Much happened with Starbucks in 2008.  Howard returns as CEO. Starbucks slows its U.S. growth. A "Transformation Agenda" is in progress. Starbucks began pruning by closing 600 locations. The company was diagnosed with "Brand Amnesia." Two Starbucks-created websites are hoping to make stronger connections with customers. The company tested a $1-dollar cup o' joe. On the opposite price end, Starbucks has committed to brewing a more expensive cup of joe. McDonald's smells blood given the growth issues Starbucks is facing.

I've been dissecting all these Starbucks-related issues on my Brand Autopsy blog. If you want to get my latest riffs about Starbucks, read the Brand Autopsy blog. Every couple months I will update TribalKnowledge.biz with links to these riffs on Brand Autopsy. 

Last year about this time Micheal Dell returned to his CEO post at the company he founded.  Under Kevin Rollins’s CEO leadership, Dell’s market share hit a four-year low and growth prospects were grim.  Rollins resigned and Dell reclaimed his CEO role.

Last year about this time Howard Schultz sent a memo to his Starbucks executive team challenging them to get smarter about how they are running the company and to get back to the company's core business.  Starbucks CEO Jim Donald was charged with driving sales and driving innovation at the company.  In 2007, Starbucks stock value fell 48% and the company reported its first every year-over-year drop in customer traffic.  Donald is out and Schultz is back as CEO.

The jury is still deliberating on Michael Dell and the turnaround of his company.

The jury is just convening about Howard Schultz and the turnaround of his company.

For the most riveting and rambunctious discussion about this unexpected CEO change-over at Starbucks, read the comments on the Starbucks Gossip blog.

What?
On a conference call with Wall Street analysts, Starbucks Coffee revealed fewer customers are visiting its stores and that year-over-year sales are stagnant. The company reported a 1.0% drop in customer traffic as compared to the same period last year and despite two price increases, same store sales increased only 4.0% from the year prior.

In response, Starbucks announced a three-point plan to reverse their sluggish financial numbers. First, the company will attempt to sharpen its store-level operations to better deliver the “Starbucks Experience” customers have come to expect. Second, the company will focus on introducing new beverages that are more innovative and more appealing to customers. Third, Starbucks will launch a national television advertising campaign in hopes of driving new customers into its stores as well as getting current customers to visit more often.

So What?
Since being a publicly traded company, Starbucks has never experienced a reduction in customer visits. Remarkably, they have always had more customers visiting its stores … until now. This is uncharted territory for Starbucks. And Starbucks is concerned.

Additionally, for nearly a decade, year-over-year sales at Starbucks have been very strong—anywhere from 7.0% to 13.0%. So the current trend where comp sales are stagnate in the low single-digits is quite alarming for Starbucks.

For many companies, the answer to the question of, “Sales are down and customer counts are falling, what should we do?” is to spend marketing dollars on creating a television-heavy advertising campaign. That hasn’t been the answer at Starbucks.

Starbucks has always followed the unconventional strategy of using its in-store experience as its main marketing tool. Everything about the Starbucks experience marketed the Starbucks business: the coffee in the iconic white logo cup, the personal interaction between a customer and a Starbucks barista, the in-store decor, the music playing overhead, the welcoming smell of the coffee, and the feeling customers had during their Starbucks “moment.”

As noted in the conference call, Starbucks will continue down the unconventional path of spending marketing dollars to improve the customer’s in-store experience through better store operations and more appealing beverages.

But now, the company has also decided to follow the more conventional path to arresting declining sales through launching a television advertising campaign. According to Ad Age, we can expect to see three Holiday-focused animated 30-second spots running on select cable channels and network television channels.

This dramatic change in marketing strategy goes to show us how seriously the company is taking the soft comp sales and declining transaction comps. Starbucks is willing to risk its go-to-market strategy by spending significant monies on television ads to lure customers during the Holiday season.

To this marketer, it’s a little foolish to spend advertising dollars on television during the Holiday season without going all-out. I doubt Starbucks is putting mega-millions behind this television push. With so many retailers spending mega-millions on television advertising during the Holiday shopping season, the limited advertising spend from Starbucks is sure to get lost in all the ad clutter. Plus, I get the feeling these commercials will be go hard on pushing the relevance of the Starbucks brand during the Holidays and go very soft on selling specific products.

