Chobani's Secret to Making Customers Feel Like Family

Hamdi was disappointed that Americans were happily eating sugar-filled yogurt. He wanted a better product and brought his friend Mustafa from Turkey to the U.S. to work on perfecting the recipe for Chobani. It hit retail shelves 18 months later. To this day, Mustafa is the yogurt master of Chobani.

Hamdi pushed the product to mass retailers, wanting to give everyone access to it. By 2012, Chobani had a factory in Australia and was in the midst of building a production facility in Idaho. They were planning for new products and new packaging, testing ways to be available to people with allergies and planning to enter new markets across the globe.

Few companies as large as Chobani live their brand, but even mom and pop shops can learn something from this company.

1. Create a family culture at work. This is a top priority for Hamdi. Chobani’s offices feel like home. All of them have open-air layouts and room for collaboration, including a long kitchen table for eating together. The comfortable space and ability to collaborate gives them an incentive to be there.

Chobani hires talent for a culture-fit. Stressing work/life balance and a flexible work environment allow employees to stay focused. Other perks of working for Chobani include a discounted corporate gym membership, team-building events and Apple products. The unending supply of yogurt doesn't hurt either.

2. Live by your core values. Chobani lives by their core values. They are present in every aspect of the business from internal communications and social media outlets to the hugs the boss gives his employees.

These core values led them to sponsor the Olympics. They had a huge celebration in Upstate NY inviting the entire community near their plant, their farmers, and their employees. They constructed a huge screen, handed out yogurt, and connected the community around them.

3. Forge relationships, not business deals. Chobani’s favorite marketing campaign was Real Love Stories where fans shared their love for the product. One man biked miles and miles to the plant just to see where his yogurt was made and documented it. Their latest effort was to open Chobani SoHo to meet their fans in real life.

The company does business with people and Hamdi believes that being transparent and real are top priorities. For example, when people tweet Chobani, they receive a personal response back from someone at the company.

4. Make yourself known to customers. Leadership is the most important part of growing a business. Hamdi is involved in every aspect of the business. He spends time outside the SoHo store in order to listen to his customers and makes sure to visit every office.

Retrieved from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229823

7 Things Great Entrepreneurs Don't Do

These days, everyone with a MacBook and a blog thinks he’s an entrepreneur. Well, here’s a little tough love for the entrepreneurial generation: Calling yourself a CEO doesn’t make you one and a small army of Twitter followers doesn’t make you a leader, either.

As a wise VC who’s name escapes me once said, “There are entrepreneurs and there are Entrepreneurs.”

Not to dash your hopes and dreams, but the truth is the vast majority of you simply aren’t cut out to be entrepreneurs or leaders. I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. And the sooner you realize you’re not going to be the second coming of Mark Zuckerberg, the better.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s great to reach for the stars. As Robert Browning said, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” But having grown up in the high-tech industry and worked with hundreds of real CEOs, VCs, and Entrepreneurs for decades, one thing I can tell you is the word has become so overused, it’s almost meaningless.

So while there is no one-size-fits-all model for true entrepreneurs, in my experience, there are some things they seem to have in common. This might surprise you, but what sets them apart isn’t some laundry list of attributes. It’s their actions. What makes them unique is what they do and, perhaps more importantly, what they don’t do.

1. They don’t think about work-life balance.They’re mostly workaholics. What that means is their work comes first. It’s what they live for. They’re not freewheeling, fun-loving people who live for the weekend. They live to do what they love, and that’s work.

2. They don’t try to be what they’re not.Probably the most damaging business myth to come along in decades is personal branding. You are not a product, and you can’t change who you are. Besides, real entrepreneurs don’t think about themselves. They think about their ideas and how to turn them into great products and services. And they deliver.

3. They don’t do it for the money.They don’t whine about how hard they work for peanuts. They just do it. And because they’re passionate about what they do and focused like a laser beam, the money eventually comes, big-time.

4. They don’t have day jobs.Great entrepreneurs don’t just dip their toes in the water. They jump in headfirst without a thought about the rocks below. They don’t do a little of this and a little of that. When they hit on something they think is really cool and exciting, they go all in.

5. They don’t give in to fear.They don’t pay attention to those voices in their heads – you know, the ones that haunt you with everything that can go wrong. They’re not fearless, mind you. Nobody is. They just don’t let their fear stop them from taking risks. They do listen to some voices, though: the voice of reason and their instincts.

6. They don’t have grand visions.While some do have grand delusions that they’re destined for greatness – a prophecy that’s often self-fulfilling, interestingly enough – for the most part, they generally don’t have grand visions for their companies. Zuckerberg, for example, wasn’t trying to create a company. He just wanted to rate the looks of fellow classmates.

7. They don’t have virtual mentors.Most people follow all sorts of writers, bloggers and tweeters these days. That’s fine, but to get somewhere in life, to do great things, you have to have real mentors in the real world. Former Intel chairman Andy Grove mentored Steve Jobs. Jobs, in turn, advised Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Behind every great entrepreneur is at least one great mentor. A real one.

