Bethany:  Welcome to this edition of Brandonomiccs, an inside look at tops brands and their strategies.  I’m Bethany Andell, President of Savage Brands, and my guest today is Bret Farrar, CEO of Sendero Consulting.  Welcome Bret.

Bret:  Thank you Bethany for having me.

Bethany:  I would love it if you would just start with a quick overview of what Sendero Consulting does.

Bret:  So Sendero Consulting is a management consulting firm and we provide business solutions to our clients through technology enablement, organizational affectedness, strategic planning and analytics.

Bethany:  You know you and I are both huge proponents of leading a company from a place of purpose.  You give talks about it all the time, I know you live that, and you just talked about what Sendero does.  Can you tell me about your why; about your core purpose?

Bret:  Sure, our why we define fairly simply as unleash potential for our people, our company, our clients and our community.

Bethany:  how does that manifest itself to this variety of stakeholders?

Bret:  So for us unleashed potential really goes back to stewardship and stewardship is one of our cultural pillars.  And so it’s about being a good steward for our people, our company, our clients and community.  And we define stewardship very simply as leave something better than when you found it.  And so it’s this idea, this concept, of always looking to improve and get better.

Bethany:  I feel like every stakeholder could win off of that philosophy, right?

Bret:  That’s the idea.

Bethany:  Exactly.  Why do you think that just in your general opinion why companies should lead from a place of purpose versus growth profit, shareholder value?

Bret:  I really think that that purpose is what brings people, attracts people; they want to be part of something bigger and when you have a strong purpose it makes people feel connected.  People want to be associated with something that they believe in and something that they believe reflects their values and their beliefs.  And so I think it’s very powerful when you have that because it attracts people, but it also retains people who agree with that and they work in a very different way.  And it becomes a passion as opposed to just a job.

Bethany:  As the fearless leader of the organization how do you make sure that purpose stays at the forefront of the business; from your decision making, from how you’re growing the company, etcetera?

Bret:  So I like to say that my job as the CEO of this company is twofold; the biggest thing – the most important things I worry about is why we exist and who we are.  And so I visit every decision we make, everything we do as a business to make sure we stay aligned with why we’re here and who we are.  Everything else in business, the whats, whens, wheres, things like that, those can change over time and have changed.  But those core things of why we’re here and who we are; those are the same today as they were when I founded the company over 13 years ago as they will be 10 years from now.  That really serves as that bedrock, that thing we hold onto that allows us to build from.

Bethany:  That’s great.  Thank you so much for being here.

Bret:  Thank you very much Bethany, it was great to be here.  Thank you.

Bethany:  That wraps up this edition of Brandonomics and my conversation with Bret Farrar of Sendero Consulting.