Page 148 - The Starbucks Experience

Embrace Resistance

market. District manager Renny Freet shares one of those
encounters: “We had an issue in Long Beach, California,”
explains Renny. “We had a presence in the area, with seven
stores. Since Long Beach is a large metropolitan region, seven
stores aren’t that significant. We found a location in the Long
Beach area called Seal Beach. It was a former Burger King
restaurant that had been vacated.”
From the onset, the Seal Beach location met with intense
community resistance. Renny shares, “We’d go to council
meetings and listen to citizens who saw us as a threat to local
independent coffee shops. Several of those coffee shops were
actually chains themselves. Some of the competitors were able
to get articles in local newspapers saying less than flattering
things about us and suggesting that we were a nuisance. It
was difficult for me to read those articles, and frankly they
were untrue.” 133
Rather than attempting a media blitz that would counter
the resistance, Renny claims, “We just did what we do. We
became increasingly involved in the community. We organ-
ized activities that served Seal Beach from our other Long
Beach locations.”
This story, however, does not conclude with a warm
embrace from the neighborhood. As Renny puts it, “We
ended up not going after the location we had been pursuing
because we felt the timing was wrong.” But instead of blam-
ing the community for the resistance, Renny concludes, “We
knew we hadn’t done as good a job as we could have at
involving ourselves in that community. But we’ve built stores
in the area since, and the opposition wasn’t anything like we
experienced in the past. Embracing resistance is a lot about
respecting other people’s perspectives. When the resistance
doesn’t ebb, it’s time to choose to take the high road and say