A smarter spend for Starbucks would be to go all-out during the Spring/Summer months and use television advertising to promote their promotion-friendly Frappuccino blended beverages. Starbucks has always treated their Frappuccino drinks as being more promotional than their other coffee drinks. For years, Starbucks has done regional radio, billboard, and print advertising to support their Frappuccino portfolio. They’ve come to believe this advertising push positively impacts sales and drives in new customers.

So why doesn’t Starbucks wait until the Spring/Summer months to go all-out with national television advertising? With sales already sluggish and customer traffic trending downward, the company doesn’t want to get too far behind their FY’08 sales goals. Keep in mind, Starbucks will generate around 25% of its 2008 sales during the six-weeks of Holiday. If the company falls behind early in hitting sales targets, 2008 could be a very rough year.

I believe this national television advertising push is a sign Starbucks is desperate to drive sales. Desperate enough to turn its back on the marketing strategy that has made Starbucks what it is today.

What Now?
We all get to sit back, watch the Starbucks television commercials, and watch to see what impact this new marketing direction has on the Starbucks business and the Starbucks brand.

Aug.25, 2007 | On my day-to-day blog, Brand Autopsy, I've started a series of audio/video postings sharing Espresso Shots of Business Wisdom.  Each episode runs less than five minutes and shares business advice I've picked up through the years.  Much of this advice is from my days working inside Starbucks Coffee.  For more, visit the Brand Autopsy blog.

April 4th | In February, I asked you to submit ideas for what Starbucks must do to reclaim its uniqueness … to better connect with customers … and to become the coffee company it once was. Your ideas, along with a few of mine, have been turned into a ChangeThis! Manifesto.

(Of course the motivation for this project came from Howard Schultz’s leaked email in which he expressed concern Starbucks is in danger of losing its soul, its uniqueness—its remarkability.)

Thanks to everyone who submitted their ideas. Not all submissions made it into the manifesto, but a good chunk of them did. Take pride everyone. You shared many great ideas that Starbucks would be wise to follow-up on.

READ THE MANIFESTO by clicking on the image below:

*** Or … CLICK HERE *** 

BONUS:  If your appetite for mulling over Starbucks strategies is insatiable, you should review the series of posts Paul Williams and I did last month. We talked strategies, tactics, and shared some insider knowledge based upon our combined 19-years of marketing experience at Starbucks. Start here and work your way backward. Or, start here and work your way forward.

March 2 | Howard Schultz’s battle cry email deriding decisions the company has made in order to grow is making the rounds. If you haven’t read it, you can read it here.

He’s concerned Starbucks is in danger of losing its soul, its uniqueness—its remarkability. Howard says the romance and theater of coffee have disappeared from Starbucks stores because Baristas now use push-button machines to make espresso drinks. That stores no longer smell like coffee and that every store looks cookie-cutter.

Howard closes the email by asking his executive team to get smarter about the business and to get more innovative to once again differentiate Starbucks.

Hmm … since we’ve all been to Starbucks (some of us more than once-a-day), we’re more than qualified to answer the same strategic question Howard asks of his executive team.

So, send me an EMAIL with STARBUCKS in the subject line. Tell me what Starbucks must do to reclaim its uniqueness? To better connect with customers? To become the coffee company it once was?

My plan is to compile your answers into a free ebook. (Of course that’s contingent upon receiving good answers.) So in your responses … don’t ramble. Be brief. Be smart. Be fast. I’d like to have this ebook posted by the end of March.

NOTE: Blatant inspiration from Seth Godin and his What Should Google Do? ebook.

Feb. 24  |  Howard Schultz, Starbucks Chairman and chief visionary, recently sent a battle cry email to key executives warning them of how decisions the company has made in the past 10 years is resulting in the commoditization of the Starbucks experience.  (Read the entire email here.)

Howard is concerned Starbucks is not the same company it once was. He fears key decisions have led to “the watering down of the Starbucks experience." And he challenged his executive team to guide Starbucks back to its core roots of being a coffee company.

As a former Starbucks marketer who worked at Starbucks from Oct. ’94 until Jan. ’03, nothing Howard says is new. Every decision Howard singles out in the memo as being damaging to the brand has sparked countless heated debates between old school Starbucks partners and new school Starbucks partners. I know. As one of the old school-minded Starbucks partners, I passionately objected to the introduction of automated espresso machines. I also was involved in intense discussions over the loss of coffee aroma in Starbucks locations.

