Chris LoCurto

Finding The Life & Business You Really Want

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That’s how I started my email to Dillanos founder and CEO, David J. Morris. You see, a few weeks ago I noticed that David had started following me on Facebook. When I saw that he was a coffee roaster, I sent a quick message asking if they made a great coffee for French press.

I didn’t hear back (punk) and went on the road for a week or 73. When I got back to my office, two cases containing the contents below were sitting there!

SAWEET!!! Thus the opening line of my email to David…and my retraction of calling him a punk. I was blown away! Included in the box was a DVD of the CNBC show The Coffee Addiction that featured Dillanos.

The show discussed how Dillanos helps insure that coffee growers get a fair price on their amazing beans instead of losing out to a middle man. It’s called the One Harvest Project. I looked them up on YouTube and found a ton of videos on them, but one in particular that shows a little of their company culture.

I’m completely impressed with this company. Their coffee’s great. (Passed a bunch around the company and it’s getting rave reviews.) Their customer service rocks, obviously! You can tell with the One Harvest Project that they care about people more than the bottom line. And if all that is not enough, they just became one of the Top Places To Work in theTacomaWashingtonarea!

How do you become one of the Top Places To Work? Simple, you treat your people so well, that they ANONYMOUSLY tell a third party what they think of the company and its leadership. In other words, the team gets to say whatever its wants in the survey. The leadership doesn’t find out about it.

Another YouTube video showed a Dillanos weekly staff meeting. Aaaaaaand it rocked! They are crazy about their team. All this from a company that will over 24 million in sales this year. Which is okay if you’re into that whole successful business thing. Which I am!

With all of this, I’m not surprised that I received such an amazing gift. And you’re not surprised that I’m writing about it. If you’re a coffee drinker, do yourself a favor and click on the One Harvest Project and buy a bag. It just might pull you away from your regular coffee company.

Dillanos slogan – “The art of roasting is developing flavor. The science is repeating it.” Their mission statement, which has guided them for 20 years, 1) Help People 2) Make Friends 3) Have Fun!

Question: How does a company like this inspire you in your business? Besides the buzz. 

  • This review make sense to me. I really appreciate those people who share though for free. That is the most outstanding deed that a human could do. Very detailed post.

  • It always amazes me how many people are out there doing awesome things. You do a great job of finding them and telling their story. I love your podcast’s and the insight you bring with each one.

  • 1) Help People
    2) Make Friends
    3) Have Fun!

    Chris! This is fantastic in today’s greedy world. We can see money mindedness everywhere. But it is simply difficult to see such awesome people/organization. Love it.

  • I love that slogan. As much of a coffee drinker that I am, I still don’t think I could personally be so passionate about roasting coffee. But that’s what’s great about seeing people who really are passionate about it. They’ve found their calling in a sense and are functioning in an area that they love. The things that I love I’m sure would bore them, so it works out :)

    • I believe that’ why we have great coffee now. When I was younger, it pretty much all sucked. The best part of waking up was only the buzz, not the taste. :-)

  • That’s great Chris! The last line misssion statement reveals that business is all about people and relationship and not about only profit or money. The success lies in connecting with the people and touching their hearts.

  • Kim Little

    Or….maybe…..he thought to himself….”if I send CLo a bunch of coffee and surprise him, maybe he’ll write a blog post for thousands to see how awesome our company is….free marketing.” Sounds genius to me! :)

    • Shhhhh…I’m hoping more people follow suite! Truth is, I don’t think David knew I had a blog at that point.

      • David J. Morris

        I know of Chris through the Entreleadership podcast. I maybe heard he had a blog on the podcast or twitter? But I (and my leadership team) have listened to every episode of the podcast. I requested he be my friend on Facebook because of his awesome way of getting the best out of every interview. All the podcasts have been great but the two part interview with Jim Collins is so full of business gems.

        • David, you’re gonna LOVE the Pat Lencioni podcast!!

  • There are a lot of companies with great mission statement, but it’s even better when you find one that actually lives the mission!. It definantely sets the bar, and is a great example of really caring for people one individual at a time.

    Great leadership too from David.

  • Awesome post…thanks for sharing the post,..

  • Chris,
    What an awesome story! It always amazes me how many companies are out there doing awesome things. You seem to find them all the time. I really enjoy your podcast’s too, I like to listen to them 3-4 times and they are full of nuggets. This company is really giving back to the community, not only here in the U.S. but in other countries as well! Wow!

  • Chris, What an awesome story! It always amazes me how many people are out there doing awesome things. You do a great job of finding them and telling their story. I love your podcast’s and the insight you bring with each one. I probably listen to each one about 3 or 4 times and then go back later and listen again, they are full of nuggets! I love the way this company is giving back to the community, not only here but in other countries, Wow!

    • Thanks Robert!! That’s awesome to hear!! I’m having a blast doing the podcasts, so it’s great to hear that you like them.

  • ReasonDisciple

    By the way HAPPY B-DAY!

  • cabinart

    What a great company to do business with! I see that they are seeking a graphic artist/designer. . . wonder if they could use a pencil artist or an oil painter or a muralist too? 8-)

    • Great question. You might submit something funky cool. Who knows.

    • Great question. You might submit something funky cool. Who knows.

