James Rutter is the Chief Strategy Officer at COOK, home of award-winning frozen meals and puddings. Founded in 1997, and a BCorp since 2013! COOK now sell via their bespoke website, 111 shops across the UK, and via wholesale. And in the last 15 years they’ve grown from £30million to being on track for £150million in annual sales this year, of which about 1/5 are online.
In this episode, James reveals the three pillars that power COOK’s incredible growth — and how you can apply them to your business.
Key timestamps to dive straight in:
[03:57] “Vertically Integrated Retail Food Chain”
[08:18] “Empowering People in Business”
[12:54] “Balancing Recruitment with Social Impact”
[15:55] Simplifying Strategy for Clarity
[18:57] Painful Choices Ensure Strategic Clarity
[21:21] Annual Strategic Planning Process
[24:14] Cultivating Authentic Brand Connection
[26:50] Confronting Brutal Facts
[29:27] Listen to James’ Top Tips!
Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/564
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[SPEAKER_02]: culture and just believing in culture and the idea that actually culture is a competitive advantage is just really core to kind of who we are as a business and I genuinely think that’s true of whether you’re you know three people or you know 300,000 people.
[SPEAKER_02]: The culture and the connection you have between those people is going to directly flow through to how your business
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome, it’s great to have you here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am super pleased to be able to bring you this guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have been trying to get someone from Cook on the show for a very long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And earlier this year, I saw James our guest today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Put up a post about his strategic process and the strategic approach that has taken Cook to the phenomenal retailer here in the UK that it now is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we thought, oh, that’s sewn in on James and see if we can get him on the show, a myriam our podcast book, a managed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we got James on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we are talking about big picture strategy here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great time of year to be doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is when you should be, I know you’re in the middle of peak.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you should be starting to work out what you’re actually doing this year or as you’re about to discover in this episode, you should have started months ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it’s better than yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s better than tomorrow, rather.
[SPEAKER_01]: So prepare to discover the three key pillars of the Kirk strategy for growth and lots and lots of practical tips within all of this to build it into your business too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And make sure you listen to the end of the episode because
[SPEAKER_01]: And now to introduce our special guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: James Rutter is the Chief Strategy Officer at Cook.
[SPEAKER_01]: Home of award-winning frozen meals and puddings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Founded in 1997, and a B-Corp since 2013, Cook now sell via their bespoke website.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100 and 11 shops across the UK and via wholesale and in the last 15 years they’ve grown from 30 million pounds to being on track for 150 million in annual sales this year of which about one fifth is online.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello James.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello Chloe, delighted to be here, we’re fortunate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Delighted to have you here too, so I’m James before we get into cook and strategy and all those great things.
[SPEAKER_01]: How did you end up in the world of e-commerce?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, am I in the world of e-commerce?
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don’t necessarily speak of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I joined Cook 15 more than 15 years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was my entry to e-commerce.
[SPEAKER_02]: As we had launched a website, I want to say in 2004, but I may be misremembering that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was, you know, we were fairly early in the grand scheme of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was when I got into proper direct consumer.
[SPEAKER_02]: But my previous career, I was actually a journalist for a kind of a dozen years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I lived through that whole kind of dot com boom in the late 90s when suddenly the media industry in particular was kind of exploded by everything going online.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had an earlier formative e-commerce experience, I suppose, during that
[SPEAKER_02]: whole revelation and went and worked for Dotcom and America and then kind of, that all went tits up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I came back and, you know, so yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I’ve seen it seen it from a number of different angles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you said you wouldn’t necessarily class yourself as being an e-commerce now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it retail, you would say a curine, or is it food, or is it, I’m just curious, I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think of us as being, we’re a food business, but we’re also a retailer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what makes us really unusual is that we’re vertically integrated.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we make.
