How to Build a Billion-Dollar Business

CHAPTER 16A TOTAL TEAM EFFORT

Our focus now shifted to the people of Swisse. It had to. We were growing at a rate of knots. We'd gone from a team of 30 in 2005, to 40 in 2006, 50 in 2007, and 70 in 2008: we'd more than doubled in under three years. Finding quality people was always one of our hardest challenges. We paid well over the market rates for great people, and preferred to work with fewer people (and pay them more) than hire someone who may not fit in. Our team had to be open-minded, love change and be prepared to share their ideas on how we could improve upon what we were already doing. What we had done in the past was good, even great, but we needed our people to be relentlessly driven to make Swisse even better. Constant improvement was always our goal. Our culture was our primary superpower that separated us from every other company in the sector, and it created a team bond that transcended the normal day-to-day commitment that most employees had for their workplace. We hired the best and brightest and they gave so much because they loved what they did and what the company stood for.

Our marketing was our secondary superpower. Competitors tried to replicate our marketing but they never got it right. How could they? There were so many interwoven elements that unless you were involved in the intricate planning and production of the campaigns, you would have no hope of unlocking the code. The competitors looked at it through the traditional marketing lens of the 4P's ...