If you haven’t tried Chipotle yet, what are you waiting for? Let it be said that I LOVE Chipotle. Not just their food (oh the Guacamole!) but I admire their values and their core business plan. As a business owner I aspire to run my business as they do and hopefully just as successfully.
For example, Chipotle bills their menu as “Fast Food with Integrity”. This means that they’re truly trying to give you the best tasting, most healthy food possible and they’re completely open about how it’s made and that you’re going to pay a little more to get it. I think this approach is just great because there’s a massive market of people out there that want great food and are willing to pay a little more to get it.
Chipotle is also very focused in what they do which is a core business goal of mine and should be for you too. It’s very hard to be everything to everyone. In the words of founder Steve Ells he states that “It’s important to keep the menu focused, because if you just do a few things, you can ensure that you do them better than anybody else.” These are great words to post in your office as a reminder. Do what you do and do it better than anyone else. The minute you start branching out is most likely the moment you’ll start to lose momentum as a company.
At Sanctuary we follow the same model. We don’t sell Burritos and Guac, but we do sell high quality services. As our website says “We build and promote websites”. Our menu is focused and we make the best tasting (I mean) functioning web sites and online marketing services possible for a great price. We’re not the cheapest bunch of geeks in the industry but it’s a promise that we’ll give you high quality work for your money.
Ells continues “Not that I want everybody to eat at Chipotle every day, but great food is something that everybody should have access to. And people should demand this from every place they eat. I hope there is going to be some tipping point when we all say, “My God, why are we putting up with this fast food?”
From here on out Sanctuary will have a mission of providing “Online Marketing With Integrity” and I’m hoping that everyone will consider giving up their current fast food diet and switching to a more “whole” service.
Thanks for listening. For more reading, click to learn more about the business of Chipotle.