[SPEAKER_02]: everything we sell and we own everything in between as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ve got our shops on my high street, we’ve got our big kitchens, making food, we’ve got we own our logistics, tracking everything around and our coal store keeping it cool and then all those central functions from, you know, all the obvious things marked in people finance.
[SPEAKER_02]: So with 2,000 people and I always say that we’ve kind of literally under our umbrella is all of humanity.
[SPEAKER_02]: because we’re very unusual in the fact that we own that kind of what you might call a blue color manufacturing type of business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we have our lovely cook shops on leafy high streets in lovely suburbs around the country.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s a very interesting mix to try and bring all those people together to one business and feel like part of one business and all turn up and doing amazing job to deliver a great customer experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of course, because you, not only have you got the logistical and financial challenge of owning the whole thing and all the things that does to this and the opportunity as well, but you’ve also got
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s not like there’s, you know, 20 head office people sat in a nice office building somewhere coming in and doing their nine to five.
[SPEAKER_01]: You’ve got a whole arena of different classes, backgrounds, interest, workflows, working stuff going on as well without, you know, turning this into an HR podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does being a B-Corp help with that?
[SPEAKER_02]: It helps to some degree, I guess, I think,
[SPEAKER_02]: culture and just believing in culture and the idea that actually culture is a competitive advantage is just really core to kind of who we are as a business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I genuinely think that’s true whether you’re three people or 300,000 people, the culture and the connection you have between those people is going to directly flow through to how your business performs.
[SPEAKER_02]: and, you know, being called helps to an extent, but I think we’d do it all anyway, you know, I think the cultural stuff is so strong within how we operate, that it would be their regardless.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think having some kind of framework which helps you think about culture intentionally is really important, whether that’s B-Cort, whether it’s something of your own devising or something like a, I mean, we do the best company survey every year, and that gives us a framework.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in a sense, that’s a helpful framework to look at our culture through that lens.
[SPEAKER_02]: But having something that is meaning you sit down
[SPEAKER_02]: how are they doing, you know, as people as well as colleagues, how do we help them do better because we want to do better, having that kind of framework in place is so important, so valuable, why could say whether you’re a mini little tiddler or a massive company, the other end of the spectrum.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I’m sure we’ll get back into that in a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just want to let the audience know, you know, a couple of bits of background before we go deeper, which is that the reason I’ve invited you on is not just because Kirk is an amazing business.
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s also because you put up a LinkedIn post a couple of months ago about the three essentially ingredients for long-term success at Kirk, which with a strategic clarity, cultural, energy, and brand vitality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Should we go through them in order James, or should we just take that cultural angle first?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you want to go?
[SPEAKER_02]: We can stick with cultures with there.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can stick with the culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love that that you pointed out about how having the framework and the structure to actually sit down and think about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think a lot of businesses, the culture piece, the values piece, the whatever it you call it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s like something which
[SPEAKER_01]: someone did a project on in 2019 and then it got put in a draw.
[SPEAKER_01]: It occasionally gets bought out of a real company meeting to make everyone feel good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it gets ignored again for a couple of years.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it’s the actual real commitment, not just lip service, that makes the difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is it the framework you pick?
[SPEAKER_01]: What’s the key thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the key thing is genuinely believing in it, and having the sense that people, properly motivated, properly energized, with that idea that they’re doing something valuable, people will just make the difference, even in this AI world, people will still make the difference for your business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what are you doing to enable your people to give their best?
[SPEAKER_02]: for your course.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you own a or run a business, surely that’s what you want, or if you manage a team, that’s what you want is to make sure people give their best.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s all culture is, it’s really just thinking about, okay, how are we going to show up so that we give our best?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, like I said, it’s not necessarily which framework you pick, but it’s having one, and it’s believing in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s this guy, a common resuming, something McGregor back in the 60s.
[SPEAKER_02]: He had this sense that actually there’s a theory X, and a theory Y about people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And theory X says that like people are just self-interested, lazy, good for nothings, and need a good broad and a good stick and a good battering to do anything with value.
