089: Kevin Cleary | CLIF Bar CEO on Healthy Growth

The Hard Way w/ Joe De Sena

Spartan Races

Fitness, Alternative Health, Health & Fitness, 792700

4.7 • 870 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2016

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kevin Cleary, CEO of Clif Bar, has his company on the right track if not the most trodden one. Whereas most companies only think of maximizing their quarterly profits, Clif bar is planning decades ahead and profiting from the foresight. Whereas most companies focus on satisfying their shareholders, Clif Bar has a firm social and environmental mission that strengthens the company and community at large. They’re one of the few, but important examples that doing good, yet remaining lucrative, are not as mutually exclusive as many believe.

Lessons:

1. It’s much better motivation to tell someone they’re a hard worker than to tell them that they’re smart.
2. A company that can focus on long term goals, despite the pressure to show quarterly profits, will ultimately make better decisions.
3. A purpose driven business keeps those involved with it engaged and passionate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Spartan Up Podcast.com.
0:02.3	This episode, we're introducing a new sponsor, Fresh Books, a small business accounting software
0:06.8	that's designed for you. I am here with Kevin Cleary for Spartan Up podcast at Squaw Mountain in Lake Tahoe,
0:21.0	right? Good to see you.
0:22.6	You run Cliffbar.
0:23.6	I do.
0:24.6	I'm the CEO of Cliffbar.
0:25.3	How long have you been running Cliffbar?
0:26.8	So I've been running Cliffbar for a little over two years,
0:29.3	but I've been with the company for 11 years.
0:31.6	Wow. And you came in, you worked your way out from the bottom?
0:34.0	Yeah, I came in as the sales and operations lead and then moved my way up from the company ladder from there
0:42.2	to chief operating officer than
0:44.0	president and then CEO. What background did you have when you came in? You know I
0:48.1	had a background in larger companies so I was able to get some of the disciplines from the larger companies and bring them into Cliff Bar.
0:55.0	But at the time it was just feeling really constricting,
0:58.0	just being driven about one thing, profit.
1:01.0	And at Cliff Bar...
1:02.0	You mean at the larger company just all they're
1:04.8	driven by is profit and Cliffbar we think about our impacts across people the
1:09.7	communities and our planet as well as the as well as the business.
1:12.6	It feels more purposeful.
	...

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