These warning signs Howard mentions in the email of succumbing to the fast food mentality, the lost focus on coffee, and the commoditization of the Starbucks experience have been present for a long time.

In fact, there’s a vintage internal presentation from Starbucks which details the branding conundrum Howard highlights. That presentation is from February 4, 1999 and it’s just as relevant to the Starbucks brand today as it ways eight-years ago.  One telling slide says:

Feb. 14, 2007 | According to the Seattle Times, Starbucks Chairman, Howard Schultz, felt the need to send Starbucks employees a pep-talk letter.  Obviously Howard is bothered by some recent, but unnamed, criticism directed at Starbucks. 

In my eight-years at Starbucks, Howard was never bothered enough to send such a letter to all employees.  On many occasions though, he would leave impassioned voicemails to all Starbucks stores.  However, voicemails are not able to reach all employees at all stores.  Only the store management team, including assistant managers and shift supervisors, listen to voicemails.  So sending a letter to every employee says a lot. 

Read for yourself by clicking below:

Jan. 20, 2007 | The February issue of Entrepreneur Magazine includes an article highlighting recent books about Starbucks Coffee.  TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE is mentioned and the writer, Ken Henricks, drops in a few quotes from me about the importance of treating employees well if businesses seek to treat customers well. 

Click below to access a .jpeg of the article.

Jan. 3, 2007 | This is another installment of the “Starbucks Mailbag” posting where I give a perspective on questions I’ve received about Starbucks strategies and decisions.

This morning I received an email from a friend wanting to learn more about how Starbucks developed the culture of customers customizing their drinks. This friend is working with a quick service restaurant that’s considering implementing a “customizable” drink marketing program. He wants to know how they might be able to approach this “customizable” drink program like Starbucks has done. Interesting question and you may find my response interesting …

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"Kerry" … I think the whole drink customization capability at Starbucks came about through the evolution of its business and not from an act of marketing creation.

Back when the Starbucks menu was limited (just whole milk, two flavor syrups, no caramel, no Frappuccino, etc), customers had limited ways to customize their SBUX coffee. 

But coffee has always been a customizable beverage.  Everyone has their own ritual to concocting the perfect cup for them.  Back in the day, it was adding a specific number of sugar lumps. 

Today, it's evolved considerably with customers having a variety of options, to customization today being able to add 1 pack Equal, 1 pack Sweet-N-Low, 1 pump Hazelnut, etc to any coffee drink at Starbucks.

Starbucks promoted drink customization in the 80s & 90s through its Baristas and not through customer-facing marketing signage.  Baristas told customers how they liked to customize their Latte and their Brewed Coffee and because customers valued the opinions of Starbucks Baristas, they ended up customizing their drinks in similar fashion.

From there, the customization brand aspect of Starbucks has evolved to the extent that I've heard there are up to 50,000 ways a Starbucks drink can be customized.  (I've also heard that customization number to closer to 20,000.  Either way, it’s a considerable number.)

Another aspect to consider is how this customization evolved from the Starbucks drink language.  (You know what I am talking about—Half-Caf, Double Tall, Non-Fat, No Foam Latte.  That’s the Starbucks drink language.)  Starbucks created its drink language to help make drink preparation more uniform resulting in faster delivery and greater consistency from store-to-store.  Once that language was codified and Starbucks Baristas had a systematic way to craft coffee drinks, it became apparent to customers that they could customize a beverage in a seemingly infinite number of ways.

This was all a natural business evolution process spurred on by doing rather than saying.

To clarify this point, think back to 2004 when Starbucks ran an in-store and out-of-store promotion called CUSTOMIZE YOUR CUP.  A fancy booklet was produced explaining how drinks can be customized and some out-of-store print ads ran.  This full-on marketing approach didn't really work too well because it felt contrived and not a natural by-product of the Starbucks Experience.

Customers laughed at the booklet thinking it treated them as being stupid, that (a) they didn't know you could customize a beverage and (b) here's Starbucks getting pedantic by showing how to customize a beverage using elementary language.  There's something to be said for having a "hidden menu" and allowing customers to "hijack" the brand without superficial prodding.  (Just ask In-N-Out.)

As for a quick service restaurant seeking to emulate Starbucks success in crafting a customized drink culture with customers… my advice is to first get employees jazzed about customizing drinks.  That excitement from employees should get passed onto to customers——like it did at Starbucks.

