Bake It In

I had the pleasure of listening to a presentation from John Moore yesterday at the Austin Social Media Breakfast.  To start, John is an amazing speaker so make sure to catch him if you have the chance.

During his talk he introduced the concept of “baking it in”.  The idea being that by building remarkability into your company, as opposed to layering it on, you customers won’t be able to help saying good things about you.

During the discussion, John used Mighty Fine Burgers as an example (see his blog for the full post).  My favorite example of “baking it in” is New Belgium Brewing.  Full disclosure, my brother-in law works for the company so I am definitely biased (and just a bit jealous).

Loosely following John’s example for Mighty Fine, here is my take on New Belgium (NBB) -

• Quality – NBB takes beer seriously.  Check out out “Lips of Faith“, their tiny batch brews for internal celebrations or milestones.
• Smiles – check out their videos on working @ NBB by their employees.  I guarantee they will make you smile.
• Sustainability – How many wind powered breweries do you know of?  Check out their sustainability report here.
• Assurance – if you are ever in Fort Collins, all it takes is a tour of the brewery to get a sense of how much passion they have for their products.  If you can’t make it, take a tour online.
• Theater – every year NBB puts on the Tour de Fat across the country.  It is wacky get together that raises money for bicycle and environmental charities (btw- Austin’s Tour de Fat is in Oct.).  Check out some of the craziness here.
• Job recruitment – add it all up and it should come as no surprise that NBB made the Wall Street Journal list of Top Small Businesses workplaces.
• Fun – number 10 on the NBB core values list is having fun.  For a great example, check out the following spoof video they recently made called “I’m On a Bike” (spoof of SNL’s On a Boat):

Started in a basement in 1989, New Belgium is now the 3rd largest craft brewer in the country and is available for sale in 26 states.  Very remarkable and baked in!