[SPEAKER_02]: And theory Y says that people are actually really self-motivated, energised individuals who’ve given the opportunity will do their best.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the greatest thing was, look, I do tend to believe in X or Y, and in the 60s are a plenty of people in the X cap.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully, there’s fewer of those now, but I’m sure we all come across some of the apps do stuff to definitely live up to that idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not totally, I mean, it’s tangent us here, but I think one of the depressing things that came out, I mean, a lot of depressing things came out of the pandemic, but one of the business depressing things was realizing how many big business bosses have zero trust in their staff.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when sales for spyware on the people’s computers, you know, you can take a,
[SPEAKER_01]: take a screenshot, you know, a photograph of them every hour without them realizing to check that’s still at their desk.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then the absolute conviction that if someone’s not physically in your office, they couldn’t possibly be doing anything worthwhile.
[SPEAKER_01]: I found that quite depressing, you know, which would be system, you know, one of those two series things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which you just kind of, how do people want to live like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because being the boss of a business like that is
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I must be miserable though and yeah, constantly paranoid as in, you know, a good way to think about a useful phrase again, which I think applies and about a what size team you’re working with this is that how do you make everybody feel like an insider.
[SPEAKER_02]: because really what people want is to feel really engaged with something that they’re part of the journey.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as we tend to, if we kind of move up the seniority ladder or whatever, we start to hold information and all the secrets we’ve got.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas actually, you just need to open up and
[SPEAKER_02]: make sure everybody feels like they know what’s going on that they’re inside it in the business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is such a simple thing to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: All that requires is being opened and honest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it might, I think a lovely thing to do is like to send out a regular email if you’re a boss.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, this is what I’ve been up to.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what we’ve been up to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I was in that big meeting the other day.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s that sense in which actually if you let that information flow down, that will be so valuable in terms of the effort that comes back up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that take, it’s kind of like, if you’re gonna build culture as well, the other thing I’ve always felt and feel free to contradict me here, you are far more of an expert in this than I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it’s, you also can’t go, you can’t go top down, hoarding information, you also can’t go top down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, by the way, everybody, here’s our culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it has to be, not necessarily ground up, it has to be almost a swirling pool that involves everybody to actually work out what it is and then to define it and to let it evolve over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think for a time, if you’re small, that can be quite organic.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that sends image if you’re sat in the same room and you can shout over to each other and it’s all all just got that sense of worrying it together.
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you grow, there will be a point in which you do want to put a bit more of a framework around it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, for us at Cook, it was gosh, what was it 2012 I think it was?
[SPEAKER_02]: But by that stage, we were kind of 500 people in total.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we kind of figured out, oh hold on, we’re not, we’re no longer meeting everybody who joins.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the way that you used to be able to just kind of do values in behavior by as Moses no longer quite works.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s the point that we put in place, you know, we created values again, went out to the team, took it all back in and made sure that there’s a kind of co-creatic exercise.
[SPEAKER_02]: But had those very clear values in place so that that could take us from you know, 500 people to 2000 we are now.
[SPEAKER_02]: But those values I think have been
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think implicit in what you were just saying is that if you don’t hire the right people in the first place, you’re on a losing wicked, well, hence why so important at that recruitment stage.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as a business, you’ve made the, this is going to sound really privileged, but it’s not how I mean it, but you’ve made the recruitment process much trickier
[SPEAKER_01]: with the raw talent program where you are doing what pretty much every business ought to be doing, which is trying to help the most disadvantaged in society, which I’m assuming was a was a big leap in the culture, place or was it culture that enabled that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Could you first?