Most importantly, real entrepreneurs don’t call themselves entrepreneurs. They don’t do what everyone else is doing. They don’t follow the status quo, conventional wisdom or popular fads. They carve their own unique path. They’re leaders of their own destiny. That’s what drives them. And that’s why they succeed.

Retrieved from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229725

Andrew Mason’s Life After Groupon

Andrew Mason’s Life After Groupon

Anthony Bolante/ReutersAndrew Mason is the co-founder of Groupon.

Andrew Mason is back.

In an online post on Thursday, Mr. Mason, the quirky co-founder of Groupon, announced his plans and gave an update on what he had been doing since being firedas Groupon’s chief executive at the end of February.

Mr. Mason revealed that he would become a part-time partner at Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley start-up incubator. That means he will spend one day a week over the next several months advising young companies. Later this summer, Mr. Mason, who has been based in Chicago, plans to move to San Francisco with his wife, he said.

Once there, he plans to start a company.“If there’s a silver lining to leaving Groupon, it’s the opportunity to start something new,” Mr. Mason said in the post. “I’ve accumulated a backlog of ideas over the last several years, my favorite of which I’ll be turning into a new company this fall.”

A onetime darling of the technology world, Groupon quickly fell from grace after going public in late 2011. The online commerce company reported quarter after quarter of disappointing results, and its stock price sank. It was not surprising to many observers when Mr. Mason was finally pushed out by the board.

(Still, the hedge fund Jana Partners apparently sees a promising future in Groupon; it accumulated a 3.3 percent stake in the company in the first quarter.)

In the months since leaving Groupon, Mr. Mason has been engaging in some “cliched pursuits of the unemployed,” he said. Those include traveling, losing weight and reading.

And then there’s the new album.

“One thing that surprised me” about managing Groupon employees, Mr. Mason said, “was that many would arrive at orientation with minimal understanding of basic business wisdom.”

“I came to realize that there was a real need to present business wisdom in a format that is more accessible to the younger generation.”

He continues:

It was with this in mind that I spent a week in LA earlier this month recording Hardly Workin’, a seven song album of motivational business music targeted at people newly entering the workforce. These songs will help young people understand some of the ideas that I’ve found to be a key part of becoming a productive and effective employee. I’m really happy with the results and look forward to sharing them as soon as I figure out how to load music onto iTunes, hopefully in the next few weeks.

This is not a joke, according to TechCrunch, which says it has confirmed with Mr. Mason that the album “is for real.”

Retrieved from :http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/andrew-masons-life-after-groupon/?ref=grouponinc&_r=0

What you should know about E-Commerce security

IT security has become an issue for many SMEs who sell goods and services on their websites. E-Commerce websites open up the opportunity increase sales but many businesses’ fear of hacking and other information security issues prevent them from taking the plunge.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protected pages enable browsers to identify the server as a trusted entity and ensure privacy and authentication through a protected encryption. Obtaining an authorised SSL certificate is the first step to safeguarding transactions online.

Aside from the obvious SSL certificate, there are other concerns that still play on the minds of business owners. So what are these concerns? And what else do businesses have to be aware of?

Hacking

More than 46 per cent of online businesses identified hacking as the number one security concern over the past year, according to the 2010 Sensis e-Business report. Hackers, fraudsters and privacy intruders can work out ways to track your customers’ shopping and surfing habits by monitoring cookies. More importantly, some hackers can block the websites that your customers frequently open or visit.

What’s the solution? Tell your customers to delete all cookies – including tracking cookies – from their web browser after banking or shopping online. You should delete cookies from your browser also. Web browsers can also be optimised to prevent slow browsing issues.

Data Theft

Although online banking and shopping is very convenient, sometimes insufficient security measures can leave your customers’ personal and confidential information vulnerable to hackers, cybercriminals and privacy intruders.

What’s the solution? Protect your business and your customers against identity or data theft by safeguarding private and confidential information. The best way to do this is to configure a firewall on your PC, encrypt important files and folders, and turn on the phishing filter.

Online Credit Card Fraud

It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced online store owner or are new to e-commerce, you should know how to detect fraudulent credit card transactions. Online credit card fraud is steadily increasing and you need to ensure that your credit card information remains in safe hands.

What’s the solution? The best solution is to remove system restore points by cleaning up the disk space. This is beneficial as hackers or privacy intruders will be unable to track your activities.

Virus Threats

Viruses, malware and adware are all information-gathering programs and usually run in the background without your customers consent or knowledge. These programs monitor their online activities, shopping habits and other details and are capable of tracking user credit card information, passwords and bank account details.

What’s the solution? Minimise security risks by installing an antivirus program to protect your computer from viruses, spyware, malware and adware.

Retrieved from : http://blog.exa.com.au/e-commerce/what-you-should-know-about-e-commerce-security/