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Staff post about: Peter van Stolk Become an Author

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From the Ski Slopes to the Soda Stands: The Early Years of Peter van Stolk

“The customer's not always right. F--- that. If you're always trying to cater to everyone, you have no soul.”

Jonesing for a Jones: Van Stolk’s Company Goes Global

Sitting on a shelf just outside van Stolk’s office were two two-litre jugs of Sam’s Choice soda from Wal-Mart. “They’re there so that every day, as I walk past, I’m reminded of what I don’t want to be,” he said.

Lesson #1: Pump Up Your Marketing with Promotions

“Our competition spends over a billion dollars a year. We can’t play by their rules,” van Stolk once said. “When you’re marketing without money, you have to stay true to the fact that you need to make an emotional connection.”

Lesson #2: Use Your Consumers As Your Secret Ingredient

“The reality is that consumers don’t need our s---,” says van Stolk. “People get fired up about Jones because it’s theirs.”

Lesson #3: Give Your Company a Shock Treatment

“The three rules we have right now are to be really consistent in the quality of our product, to be unpredictable, and to create emotion. That’s it,” says van Stolk.

Lesson #4: Giving Back Can Bring Your Game Forward

“Recently, I’ve been looking at all these athlete endorsements. It’s really cool that these guys are making all this money, but is that really going to make a difference?” asked van Stolk.

Lesson #5: Change the Rules of the Game

“If I had the chance to do it again, I probably would have liked to go to school,” says van Stolk as he reflects on his career. “However, the benefit from not going to school is that I look at things differently and I listen differently.”

Tuning into Tastes: The Secret of Jones Soda’s Success

“If you’re able to listen to customers from their perspective, not everything they say will make sense,” says van Stolk. “Not everything they do will be right. But you’ll know more about what you have to do because of it.”

Peter van Stolk Quotes

Peter van Stolk Quotes

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