[SPEAKER_01]: Could you explain more about the policy because I have not explained it, but did your cultural abilities
[SPEAKER_02]: So raw talent is a program we’ve been running for 11 or 12 years now and raw stands for ready and working and it’s all about providing people with big barriers to employment and opportunity to get into work and have a kind of thriving career and feel like the life’s going somewhat.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we draw from prison, so people who’ve been in prison, people who’ve perhaps would be at a work for a long time, and they’re long-term and employed very, very hard to often get back into work, and people who’ve maybe suffering with mental health issues.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s people who’ve got these big barriers to getting a job, and it came from, honestly, it came from, I think, our heart as a business.
[SPEAKER_02]: to want to help people and the facts that we do have a kind of big kitchen where we’re making food means there are entry-level jobs that we could offer in a fairly straightforward way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s not true of many businesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it wouldn’t have worked without us having, I guess, even if it was innate at that point, and not particularly formalised, the cultural strengths that people trust us.
[SPEAKER_02]: So to say to somebody who’s working in a team in a kitchen, oh, you’re now going to have somebody come in a sad and beside you, working who’s been in prison, has the potential to kind of create some friction or some ripples, but at that way, in the water.
[SPEAKER_02]: So being very open about it,
[SPEAKER_02]: throughout the whole process, it was coming into being but also then being very responsive to people’s concerns was a big part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that program now, like says, has been going more than 10 years, we just celebrated, I think, our 250th job that we’ve given through that program.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is not just about that individual, it’s about, if you think about them, as there’s just the number of a load of relationships, as their families, their friends, it’s the broader community.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how that report out is just,
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, just a privilege to be part of.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I should say absolutely nothing to do with me is people other people, other than me, he put in the hard work on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so the first of your sustainable success, three essentially ingredients, which we skipped over, is strategic clarity.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that one mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So strategy has, I think, this tendency to be a little bit scary to
[SPEAKER_02]: I know I’m in table, but I don’t know what it is, or I know I’m in table on, so I’ve done this really complicated PowerPoint deck to explain to everybody what it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so really it’s about just saying that, if you want to get somewhere and you’ve got this big ambition to do something, to arrive in a certain place in the future, how are you gonna lay out the clear kind of things you’re gonna focus on to get there?
[SPEAKER_02]: in one page, like meet, let’s meet a one page that anybody can look at and see, oh, I get where we’re going, where we go there and how, in kind of a big picture of how we think we’re going to get to that point.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s just something that I think people are a bit scared of and so and so from run away from.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think just having that real clarity of the business, and we’ve now had a strategic framework that fits on one piece of paper,
[SPEAKER_02]: it’s been basically the same for about a decade.
[SPEAKER_02]: We tweak it, but the shape of it stays the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s got consistency consistency.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, it’s really important in every really clear on consistent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody knows where they’re going.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of it has just been mystifying strategy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that’s whether you’re a little business or a big business.
[SPEAKER_02]: the same things apply, and I’ve kind of got what I think is kind of seven, seven laws of strategies it were.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so as I say, the first one is like thinking about like what’s what’s with difference?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and again, this can apply to whether you’re really small business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And don’t think of that by degree, you know, we’re better than other people are doing this and think of it by kind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, actually we offer this thing in a totally different way.
[SPEAKER_02]: to everybody else in the market.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that’s without that, you’re just going to be part of this big Morris cloud of stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re not going to have really much of a chance of getting anywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re just going to take a little work.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like the OG of strategy, this guy called Michael Porter, who kind of wrote all these kind of big strategic tokens back in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he kind of said, establish a difference you can preserve.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s kind of the bulk of it, though the nub of it, rather, that’s the heart of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So whether that’s your business, it’s like, okay, so, or I was like, what’s the difference?
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got how do we preserve it?
[SPEAKER_02]: So think of like, strategy is different.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there’s like, strategy is gonna be doing something.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you’ve got the difference, but what are you doing, different?
[SPEAKER_02]: And how are you deliver that thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: How is it different from how everybody’s doing it?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, again, it’s so poor to back to poor to young,
[SPEAKER_02]: that deliver this unique mix of value.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was his little quote.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the way everything fits together is probably different from how it fits together at the place down the road.
