As corporations face the challenge of focusing more, new business models and inventions are opening up new tactics for greater care of all stakeholders and the planet.
I had the thrill of interviewing Michael Jones, CEO and founder of Thrive Farmers. The coffee and commodities business brings its coffee, tea and various developing categories to life. This is what Jones and I discussed.
Simon Mainwaring: How do you see leadership? COVID 19 replaced anything?
Michael Jones: For nine years I’ve been in the chimney with a heart-burning project. We can use business as a tool for positive change. That’s how we run the business.
Throughout COVID-19, our corporate has maintained these commitments, we continue to pay farmers at the same level, we have stabilized our chain and supported the families that count on it.
If anything, COVID-19 reinforces the desire to stick with our project and provides opportunities to do more than we already do.
Mainwaring: Why did you start a well-oriented business?
Jones: Why decide to make a profit or do good?We all do both.
Design your business to be an intrinsically component of the world. The challenge won’t be the same for everyone, which is really positive. Connect your call to your business.
For us, it’s about helping farmers who live far from where their product is consumed. We seek to correct some of the injustices of the market. This is an exciting and difficult opportunity.
Mainwaring: After 10 years running on the medical device at IPG, he devoted himself to coffee. For what?
Jones: It’s a call. I didn’t stop looking for him. I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life. In 30 years, I’ve started seven businesses. The first 3 or 4 were failures. IPG my first big hit. I started this when I was 30. Thanks to this journey, I began to realize many of my past dreams.
Having sought to create a company that was on the Inc 500 list, in 2008 I gave this step. When they broke the news to me, I was super excited. After a day, the excitement is gone.
That left me feeling empty. I learned I was chasing bad things for the reason. I needed to give my life to something bigger than me. I needed a purpose that was to value hard work.
When I was 38, I didn’t need to spend the rest of my life feeling like a treadmill. I asked myself, “What can I give my life that counts and multiplies?
Mainwaring: How did you respond?
Jones: A giant personal justice company in Silicon Valley bought the company, after that, I knew my time there was coming to an end, suffering from what I was going to do. For a while, I thought she’d come to this business and then promote him for a lot of money, and then give it to something meaningful. It’s not my way.
When I left in 2011, I took at least 6 months off to find out what to dedicate my life to. I have had over 20 years in monetary and fitness services. I had no idea it would be coffee.
My wife is English, but she grew up in Jamaica and her father is a coffee producer. Over the years, we’ve talked about coffee and its price chain, I also started conversations with a guy in Costa Rica, I learned it hard for farmers, they’re connected to volatile commodity indices.
They will have to invest all this money without being able to expect even the long-term value of their harvest. Sometimes they make cash. Sometimes they are paid less than the cost of production. In some years, they only eat rice and beans for months.
It broke my heart. That had to change. I asked myself, “If it’s not me, then who?” Find out what’s breaking your heart. There’s no shortage of things that break your heart. Find out how to adapt your skills to your vocation.
Many investors have behaved well as a result of this personal equity transaction. They said, “Whatever you do next, there we are. “When I told them what I was doing, they had crocodile arms: “My liquidity is not right right now” or “Let me wait and see how it goes. “I was a disruptor. I challenge the prestige quo. I can’t stand being told, “It’s like that. “
Mainwaring: What are the first steps you’ve taken?
Jones: Start with a vision. Then ask for advice. You can’t communicate with everybody, people are going to shoot you. Know who your sensible counselors are. To me, she’s my wife. I also consulted an executive coach, with whom I have worked for years and whom I trust, and one or two closest friends. I discovered confirmation and clarity.
It’s the voice in your head that wakes you up at night. I had this free time, so I went to Costa Rica and spent a week walking around the farms. I talked to the farmers.
What I read in industry publications was about climate replacing the destruction of farmers’ livelihoods. However, as I walked on the floor, I began to receive information about many things.
A healthy farm will produce between one-third and a quarter of its crop each year. If you’re suffering to make the end of the month, you’d probably be cheating on your size. It’s production, you want some extra cash this year.
If you do this several years in a row, because costs are low, plants begin to suffer and are more vulnerable to disease. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In closer inspection, I knew that all the talks turned to the economy, I had some concepts and directed them through other people, one of them has become my co-founder.
Mainwaring: How is The Style different from Thrive Farmers?
Jones: For coffee and many other commodities, buyers and distributors set a value through the commodity index that fluctuates according to all kinds of factors.
For consumers, coffee is more expensive than ever and continues to grow. The farmer depends on the price, but the distributor charges the visitor a constant price.
Percentage of profit. As long as we get a safe constant value from our client, our farmer can gain advantages of the same constant value. We set a percentage of profit share. If we save money, at the end of the year we will get a payment for now. We are strengthening transparency between consumers and farmers.
This results in more cash for the farmer. We set the percentage of the source of income so that they make enough profit above the production charge, to earn a decent salary and run their farm.
Mainwaring: Was it hard to convince farmers that you were genuine?
