Culture is Your Smartest Investment
My personal mission is to Move, Inspire & WOW the people I come in contact with to help enrich their lives. I’m personally driven to challenge the status quo, think big, then think bigger and never, ever settle for anything but great!
I’m driven by the belief that your time on earth is truly limited, so spend it doing something great! Whatever you choose, do it great – don’t settle for okay, so-so, pretty good, or mediocre.
Whether at work or at home, I strive to live life to its fullest, doing my best to surround myself with the crazy ones and the people who think a little differently.
Over the last 5 plus years, I’ve examined hundreds of companies and have studied their respective cultures. From large corporations like Tesla, Zappos, Disney and Virgin to medium and small sizes companies like G Adventures, Joy Inc, and lululemon to name a few.
All these companies have one thing in common; they get culture in a big way. They not only get it, but they invest heavily in it, and the results are staggering. From higher employee retention and great employee engagement to 10x innovation and 100x creativity. Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” and it’s true! I don’t care how great your marketing, financials, ERP systems, quality or products are. If you focus on building the best company culture, everything else just works and you’ll be sure to win!!!
So what does all this have to do with the markets?
People everywhere are always looking for ways to invest their money and find ways to build more income and equity. Well, if that’s you, I’m going to let you in on a sure way to do just that! The answer is culture – investing in companies with great culture is an almost bulletproof way of investing to make a return. Now I’m not advocating avoiding your stockbroker or even blindly making assumptions when investing, but what I do advocate is do your homework around culture.
Do your homework!
Look for articles on the company you want to invest in. Take Google… investigate their culture and how they treat their people. Google annually ranks amongst the top employers in the country and in fact has ranked number one six times in a row for 100 Best Companies to Work for! Now, have you checked Google’s stock price recently. In the first 10 years, Google stock price rose a staggering 1293%, and just in the last year alone it grew from $541 on November 14 2014 to a current price of $710, that’s a whopping 31% increase!!!
Google isn’t the only great company culture that has grown tremendously. Take Starbucks, a company led by CEO Howard Shultz, and cultural trailblazer! Starbucks gets culture in a big way from paying all their part time staff health benefits to offering free tuition to all of their respective baristas. Their stock was trading at $37 on November 3 2014 and today the company boasts a stock valuation of $62 a share; that’s a 68% increase on the stock!!!
The next time you’re speaking with your stockbroker, investor, and/or personal financial advisor, ask them if they’ve done their homework on culture! If they haven’t, show them the power and financial potential of a culture-based company. Heck, share this Blog with them!
Below are some companies I’ve personally invested in because I believe in their culture:
Google, Starbucks, Netflix, Amazon, Tesla, Apple, Facebook, Costco and Disney.