[SPEAKER_02]: It might do something that the young train ride looks similar.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, what are you doing differently?
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then this idea like strategy is choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you’ve got difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve got to choose.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those choices are probably going to be painful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if they’re not,
[SPEAKER_02]: You’d probably aren’t trying hard enough, you know, if you’re not saying, oh, I really want to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I really want to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I know I can even do one of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I’m not going to do the other thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re probably not being clear enough about your strategy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s a really good test yourself, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Even if you’re looking out the next three years, right, we’re going to do this thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: What am I not going to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: And does that feel painful?
[SPEAKER_02]: And if it doesn’t feel painful, then probably you’re putting some stuff in there that you should not be doing, but you just can’t quite bear to not do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, so make sure it’s painful, you’re choosing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s what we’ve got, we’ve got difference doing choice, create it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, I think lots of you think.
[SPEAKER_02]: strategy is all about having loads of spreadsheets and numbers and loads of analysis, but actually in the first place is about being creative, the creative thinking about actually what is it we’re trying to achieve, where we’re trying to get to in the world and that’s kind of it’s imagination.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you need the imagination bit first and because then it goes on to the fifth thing is like the killer question.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you kind of got this different thing you’re going to be doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: in the future, but what would need to be true for that to be the right choice?
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is a great question, it’s from a book called Playing to Win.
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s kind of called the reverse engineering question.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you come up with a destination first and then you think, oh, what would have to be true for that to be a great strategy?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you start going back, kind of almost reversing out of that end position.
[SPEAKER_02]: and thinking about, oh actually, it requires the world to be blue and for everybody to be kind of wondering around in a toga, then probably my strategy isn’t going to work.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can, you know, you can start to reveal whether it’s just wishful thinking.
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s five.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, so it’s wish ski number six.
[SPEAKER_02]: You go except strategy is going to be risky because you’re saying this is a future we want to create.
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s no guarantees.
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re going to have to do some stuff to get there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you’ve got to get it on a one page, because it’s more than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not clear on concise enough for you to tell everybody in the team or get them on board and know you’re in a good place to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s my seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the way it kind of goes crazy wide and then pulls itself back in, which is obviously the process you need to go through to actually create a good strategy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, completely.
[SPEAKER_01]: How often, you said about it hasn’t really changed in 10 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s the framework.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, the strategy isn’t that different there.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, is it like say it’s involved a bit, but we again, we have a really good risen to how it works.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I think it was in your business if you get into a risen, that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are finally here runs first of April, first of April.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, usually in June, we’ll get together as the kind of the senior team to talk about the strategy, but you have a few days out and we’ll be looking definitely much further ahead, but into that, into that process, we’ll have taken soundings from across the business.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we’ll come out of that with some thoughts about why actually what do we need to be looking at?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we’ll go away do some more work over the summer, come back in the water museum around October time to narrow down if you like our strategic choices for the next year into more of a plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we’re going to budgeting through the winter, launch it in the spring cycle starts again.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that kind of
[SPEAKER_02]: risen to it really works and again you’re kind of then you can look far out come back in closer a bit look far out again so having just that system that works means everybody’s on the same rhythm and it’s not haphazard and it obviously feeds into budgeting but it does help.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you clearly would that rhythm give in yourself time to sense check as the deliverables and the actions that are going to be taken to achieve this strategy get decided.
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s not like, oh yes, in December, on the first we have a meeting on the second we ask the team, on the third we do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s a drawn out space.
[SPEAKER_01]: There’s time to investigate research, sense check and so on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, there’s genuinely no surprise.
