Evan Carmichael argues that caring for employees and community is smart business. During the 1929 Depression, Milton Hershey refused to buy a steam shovel that would replace 40 workers, instead launching a Community Works program that built a school, arena, and hotel. The goodwill, Carmichael says, amplified Hershey's brand value far beyond what the wages cost.
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Welcome to another Famous Friday where we look at how you can learn from successful entrepreneurs and apply what made them successful to your business. Today's lesson is care. Okay, this might be a novel concept for a lot of businesses, but you have to actually care about the people who work for you, about your customers, about your community. If you care about them, then guess what? They're going to care about you, and they're going to give you more business, they're going to give you more money, they're going to refer more customers to you if you actually care about them. This isn't that hard a strategy. One of my favorite entrepreneurs is Milton Hershey. There's so many great reasons to love Milton Hershey, but the story I want to share with you today is about how he really cared about his team and his community. In 1929, the Great Depression hit, and Everybody was laying people off, was firing people, right? They're trying to save money, save on costs, and that just made everything worse because now more people didn't have jobs. Milton Hershey, who founded Hershey Chocolate, said, "You know what? I want to be the change. I want to try to kickstart something. I think this is a great opportunity to care about our community." And he decided to hire people to start a Community Works project that had nothing to do with chocolate. He started hiring people to build a school, to build a sports arena, to build a rec center, and to build a hotel. Like, what does that have to do with chocolate? Nothing, but he's contributing to his community and that's going to help his company grow. And there's one famous story where he was building his hotel and somebody comes to him and says, "Hey Milton, you know, we can, uh, we've discovered this new shovel and it's called the steam shovel and it can do the work of 40 men." You can build your hotel so much faster. And he told the guy, forget the shovel, hire the 40 men. Because that was the whole point of this project, was to create jobs and create a sense of community again and uplift people's spirits. And you may be thinking, well, that's a stupid decision. He could have saved money on those 40 jobs. And you're thinking short-term. You're playing the small game. Milton Hershey understood that he had to play a bigger game, and that's the long game. And you have to care, and caring will often mean that, you know what, it may not make the most sense in a short-term decision, but you can bet that those 40 people will be loyal to Milton Hershey forever. And you can bet that their friends and their family will be loyal to Milton Hershey forever and buy his products and rave about his company and the community that he built all those things for. We'll love Milton Hershey forever. And now, 2014, almost a century later, I'm making a video about it and other people are still talking about it. And this legend and this story of Milton Hershey continues to perpetuate. How much value has that added to the Hershey Company and their bottom line? Way more than the cost of those 40 jobs, their salaries. So you have to care. Tap into your heart. Think about the people who work for you. Think Think about the customers who buy from you. Think about the community that you're part of and do something today to show that you actually care about them. Because if you care about them, they'll care about you. Believe. For those of you watching, like the video. You can subscribe to the channel to see more videos just like this. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.
