Can You Build a Great Reach Without Values?

Having referenced my last experience attempting to find some type of sustenance from the building beside those large golden arches, I’ll challenge you to think back a few decades for what you could expect. When I was a kid, it was such a treat! For years, there was only one location in our area - and that didn’t even have a playground. The kid’s meals had great toys and the milkshake machine was never broken. We lived about thirty miles out of town so any visit was a special occasion. Oh, how times have changed…

Fast-forward to today. I can list at least a dozen locations within a half hour of me where I could order the same thing I did as a kid, but what I’d get in the bag will be a far cry from what it was all those years ago - and we all know the milkshake machine will be broken! With all this in mind, that company still has incredible visibility worldwide. However, I can't say that what they’re known for lines up with their values.

Now think about where you go for God’s chicken sandwich. The number of locations throughout the Shenandoah Valley seem to be similar to what I remember of those prestigious arches some forty years ago, but I’m sure you’d agree that what we can all expect when we visit one is a wildly different level of service (and quality) than what we could ever hope to get anywhere near those arches today. Since our son had two years of hands-on experience making God’s chicken sandwiches while finishing up high school, I had the opportunity to get a glimpse many likely haven’t had. At the owner and operator level, as well as at the corporate level, that organization does more than just make a drive through run smoothly. Their core values aren’t just printed in a manual or on a website, they’ve instilled those values into the behaviors each team member is expected to use while serving every customer.

While I can’t make a comparison using current prices, having been several years since I’ve been willing to stop at the arches, I don’t recall the two companies ever being very close. Still yet, the drive through line can frequently wrap around one of them at any time of day where you’d rarely be three cars back at the other. Even then, the line will likely make it all the way around the former before the third car gets their food at the latter.

Both companies have a huge reach. In fact, the arches are one of the most recognized brands in the world. But what you and I have come to expect today is significantly different from each of those companies. Although they’re not directly competing with one another on price, both are typically considered to be operating in the same space. Based on what I’ve experienced with each over the last decade, how the organization has built their core values into performance at all levels directly impacts their reach - positive or negative.

A great marketing campaign can certainly increase the number of people who know a company’s name, but how the people within that company model its core values will play a critical role in determining whether or not those people are excited to do business there. With that in mind, we’ll pick up next time by looking at some of the consequences of violating our business’s core values.