. If we don't deliver our nonprofits to a new audience so more people know about their good work, we lose. And when we lose these, we lose the opportunity to do what we love. And once you find a job doing what you love, no amount of ego or agenda-setting can take that away.
As for competition, we're a Website. We've got a nearly-infinite number of competitors, vying for users' online time. To try and keep up with that would be a Sysiphean task.
- Focus on a few core options
From the start our philosophy has been to focus. Our approach is two-fold -- steadily remind people that they can make a difference in a small window of time, and frequently show them how to make a difference when they have larger pockets of time. We've avoided getting too far into "social networking" because we first wanted to be the resource for a shot of motivation and inspiration, followed by a comprehensive event listing chaser. Until we're doing that without equal, we can't afford to direct our focus elsewhere.
- Use surprise to create excitement
This one's got us scratching our heads. We've got ideas, some good, some, eh...To surprise someone during their online experience typically has negative connotations. So, until we come up with a winner here, you'll just have to keep guessing. Which, actually, might just be the opportunity we're looking for.
It's always good to look at what other people are doing. It can either validate our own feeling that we're performing well, or perhaps take us to task for being mediocre. And a good exercise can be to look at what others are doing in completely different industries to take with you new ideas of potentially how to recreate similar success.
Every single Walgreen's store is laid out the same. So, whether I'm in Slidell, Louisiana or Bellevue, Tennessee, I always know where to find my baby girl's Pampers. And every time I am reminded of the drugstore's ease-of-use, I try and apply it to the next project I work on such that my site's users are just as at home on my Website as I am in my Walgreen's -- each and every time.
What do you think about at your drugstore?
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The first two, in particular, hit really close to home. I left a company because they did not treat their employees right before (I was a manager). It just goes to show you that some of us really do care about how the employees are treated. In the business I was in, it was hard to keep prices down, as the bottom line was already being hit as it was, but increasing size just to increase prices is not my idea of good marketing.
I like having some order where I work, and both companies I work for provide that to an extent. Keep up the good work here, Stephen!