[SPEAKER_02]: By the time it comes to actually having to do stuff, there’s zero surprises.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes, in May, you’re not going to talk to other businesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, quite big, you know, maybe not huge, but, you know, maybe 10, 20 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: As like, oh, yeah, we kind of, we do what you were just saying.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a meeting on December 1st, quickly sign off the budget and then tell everybody on like the first of January.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here’s the plan for the year or anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: poor people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, it’s like making everybody feel like inside us, so they know what’s coming, they know the kind of the biggest use that you’re dealing, you’re wrestling with, the choices you’re trying to make.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it’s not just no surprises for the kind of people at the top, it’s no surprises for anybody, because hopefully they’ve been brought into that process that always through.
[SPEAKER_02]: And importantly, had the opportunity to throw in their ideas, and they’re kind of to pen it’s worth about, I can’t believe you’re not doing X, Y, as it’s, you know, give people that
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it’s, and we all know fundamentally that we are programmed as human beings to be more into things that we had a role in creating.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it’s simply will help deliver better at the end of it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the third one, brand vitality.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean clearly built by both of the two pieces you’ve already taken us through, but how does this one function?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think this has done all about how do you take, you know, you’ve got the nice clear strategy, you’ve got the team that’s hopefully then energized around it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it’s what it’s how do you take that out to the world in a way that is going to really resonate?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I, you know, unsurprisingly from what we’re being through, I’m kind of this big believer in that brands work from into our that kind of
[SPEAKER_02]: that you really have to feel it inside before you can hope for anybody to feel it outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: So genuinely that that real kind of cultural strength is what filters through to people in the outside world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so then it’s all about just thinking about, okay, so how do we make that story resonate with our target customers?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is it that’s really going to connect with them on a emotional level?
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, we, we at Cook, we’re big into kind of this idea of community and that actually what we’re doing here, yeah, we’re Craig, we’re workplace community for us at Cook.
[SPEAKER_02]: But actually, wherever we have a shot, we’re part of a community.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we’re part of, we’re there, we’re physically there and how can we contribute to that community, how can people connect with us through it?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, in the virtual space or in the e-commerce space, again, how does that become a community where people can actually participate, not just purchase, but actually feel like they’re part of something that’s both important to them because they love the products, but important to the wider world.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it’s just kind of having that real kind of like, say, vitality is a lovely way of thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: How does your brand really have life in it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where does that life come from?
[SPEAKER_02]: So many brands we can to feel tired.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can usually tell where there’s life from where there isn’t, so that really comes across, that kind of that fear is that a great brand hat.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like, you’ve built the strategic clarity for the business and then the cultural energy is all about bringing the team together and making sure everyone’s in the right place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the brand vitality is almost flipping the mirror from the internal view to the external view.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you’re talking about getting the customers involved and getting that, I’m not even going to bother asking you, do you get customer feedback when you product ideas?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because blatantly it’ll be insane if you didn’t.
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s a stupid question.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we could always get more to be honest, I think, you know, parts of space is one of those things that you can never get too much in a way.
[SPEAKER_01]: for anyone who’s listening to this and who’s thinking, yeah, I get it, but I’ve no idea how to make it happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do they start on building more sane strategy culture and brand vitality into their business?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of businesses play tick box activity with this so we’ve done the strategy, Chuck it in the draw.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we’ve got cultural stuff going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes, we know what the brand is.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do they make it a living, breathing thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where does that start?
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s always starts with kind of sitting down and being really hard with yourself to a degree.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, scraping away all the kind of the little eyes you tell yourself about how great things are.
[SPEAKER_02]: And say, let’s really.
[SPEAKER_02]: do we have a really clear strategy?
[SPEAKER_02]: And could I go out of this room and tell somebody what it was?
[SPEAKER_02]: I would day then think, oh, that sounds awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn’t be part of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it really starts with how trees being prepared to do that, asking yourself those tough questions, confront the brutal facts.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was how,
[SPEAKER_02]: who says that his name’s come from my head, good to great guy, Jim Collins, confront the brutal facts, is such a wonderful phrase.
[SPEAKER_02]: So take away all that stuff that says, we think we’re the best of doing this.
[SPEAKER_02]: really are we?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there evidence for that?
[SPEAKER_02]: What’s the real objective truth about it?
[SPEAKER_02]: So just you’ve got to start by being honest and then come for yourselves with the fact that it’s not as hard as people might make out that it’s just it’s just a process you can go through.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might need a bit help but you’ll get there, you’ll get through that process.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes the little magic needs to come in the end, you know, brand in particular, something where some people are great, some people are less good but you can always find help to bring those things to life.
[SPEAKER_02]: but don’t believe your own bullshit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s that, you know, we all love to delude ourselves about how great we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course we do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So just start by confronting the brutal facts and go from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don’t get depressed.
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s the tough thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Confirm the group, but don’t get depressed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that Jim Collins thing was all built on the fact that confront the brutal facts was a guy who is a prisoner of war and Vietnam.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was, you know, he was tortured.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was there as being held captive and he noticed that actually the people who were really optimistic and said would be home by Christmas.
[SPEAKER_02]: though they’re once you suffer to most, they were a meeky dissolution, they were really struggled.
[SPEAKER_02]: The people who just said, oh, I’m never going to get out of here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re doomed again, they suffered, but the people who confronted the reality if they were in, but didn’t lose hope that they would get out, that confronted the brutal facts, but then always having that belief that they would get out, those are the people who actually persevered, came out of it the best of the other end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don’t lose hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ecommerce Masterplan is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s time for the top tips round.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I love this section because me and Honest are some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.
[SPEAKER_01]: James, are you ready for the top tips?
[SPEAKER_01]: I’m not sure I should ask you the first one, because you’ve given us so many great book recommendations already, but let’s do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The book talk tip, if everyone listening to this podcast, agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which book would you recommend?
[SPEAKER_02]: So all you have to say is I’ll listen to everybody’s cheated and picked to so I’m going to pick to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So one to read.
[SPEAKER_02]: So one to read.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is this is a good place to start if you’re kind of feeling like you don’t have the strategy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wonderful little book called No Bullshit Strategy by Alex Smith.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don’t have to agree with it, but the questions it will pose to you will be worthwhile going through it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great book, literally really small, well, won’t tell you all day, but the questions are great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then a book to listen to.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my favorite audiobook I’m listening to this year is called Story’s Cell, by God called Matthew Dix.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s brilliant because it shows you how the power of personal storytelling can transform your business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s great in all your, because he is just, he lived a crazy life, and he tells a mean story.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s great to listen to, because it’s just so engaging, but it will give you this idea that I could tell stories to really put my business to life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Such a good piece of advice for this year, because story is we all know creative and stories becoming ever so more important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love those two, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: The traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either prize above all others, or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.
[SPEAKER_02]: without an email and again I just I can’t see why anybody wouldn’t be noticing them in love with the opportunities there are from email to build great customer relationships so we have a huge email list we have an amazing engagement and that’s how you create a direct relationship with your customer.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is mad how people think email isn’t worth doing I just but befuddles me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Me too, me too.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the interesting thing that is to then view email not just as a selling marketing and sales too, tour, but as a relationship building tour.
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m recognized that hardly anybody in the world wants to get email from your business every week.
[SPEAKER_02]: They just don’t care about that much.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what is it that you’re offering in that email that gives him a something else?
[SPEAKER_02]: That is that sense of who you are as a brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s that brand of ITZY.
[SPEAKER_02]: What makes your brand come to life is going to be useful and to tating for somebody and is inspiring a product.
[SPEAKER_02]: and email is just such a wonderful way to create that connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you’re preaching to the conversation in me, but hopefully we’ve converted a few more of the audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: A tall top tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in a phone-up or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is a culture tool and it is potentially revolutionary for your business and it is
[SPEAKER_02]: a postcard, send somebody in your team, a postcard, telling them how much you appreciate them and what for.