  • ReasonDisciple

    Dude! Do you know what’s cooler? I friended you on Facebook last week viewed you pictures. I had NOOOOOO idea you loved car racing and actually raced cars! Now that’s sweet! Not that I am a car racing face. I just love to see people live a passionate life and making a difference while doing it!

    High Five for Jesus!

    Ricardo

    • I do love racing. In fact, I have a race this weekend in SC. Pray for me!

  • This reminds me of Simon Sinek’s premise that people don’t buy a company’s “What”, they buy a company’s “Why”. When you know that a company believes in their product so much as to overwhelm you with free product(s), information about them, and access to their behind the scenes area, you can’t help but be impressed. When someone looks like they are on a mission, dedicated to a meaningful goal, and you have any sympathy to that goal, it’s hard not to get swept up in their wake.

    • Well put Joseph. Their transparency made me a believer before their coffee did. :-)

  • The mission statement is amazing. Helping people, making friends, and having fun sums up the job description for anyone’s “dream job”.
    Plus, all that coffee!
    I wonder if they’d let me pay THEM to work there!

    Good customer service is the ULTIMATE in advertising. Our management team tells us that for every patient that has a good experience in our hospital, they will tell approximately 10-12 people. Consequently, for every patient that has a bad experience, they will tell 20-30.

    • Absolutely! Going back to Friday’s post about growing lifetime relationships, customer service is one of the best and most important ways to keep customers for life. Regarding social media, it’s helping many businesses better their customer service and caused others much pain simply because they don’t monitor their social accounts. It’s silly.

    • It’s so true! I could actually write blogs all day long about bad customer service. It’s great when I get to share fantastic customer service like this!

  • What an awesome culture! How many organizations do you know where people are that excited for their Monday morning meeting? Agree with the GREAT mission statement. So simple and powerful. My favorite element in their video is how they champion education for their own team members, their customers and their growers. I love too how they state “a cup of coffee is a charitable act”. I’ve seen first-hand how people live in some coffee-growing areas. In some communities, children as young as two are taught how to pick the cherries and eight-year-olds carry 50 lbs bags of beans. If a company is dedicated to sell a top-quality product and effectively change people’s lives, they’ve got my vote!

    My French press is about to switch to better coffee :)

    • That really touched my heart as well. They don’t take advantage of folks in the name of bottom line. They’re really focused on making those families lives better.

    • David J. Morris

      Thanks Lily. Our crazy, fun, productive Monday Morning Meetings which we actually recently changed to Friday afternoons 5 months ago (but have still have always called it the Monday Morning Meeting out of tradition) Just changed. It’s now called the FAMily meeting. The FAM stands for Friday Afternoon Meeting and we are definitely one big family.

      • I think you could call it anything if it gets people to engage and celebrate accomplishments, as opposed to running through a list of “what we failed to do last week”. If I didn’t live 1700 miles away, I would be looking for an opportunity to contribute to your organization. You guys rock!!

      • Love this, David! Hey, have you heard of Three Avocados coffee? http://www.threeavocados.org/

        • David J. Morris

          Haven’t heard of them. Looks like they’re doing some cool stuff though.

          • As a nonprofit, they really are. Look forward to trying your coffee! My French press loves a good coffee bean. =)

  • Well, I am a PASSIONATE coffee drinker – so I will definitely be checking them out! I absolutely love their slogan and their mission statement!

    • You can see they care, thus they make great coffee!

  • Chris,
    In my new business endeavor of motivational storytelling, I just may be adopting their AWESOME mission statement into my own.
    ~ Help People
    ~ Make Friends
    ~ Have Fun!

    What a GREAT story! Congrats to David Morris and his staff!! Very inspiring to read!!!

    Thanks for sharing that every day companies can do extraordinary things…just like people!!!
    Live Beyond Awesome!
    Jen McDonough

    • I agree with you, Jen – great mission statement!

    • That’s awesome Jen! All it takes is being intentional. Which they do each day. And as you said, it’s inspiring. THAT’S what a great company does!!

      Thanks Jen!

    • All it takes is being intentional. Which they do every day. And as you said, it’s inspiring. Which means it causes action. THAT’S what a great company does!!
      Thanks Jen!!

  • Carol Dublin

    What an inspiration to see the culture shine through in everything this company does! Love illustrations like this that give us hope that achieving this kind of philosophy and culture really works. Thanks for sharing, Chris.

    • Your comment struck me about – “the culture shine through in everything” a company does….” That is a mark of authenticity – it is not just about “branding” your company. It is about having a culture that is true to its very core.

      • Or in other words, they let their WHY shine through and drive most of their decisions. It’s becomes a value proposition! Very rare and awesome to see happen.

    • My pleasure! I love sharing info like this from companies like Dillanos!

  • They are an awesome example of how culture leads to success. As a result of it, they have a great team, a great product, and a great story to tell. They seek out opps to blow people away and they’ve become a social company in the way they use social media to let all of it shine through. Simply superb.

    • I would agree, Joel – they are definitely a “social” company!

      • If we had more companies like this, our landscape would be different!

        • I don’t see how mulch has anything to do with this.

          • Used coffee = landscape. I dunno

            • That reply exceeded my expectations.

              • cabinart

                Joel, don’t you dig your used coffee grounds into your garden? I thought everyone did that!

                • Believe me if I had a garden, I would do that because I produce a serious amount of grounds!

    • If we had more companies like this, our landscape would be different!

    • If we had more companies like this, our landscape would be different!