Naomi Simson: Know your values

It’s not what you have, it’s what you do and what you are.

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said to me they wished they had started RedBalloon. Honestly, anyone could have started RedBalloon but the key to its success has been the way I chose for the business to operate.

Too often people give up in business before they even begin, citing lack of resources for not being innovative. Or they wrongly believe that success is something that happens “to them”, as if it’s some magical, external force.

Every successful entrepreneur will tell you it’s hard work. I stuffed voucher envelopes for nights on end at the start of RedBalloon – far from the glamorous perception many of have of me in my red dresses at speaking engagements!

Nor do you ever really “get there”. There’s always a new challenge. During the early days as a start-up, you worry about cash flow and attracting enough and the right sort of clients. As your business and brand matures, you become more secure in your liquidity but have to face other challenges: building the right team, ensuring engagement, crossing the ts of “boring” business processes such as superannuation, leave form applications and ATO audits.

When I started RedBalloon, it was the only online gift experience retailer of its kind. And I carefully chose its key values to support its growth.

Now competitors are in the market but none of them can copy RedBalloon’s DNA. The way people speak about your business and the consistency of how you execute your work is essential to its success and that has held true at RedBalloon over the years.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins implores great businesses to have a set of values they truly embrace. It does not matter what those values are – but that the business has them and lives by them.

A great way to discover your business values is to explore its folklore. It is your people that create the stories that make a business what it is.

At the beginning of RedBalloon, we wrote down a lot of stories about what a true “RedBallooner” was. These values are what we came up with in 2003 and continue to serve us well:

Do what you say you’re going to do

This value stemmed from frustration with previously working in large businesses where managers so often did not follow through. We didn’t want to be just another organisation that “tried” to fulfil on what it promised. Simply we were going to put our word to it … and get it done. An example was working with Fuji Xerox as our first corporate client. We were asked to build a special system as an incentive program. We did not have the capability at the time but I put my word to it – and said “we don’t have it now but we will by July”’. I didn’t know how I was going to make it happen but we delivered – and Fuji Xerox went on to be a great corporate customer.

Generosity with time and knowledge

We are in the gift business, so it would make sense that generosity became one of our values. One day we had a very upset customer on the phone because her partner was in Kalgoorlie and she did not know how to get him his gift (this was before we had email vouchers). The person who took the call contacted her brother who from time to time had to go to Kalgoorlie from Perth for business and convinced him to drive the voucher out to the customer. Unbelievably generous and legendary customer service. Folklore was created.

Leadership

We had both seen bottlenecks in corporate life when projects stalled because no one would make a decision – or worse management by committee. We wanted everyone to feel like an owner and that they could get things done.

Sense of humour and fun

I had worked in some pretty serious places – I had also worked at Apple, where we worked hard and played hard. And I always went home thinking my day had been worthwhile. I wanted to work at a place where I wanted to work. It might sound selfish but if I was going to be away from my children then it had to be worthwhile. We laughed a lot in the early days … I think we still do.

A little dog with a big dog attitude

This was about being risk takers, flexible and courageous: “Having more front than Myer”. Our persistence – like a small terrier dog never letting go of a bone – paid off. I am so proud that the essence of who we are remains.

Next week: Kogan founder and Milan Direct co-founder Ruslan Kogan

BRW

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