What do you sell?
I walk by these recruitment posters at Starbucks everyday as I go to school. What amazes me is that they are not just recruiting people to sell coffee, but they are empowering their potential employees with a larger vision. This vision is not only verbal, but everytime an employee holds a warm cup of coffee, he or she is reminded that they are providing warmth, not just coffee, and they are changing lives. Starbucks is connecting their employees to an unseen landscape, a dream, that will in fact alter how the mudane work (selling coffee) on earth is done.
When we are recruiting people to serve the Lord, are we giving them as powerful a vision to drive them?
TMC 2011 Fall 
Comments
This reminds me of Naomi Klein's discussion of companies like Nike selling a Culture instead of a product in _No Logo_.
In the end, they are really just selling coffee.
But you've got a point. How can a company sound more passionate about coffee than we do about leading others to eternal life?
Posted by: Alpha | July 22, 2006 01:54 PM
I think Starbucks do sell more than coffee. For people buying at Starbucks, why do they choose to spend money there? I don't think it's just because of the coffee, but also the service, the warmth, the quiet time, the atmosphere, the environment, the status etc. They are selling an "experience" with coffee. This is the fundamental difference between the retail businesses of the postmodern and modern world.
Posted by: Alan Yu | July 22, 2006 10:26 PM
Yeah, I should clarify and say that they are "really just selling the same coffee experience".
But this experience isn't unique to Starbucks, though. Coffeehouses have offered great service, warmth, quiet time, atmosphere, environment, (status?), for centuries.
What Starbucks did is that they took this common coffee experience and packaged it together into an identity and then mass-deployed it.
In terms of what makes Starbucks a retail business in the postmodern world, I think the second part (the mass deployment) is very (if not more) important. No matter where you go, you can feel at home with at a Starbucks(TM) location. It's why we both love and hate them. We love them because it's good, and convenient and familiar and consistent. We hate it because while it's good, it's replaceable and common and consistent (not to mention it stifles others). All Starbucks locations offer the same great experience, it just depends on your emphasis on the GREAT or the SAME.
I've gone massively off-topic, so here's my attempt at bringing it back. My problem with this poster is that its real purpose isn't to lure passionate employees in. (In fact, I think a poor college student has to do some sort of lingo translation in their head ... "ohhhhh, you mean SELL COFFEE!") It's not connecting a dream or altering stuff. The poster's primary purpose is upholding their (Starbuck's) identity and sounding like they're sincere, sentimental about the customer. I read it as more about Starbucks' customers than you, the potential employee.
A good counter-example is probably Google. One of the really attractive things about Google is that they give you 20% time to work on your own ideas and tinker. That is a really powerful message - it's the company believing in you and your unique abilities. Yes, there is the customers and Google's big identity, but they also care about you as a contributing individual. Many software houses have this motto: Our greatest resource is our people - that ACTION is greater than any quantity of statements asking people to reach beyond.
I think the most liberating thing that I have learned recently is how much God values us as different individuals. It's an empowering moment to understand that God not only wants us to make a difference in service, but also make a difference by being unique individuals.
He loves me! Of course I'm going to work for him!
Posted by: ahplA | July 23, 2006 12:55 AM
It's either that, or I'm just cynical about big corporations. ;-)
Posted by: Alpha | July 23, 2006 01:01 AM