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If you have a burning Starbucks-related question but never knew who to ask, use the contact form and ask me. My answer to your question might appear in a future Starbucks Mailbag posting.

Dec. 6, 2006 | There’s much lore behind Christmas Blend at Starbucks. Back in the day, people used to line up outside the doors of Starbucks locations in the Pacific Northwest so they could be one of the first folks to enjoy Christmas Blend on the morning it went on sale. At least that’s the company campfire story that still gets passed around today.

I’m not sure the anticipation for Christmas Blend exists today like it did back in the day. Nevertheless, when Starbucks starts serving Christmas Blend it still signals the start of the Holiday season for many people, including me.

As a former long-time Starbucks marketer, I’m well-versed in the lore of Christmas Blend. I’ve even managed to save a few old school marketing materials sharing the lore of Christmas. One of my favorite old-school Starbucks Christmas Blend marketing materials is this advertisement from the early 90s. Enjoy …

Nov. 25, 2006 … Recently I chatted with Mark Ramsey of Hear2.0 acclaim. Mark’s a whiz-bang radio marketing guru and crazy movie fanatic. Our paths have crossed many times online with me linking to Mark and Mark linking to me, so it was nice to chat voice-to-voice with him.

Our conversation focused on Starbucks TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE stuff as well as how radio stations can apply some of the “tribal truths” Starbucks has used to build an endearing and enduring brand.

You can wander over to the Hear2.0 site and listen to our 15-minute conversation as well as read a short excerpt of our interview.  Enjoy.

Nov. 4, 2006 | In TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE, I litter the pages with worthwhile quotes from Starbucks Executives.  Unfortunately, not every quote made the cut for inclusion in the book.  The following presentation shares 10 quotes that landed on the cutting room floor.  Enjoy.  

CLICK BELOW TO VIEW THE PRESENTATION: 

Nov. 3, 2006 | This is another installment of the “Starbucks Mailbag” posting where I give a perspective on questions I’ve received about Starbucks strategies and decisions. 

Patty emailed me a question about the pastry offerings at Starbucks … “Beyond why aren’t the pastries as good as the coffee—why are the pastries awful?  Really, with all the wonderful artisan bakeries in every city; luscious scones, whole grain muffins, authentic croissants, Starbucks continues to offer overly sweet, utterly tasteless pastries."

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Patty, you bring a valid point.  The pastries Starbucks serves are not as good as the coffee it serves.  When I was at Starbucks, the mantra was, “Coffee is the core, but food is the opportunity.”  Improving its food offerings is something Starbucks has been trying to do for a long time.  It seems like now the company is more concerned with delivering consistency with its pastries from a store in California to a store in Connecticut than it is in delivering the best quality pastry.  There are many reasons for this.

As Starbucks gets bigger and bigger, they are “nationalizing” more and more of their pastry offerings.  You’ll find that many of the pastries served at Starbucks locations are of the “thaw and serve” variety.  An increasing number of pasties are air-shipped to Starbucks frozen and then are thawed at the store before being placed in the pastry counter.

Artisan and local bakeries have trouble meeting the day-in-day-out increasing demands of supplying Starbucks with fresh pastries. With Starbucks fast-paced growth, they have created a monster that artisan bakeries have difficulty feeding.

Starbucks would no doubt increase sales if they were able to make their pastry offerings more than merely satisfactory. However, as mentioned earlier, beverage is boss at Starbucks.  Since the company excels at preparing and selling coffee beverages, it is easier for Starbucks to impact sales by introducing new, higher-prices beverages than to overhaul its food program.

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If you have a burning Starbucks-related question but never knew who to ask, use the contact form and ask me. My answer to your question might appear in a future Starbucks Mailbag posting.

Oct. 5, 2006 | In the comments section of Tribal Truth #33, Judy asked me … "Can you tell me what it means to create an employee experience? How do the best companies ensure that the employee experience is aligned to the customer experience?"

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[My answer]  Whoa … that’s a loaded question Judy. Simplistically speaking, creating meaningful employee experiences revolves around making the company something employees can believe in (Tribal Truth #32). It’s also about a company realizing that its products do not make great brands but rather, its people make brands great (Tribal Truth #37).

The best companies, namely those listed as one of Fortune Magazine’s "100 Best Companies to Work for in America," spend just as much time marketing to its employees as it does to its customers. In other words, these companies realize that happy, knowledgeable employees will usually translate into happy, knowledgeable customers.

For example … The Container Store is a Dallas-based privately held company specializing in selling boxes, bins, and everything in-between to help consumers organize all their stuff. They have been highly successful with sales in 2005 topping $425 million with just 37 locations in 12 states.

New Container Store employees are given more than 240 hours of training in their first year compared with the industry standard of 7 hours of training per new employee. Employees are paid two-to-three times more than the industry average. And employees are given a generous 40% discount for anything purchased at the Container Store. The company is renowned by retailers and customers as delivering great customer experiences which helps to explain why the company is so successful.

With its focus on making the employee experience matter (Tribal Truth #33), The Container Store astonishes its employees who in turn, astonish its customers with great customer service.

Given the Container Store example, one sure-fire way to ensure the employee experience is aligned with the customer experience is to treat employees like you would want employees to treat customers. Sounds simple. But if it was so simple, more companies would be doing it … right?

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If you have a burning Starbucks-related question but never knew who to ask, use the contact form and ask me. My answer to your question might appear in a future Starbucks Mailbag posting.

Oct. 2, 2006 | This is another installment of the “Starbucks Mailbag” posting where I give a perspective on questions I’ve received about Starbucks strategies and decisions.  (You can read the previous two “Starbucks Mailbag" postings here and here.)

Jeremy (Boise, ID) emailed me a question about the iconic Starbucks paper cups … “I love the regular logo on the white cup. During the Holiday season, they change the design of the cups. Does the design change really boost sales that much?”

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[My answer]  Hmm … interesting question Jeremy.  To mark the Holiday season, Starbucks cups change from its regular white logo’d look to a festive red color design.  Does this cup design change boost sales?  I’m not sure Starbucks has data which isolates the Holiday cup design as being a factor in boosting sales during the Holidays.

Sales at Starbucks always increase during the Holidays for a variety of reasons including … customers buy more merchandise at this time because of the gift buying season, six weeks of social shopping outings with friends and family seems to always include drinking coffee, wintry weather always drives more hot coffee beverages purchases, etc.

As you can tell, it is tough to isolate the red Holiday cup design from all the other factors helping to increase sales during this time.  By the way, Starbucks will generate almost 25% of its yearly sales during the six-week long Holiday shopping season with many Starbucks stores doubling their average weekly sales during these six weeks.

What the red cup does is very Pavlovian in that it triggers something with Starbucks customers to recognize it is the Holiday season. As crazy as it sounds … customers seem to await the red Holiday cup as it helps to put them in the “Christmas Spirit.”  It also, and maybe more importantly, puts in-store employees (Baristas) in more of a Holiday mood.

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If you have a burning Starbucks-related question but never knew who to ask, use the contact form and ask me. My answer to your question might appear in a future Starbucks Mailbag posting.

Sept. 16, 2006 | This is the second installment of the “Starbucks Mailbag” where I give a former insider's perspective on questions I’ve received about Starbucks strategies and decisions.

Eddy emailed me with this double-barreled question … “Why does Starbucks not scoop beans and instead sells pre-bagged coffee ?"

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[My answer] Eddy, the decision to not scoop beans and instead use primarily use pre-packaged coffee comes down to issues of efficiency and quality. 

Up until the late 90s, Starbucks scooped every bag of beans sold.  But scooping, weighing, and bagging beans takes time—time that most Starbucks customers do not appreciate.  Starbucks customers would rather pick-up a pre-bagged pound of coffee than wait the time it takes a Barista to do it.  As you can surmise, these efficiency gains result in greater financial/profitability for the company because it takes less store-level employee labor to bag beans.

To an extent, these efficiency gains are offset by the loss of aroma and theater.  Starbucks stores today do not smell like Starbucks stores did in the past.  Since very little scooping of beans takes place, stores do not have as strong of a coffee aroma as they used to.  Plus, there is very little theater in a customer plucking a bag of beans off a floor display.  Part of the “Starbucks Experience” used to be the theater of having a Barista scoop, weigh, bag, and place a stamp on each bag of coffee sold.  That theater doesn’t happen much these days at Starbucks.

Selling pre-packaged coffee is also a quality issue.  The quality of the pre-packaged coffee is improved in many ways because there is a one-way value in each pre-packaged bag which releases gasses that roasted beans give off.  Simply put, this one-way valve (known as a “Flavorlock” valve) allows coffee beans to not get stale.  Sure, there is a more complicated explanation but that begins to explain it.

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If you have a burning Starbucks-related question but never knew who to ask, use the contact form and ask me. My answer to your question might appear in a future Starbucks Mailbag posting.

Sept. 8, 2006 … Jack Covert, president and founder of the influential business book retailer 800-CEO-READ, recently included TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE in his Jack Covert Selects series of recommended business books.  In his review of TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE, Jack had this to say …

“[TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE] presents the known and unknown practices that have put a Starbucks on practically every city and every street corner gives you 47 short bursts of business wisdom, perfect for picking up and putting down as you have time.”  READ MORE

 

AUGUST 28, 2006 | Over the years I’ve been asked a lot of questions about Starbucks strategies and decisions. In TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE, I share many of my thoughts from experiencing the strategies devised and the decisions made firsthand. However, I couldn’t share every thought because the book would have become too choppy and too wayward.

Hmm … choppy and wayward?  That’ll make for great Tribal Knowledge blog fodder, eh?

So, every month from here on out, I’ll be answering some of the Starbucks-related questions I’ve been asked over the years.  And if you have a burning Starbucks-related question but never knew who to ask, use the contact form and ask me. My answer to your question might appear in a future Starbucks Mailbag posting.

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Our first question comes from Blythe Christopher de Orive.  Bkyth asks, "Who came up with the brilliant idea of marketing CDs at the counter? Was it synergy between the record companies and Starbucks or can you trace it to one individual?"

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[My answer] Not sure this can be traced to one specific individual … more like a trial/error process than anything else. Starbucks has tried to sell many different things at the counter from finger puppets to hard candy to granola-like bars. The real estate space at the main POS (point of sale) is extremely political (and highly profitable) with lots of discussion behind the scenes at Starbucks. 

The decision to sell CDs at the POS most likely came about because (a) CDs sell well as an “impulse buy” and (b) the increased visibility of music CDs at the POS helps to promote Starbucks as a player in the music business.

But another reason to consider is “shrinkage.”  No, I’m not talking about George Costanza shrinkage but rather, the type of shrinkage where inventory shrinks due to theft from customers or employees. Starbucks loses a lot of CDs to theft because they lack security screeners and because they merchandise CDs on racks in out-of-sight corners in its stores. Think about it, every music retailer has security screeners to reduce theft.  Not Starbucks.  Since its stores are heavily trafficked, it’s pretty easy to swipe CDs without a Starbucks barista (employee) noticing.

However, when you place CDs at the main POS where a barista is deployed it becomes more difficult to steal a CD. 

Next time you see a used CD store located near a Starbucks, riffle through their CD compilations section.  Chances are very high you’ll notice many Starbucks/Hear Music CDs still in pristine shrinkwrap condition.

And know you know the rest of the story.  (Wait, I can’t use that line.  Someone else has dibs on it.  Drats.)

AUGUST 2006 | For a company that has accomplished so much, it’s surprising how little the business world really knows how Starbucks found prosperity from selling a commodity. That’s because much of this company’s sage advice and weathered truths exist solely in the hearts and minds of longtime Starbucks partners (employees).

Starbucks Tribal Knowledge is an innate language that has never been written, only spoken, and then, only within the Starbucks tribe.

It’s a pithy quote by a respected Starbucks executive. It’s a mantra used by Starbucks project teams to bring forth passionate followership. It’s emotionally intense advice from old-school Starbucks partners. It’s “a-ha moments” from successful (and failed) projects. It’s poignant. It’s thought-provoking. It’s actionable. It’s what built Starbucks the business and Starbucks the brand.

It’s time for those outside the Starbucks tribe to have access to this knowledge.

As a former, long-time Starbucks marketer, it is my hope more businesses follow the endearing and enduring principles the Starbucks business was built upon.

That’s exactly why I wrote TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE and why this companion website exists. In this companion website, you can PREVIEW the book by reading a sample chapter and familiarize yourself with all the TRIBAL TRUTHS discussed in the book. Plus, I’ve included other goodies in the EXTRAS & LINKS section. If you want to learn more about me, the author, you can do so by going here and here.