Opinion: Lessons from 100-year-old firms: Stick to what you know

In 2013, CNBC host Jim Cramer coined the acronym FAANG to signify the dominance and global power of five of the biggest U.S. companies ever created: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google.

What these firms hold in market share they actually lack in years of existence. Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, making it the senior member of the list. Facebook is the youngest company, coming out of Mark Zuckerberg’s experiences at Harvard in 2004. Amazon, founded in 1994, Netflix, in 1997, and Google/Alphabet, in 1998, round out this short collection of companies.

These U.S. companies are babies when compared with one of the oldest still-operating flour mills, Vermont-based King Arthur Baking Co., founded in 1790. Jim Beam Distillery started in 1795. Crane and Co., started in 1799, still makes the paper our nation’s currency is printed on. DuPont was founded in 1802, and Colgate began in 1806 – a few years before Dixon Ticonderoga began making pencils in 1812. D.G. Yuengling & Son still brew the same beer as when it began in 1829. John Deere began making farm machines in 1837. Tabasco is still made by the McIlhenny family, in Avery Isle, Louisiana, as it has been since 1868. The recipe for its red hot sauce is the same then as now: salt, vinegar and peppers.

Carhartt still makes overalls, as it did in 1889. Coca-Cola started in 1892. Kellogg’s began in 1894, as “The Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flakes Company.” Target began as Goodfellow Dry Goods in 1902. Harley and Davidson teamed up to make motorcycles in 1903, the same year Kraft Foods began. LL Bean started making outdoor clothes in Maine in 1912. Boeing started making airplane parts in 1916.

Henry Ford’s first cars came out in 1903, beaten by Buick in 1899, Dodge in 1900, General Motors in 1901, and Cadillac in 1902.

Our city has its own collection of 100-year-old businesses: The Springfield News-Leader began publishing in 1867; Inland Printing, 1905; The Landers Theatre, 1909; Elkins-Swyers Printing, 1910; and the Herman H. Lohmeyer Funeral Home, 1923.

Suppose we could go back and interview the original founders of all these firms. What would they say are the secrets to their longevity and success, even through two world wars, the Depression, constant political changes, and national and global upheavals?

Here’s my take on what I think some of their responses would be:

• Don’t get overly diversified with products or services well outside what you started with. Stick to what works, what you know how to make and what your customers want to buy. Coca-Cola owned a movie studio, Columbia Pictures, for two years (1987-89) and sold it to Sony. Be well known for making soda pop, not cinemas.
• Protect and promote your historical legacy. Educate new employees about your company founders and the creation of the products and services you still offer today. Don’t let outsiders talk you into completely changing your logo, company name, marketing slogans or other bedrock identifiers.
• Reward your loyal, longtime employees. Hire from within your local community. Keep your manufacturing roots local and strong.
• Make durable, hardy, identifiable, classic products. Keep your promises about refunds, exchanges and repairs. Make it easy to do business with you, and keep your new and existing customers happy.
• Shift with changing times, but don’t chase fads, and get back to your roots as soon as economically possible. Coors (1873) made porcelain dishes during Prohibition but got back to being a brewer as soon as the law was repealed. John Deere made tank parts in World War II but then went back to making tractors when the war ended.
• Keep the family business in the family. Selling off to large conglomerates, getting rid of the founders, voting their children off the governing boards, and bringing in strangers to run things – people who don’t have a bloodline to the original business or the desire to keep to the old ways – rarely works.

As we have seen since the dawn of the internet age – reported as Jan. 1, 1983 – dot-coms will come and go. Companies that only exist in the digital air will have to find ways to add human values to their work. Old doesn’t always mean not nimble, out of touch with customers or unable to persevere in the face of younger, newer competitors.

Want to see your company last 100 years? Learn the lessons from the masters.

Steve Albrecht is a Springfield-based human resources trainer, security consultant and employee coach. He can be reached at drsteve@drstevealbrecht.com.