![]() “If someone is trying to make a decision about their business and they’re not looking at how that’s going to serve their life, then they’re not going to make the right decision, in my opinion.” ![]() “You need to get away from the details of the business and ask what you want to do with your life,” Jacobs says. You must consider all that is at stake and who will be impacted by the decisions. Today, we can really line it up against criteria, and it’s pretty easy to take a look and see whether it’s a fit or not.”ĭecisions regarding company direction take a great deal of focus. We had good gut instincts back in the early days. “A big driver of these decisions is knowing our brand. “These superpowers have to start showing up in the deals we do,” Jacobs says. These business decisions come back to the company’s inspirational leader - Jake and his superpowers. But if it drives revenue and it doesn’t spread the power of optimism, it’s not so great.” If we’re going to make a business decision that drives revenue, that’s great. “The mission of our company is simple - to spread the power of optimism. “That’s how we define branding internally at Life is good,” he says. The way to attack that challenge and consider it an asset is to know who you are and act like it. Knowing what move to make next is one of the biggest challenges in any business. “There are always people bringing ideas and opportunities, and I think we have to look and say, ‘How do those opportunities line up with our mission? How do they line up with our vision and with what we’re trying to do with our lives?’” he says. That call was the late ’90s, but in recent years, Jacobs says it’s too dissimilar. “There has always been that pressure, and when you’re given an opportunity to go and hit the gas, it’s real tempting to do it.” “We could have had 600 percent growth, and it was really, really tempting, but it really didn’t have anything to do with the reason why we liked the brand, started the brand or the vision of the brand,” he says. Jacobs remembers one instance when the company was just above $1 million and he got a call from a large liquor company wanting to purchase more than $6 million worth of T-shirts from Life is good. “So we have a lot of choices, which is a great place to be for a business, but it can also keep you up at night thinking about what we should do and shouldn’t do.” “Our message is so clean and simple that it applies to a tremendous array of different things,” Jacobs says. Since early in Life is good’s existence, the company’s inspirational message has been both a strength and a challenge for Bert and John Jacobs. Here’s how Jacobs has overcome the growing pains of leading a small private company into a larger corporation. “We’re 19 years in business and we’re really less about being a clothing company and more about the clothing being a vehicle for an important message,” Jacobs says. In recent years, the Jacobs brothers have had to do some self-evaluation as leaders and plan more strategically to understand where to go next with their company and its message. Simplicity, gratitude and humor are just a few of the 10 superpowers in total that help shape how the company does business. “Jake is our hero here at Life is good, and we like to say that Jake has superpowers,” Jacobs says. The two started their company 19 years ago aided by a drawing of a smiling character named Jake, who has become more than just a logo on the T-shirts but a symbol of optimism and the driving force behind the company and its inspiring message. ![]() Jacobs serves as CEO, or chief executive optimist, while his brother John serves as chief creative optimist. Not bad for two brothers who wanted to maintain the fun in their lives. That fit was The Life is good Co., an apparel and accessories company that spreads the power of optimism in its products and through its nonprofit organization, The Life is Good Playmakers.įast-forward to today and Life is good has 260 employees and saw 2012 revenue north of $100 million. “We wondered if we could create something that fit us better,” Bert Jacobs says. The brothers were looking for a unique path to live life how they wanted to live it. In fact, at that time, Jacobs was delivering pizzas and teaching people how to ski to earn a living. Jacobs and his brother never agreed with the standard path for someone coming out of college. Twenty years ago, Bert Jacobs and his younger brother, John, were looking for ways they could avoid getting typical jobs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |