Lululemon's Unsmoked Stores

Do you know what makes people take action against smoking? Everyone may have a different reason for unsmoke. Nowadays, I am reading the book "Little Black Stretchy Pants" which is called as the unauthorized story of lululemon". Lululemon makes technical athletic clothes for yoga, running, working out, and most other sweaty pursuits. Chip Wilson’s part in this story comes from the learnings of thousands of mistakes. He set the culture, business model, quality platform, people development program and then got out of the way.  What I found interesting in this book is a part in which Chip Wilson describes his attitude to unsmoke his stores. Let's see what drives him to unsmoke his business facilities.

Smoking in the Store

Another lesson I learned in the early days of Westbeach was in brand-building. I decided I would let no one into the store who was smoking.

You must understand how radical this was in the early 80s. For most people, it was like telling them not to breathe oxygen. Shoppers would scream and yell and swear and promise they would never bring their business to me.

I was determined to stand my ground. Even with the little evidence we had then, I felt sure smoking was making people sick. It seemed filthy and was not something I wanted to have associated with the youth and athleticism of my brand.

I could tell that by making enemies of the people I didn’t want to wear my product, that it created a stronger group of loyalists who wanted to back a brand that stood for their health and a better future. This idea would be the foundational genesis of how to build a West Coast brand.

As you can see from the paragraphs above, Chip Wilson designed a brand with unsmoke motives. You know it's time to unsmoke. What is your motivation to unsmoke your world?