Why Would a Business Say No to Growth?
By YOU'RE THE BOSS EDITORS
Sally Ryan for The New York Times
No pizza for you! The owners of Great Lake have been criticized for their uncompromising approach.
Nick Lessins and Lydia Esparza are the married owners of a Chicago pizza shop, Great Lake, that has received rave reviews, and they made the unconventional business decision not to capitalize on them. In his interview with the owners, Kermit Pattison asked why they choose to have their customers wait for hours rather than hiring more employees and expanding (a decision that has helped spur comparisons to the “Soup Nazi” on “Seinfeld”):
Mr. Pattison: Many business owners would look at your sudden success with envy and say, “Seize the day, expand, add new locations, franchise.” Why not you?
Ms. Esparza: It would change our values. That is the American way — to expand without really thinking.
Mr. Lessins: We really enjoy the work that we’re doing and we don’t want to cheapen it. Consciously or unconsciously — probably both — we’re trying to create a manageable way to earn a living and still maintain our sanity. We value time as much, if not more so, than money.
Is there something wrong with that? If not, why don’t more people make the same choice?
1 comments:
Maybe small businesses expand so rapidly without thinking due to greed or due to loans offered at extremely low interest rates which encourages firms to take loans. However, when times take turn for the worse, the whole debt driven economy collapses.
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