Jones: Yes, we went to the farms to tell our story, then we learned that many farmers think we can just lie and manipulate them, yet they had to check their luck. They had no other options, but we did what we said we were going to do. We now have a close relationship with farmers in many countries, but that started that way.
Mainwaring: Are you competitive in terms of price?
Jones: We have to be. Companies that buy us will have to keep their prices in line with what they have paid for comparable products.
We have told our farmers from the beginning that it is a business, we offer worthy stability and a platform but it is deserved, we want a safe quality and volume, if that does not happen, we cannot give them the same profitability. I don’t think he’s been given a very smart pass. It’s addictive. When you win, there are opportunities to thrive.
There’s an e-book through Bob Lupton called No Toxic Charity. This reinforced the desire to manage this as a business. Every farmer has a good reputation from day one.
Mainwaring: What do you play in their communities?
Jones: Four years ago, we introduced a nonprofit called ThriveWorx to help communities thrive beyond coffee and whatever our mandate.
We expand leadership, training, education, water and networking projects. We have organized voluntary efforts and combined others of other faiths on the board.
A farmer capable of building his first house. Every time he sees me he has the biggest smile, hugs me and thanks me to the end of tears, the replacement in life is exponential. Her daughter was the first in her entire network to move to the University of Guatemala City.
He is the leader of his group of 20-man farmers. We convinced him to expand to other leaders. He quit. He now served as Meritus’ leader for two years, while the next youngest boy assumed a leadership role. This is just one of the boys’ stories.
We ourselves coaches and connectors. There’s a big difference when you hold others accountable for acting like a savior. Our style brings organizations to the table that do things better and help develop their impact.
Mainwaring: How does your purpose resonate with partners like Gordon Food Services?
Jones: We started out when we were little, but soon we realized I wasn’t going to pay the bills. We needed corporations to get millions of people to sign up for the project if we wanted the big thing to have an effect and do business with it.
We discovered corporations that already had to use their purchasing force internally to make a positive impact. It is a gift when it happens and we also invite you to participate in ThriveWorx.
Gordon Food Services is a wonderful example. They give us purchasing power, volume and profit on the advertising side. They also locate tactics to go further. We are also applying to replace the expectations of some companies. Many need products of guilty origin, but they have to pay lower costs than commodities, to the detriment of other people who don’t make a living.
Mainwaring: How do you balance demands for expansion and social impact?
Jones: It comes from the identity of your company. We have built a culture and a team committed to the same things. The clarity of the objectives allows us to attract other ordinary people. We have other people running here who can have higher degrees and bigger salaries. They stay because they’re made, in our minds to unite us around a significant cause.
Mainwaring: How do you articulate the role you must play in the world?
Jones: We’re reorganizing the business to replace lives. We have rethrated the way farmers are paid and how consumers participate. This has had a positive effect on farmers, families and communities.
Mainwaring: How do you mix competitiveness and determination?
Jones: It’s a challenge. We do things no one else in the area does. However, there are giant corporations with large marketing budgets. They spread messages that make them very useful. Even my father called me and said, “I saw this announcement of such a thing. as if they were possibly doing what you’re doing. “
In today’s global headlines, many consumers are not doing their homework. If something sounds good, others do. Now it has become very popular to use a farmer’s symbol in advertising.
The good news is that more and more people need to know that their money is spent in a responsible way. We welcome the scrutiny of our price chain. Building that we accept as true is what sets us apart from the competition.
Mainwaring: What is your vision for the expansion of the company?
Jones: There is an opportunity to find chains across the agricultural spectrum around the world. I think we can play an important role in that. I’d love to see others help. It’s too big an industry to do alone, that said, it’s growing authenticity. It’s not smart to lower prices to grow faster.
We want to stay focused on the goal. It’s all the result, the expansion will be there. Innovation is also one of our core values. When we innovate, we see expansion, loyalty, and better relationships.
Even if we don’t grow, I’d rather be a small and medium-sized company with a strong positive effect rather than a giant company that has lost touch with its mission.
Mainwaring: What is your vision of the role of the future?
Jones: My personal business is being the hardest tool to reshape the planet. If large corporations to startups think, spend and make decisions differently, we can solve the world’s problems.
On a corporate level, you cause and respect it. Look at the expansion that has happened in society. The opportunity we have today is due to the sacrifices and advances of corporations before us. The government can’t solve all our problems. Companies have wealth, purchasing force and talent. It’s the tip of the spear.
Simon Mainwaring is the Founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consulting company that accelerates expansion and has an effect on goal-oriented brands by putting “Us” first.
Simon Mainwaring is the founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consulting firm that accelerates expansion and has an effect on purpose-oriented brands by putting “Us” first. I specialize in branding, culture and storytelling effect for startups, high-expanding corporations and Fortune 500 corporations. My national podcast is LeadWithWe. com on Spotify, Google and Apple. My book, We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World is a bestseller from the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Amazon , and Strategy Business named it Best Corporate Marketing Book of the Year. I give lectures, trainings and workshops that help brands define, integrate and implement their purpose of stimulating expansion and construction has an effect. Visit SimonMainwaring. com to communicate and WeFirstBranding. com to consult.