[SPEAKER_02]: And just watch the appreciation, bloom and multiply within your team within your culture.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, somebody in note.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, would you deliver it in person?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or would you literally send it through the post, chuck a stamp on it and let it be a proper surprise?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think through the post is always better.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, the price of a stamp these days.
[SPEAKER_02]: but make it physical, don’t make it an email.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you really can’t do the whole filler because any of us better nothing, but you know, there’s so much power in that sense of a handwritten note that just says, you did this thing amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for being on the team.
[SPEAKER_02]: that will pay you back in spades and you know so there’s a guy he did at C.A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Campbell Soup reckoned he sent 30,000 notes over the space of like eight and nine years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there’s such a powerful tool to kind of bring people with you to make people feel, feel noticed, notice to firm the needed.
[SPEAKER_02]: I’d great little three things why people people feel they matter when they’re noticed to firm the needed.
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s like two two tool tips there, I like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the carbon top tip, what’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think the reality is, in e-commerce, it’s is the stuff you sell.
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s the little carbon footprint.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that’s your knowledge business, of course, but so think about that first.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you thought about that, so just reuse packaging is such an obvious thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so while our local delivery business, we reuse all the boxes that are food is delivered to the shops in, so then somebody buys online, similar from the shop, we reuse those boxes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I brought one because I couldn’t remember because so there’s a box,
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m showing Chloe, lovely cookbox, and on the top it says, because this is the Harrison Ford of Carble boxes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, it’s a bit rough around the edges, but it’s loved.
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s got tails to tell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before we are home delivery, it was used to get food from our kitchens to our shops.
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re using it means we can cut down on packaging and save carbon emissions.
[SPEAKER_02]: After all, it’s what’s inside the caps.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, turning a reused box into a lovely little bit of brand-fightality.
[SPEAKER_01]: love that and it’s a very it’s a very good looking reuse box listeners I couldn’t I can confirm so James thank you so much for that before we say goodbye could you please let the listeners know where they can find you and cook on the web and social please.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, so hopefully there will be a cook near to you in the UK or find us online at CookFood.net and that you can find me on LinkedIn just so that’s where James Rutter or my own website is James-rutter.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: And via James-rutter.com, you’re helping a few businesses follow this strategic process as well aren’t you, I believe?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that’s right, so I now spit my time between Cook three days a week and do my
[SPEAKER_01]: So get in touch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody if you are intrigued and interested.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jane, thank you so much for coming on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has been fascinating seeing how you and the team at Kirk have built such an impressive performance over the last few years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I’m thank you so much for being up for sharing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Chloe.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if anyone thinking of getting in touch with James for your help on his strategy or your strategy rather, he just grilled me, properly grilled me, both post-podcast and in like 10 minutes, I got a little really interesting insight.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would highly recommend speaking to James about your strategic challenges, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So back to the podcast, what were we just talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: James is taking us through the three key elements that Kirk have used over the last
[SPEAKER_01]: strategic clarity, cultural energy and brand vitality, and as you’ve just listened to it, you know how well those three weave together.
[SPEAKER_01]: I particularly liked his seven parts to building that strategic clarity in the way it kind of opened up your minds to different things and then subtly close it back down again to really drill down towards actually going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: thoroughly enjoyed my chat with James really please we could get him on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get your hands on our notes from this episode including those top tips, all those many books he referenced during it, a juicy book reference is there, and the links to what we mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplanned.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also use our direct-to-episode short links.
[SPEAKER_01]: So ECMP.info forward slash the number of the
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get to the website, you can also add yourself to our email list.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go on, you know you want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you like this episode, then make sure you check out episode 554 with Ian McBeth from Oak furniture land, yes, another massive bricks and clicks business here in the UK, where we cover a lot of similar topics and a lot of other topics too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to listen to more big businesses on the show, then head to ECMP.info forward slash big.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along the path to net zero.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the eCommerce MasterBland podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Find out more at eCommercemasterpland.com Slash podcast.
