That’s Just It, The Time is NOW… WOLF Means Business!

“Really, you think I should take the buyout package and leave my Senior Vice President post at Best Buy to launch WOLF Means Business to grow other companies to be THE place for women to shop and work?” I responded inquisitively staring into the eyes of a friend who had known me for many years. He quickly responded, “Yes, Julie, it’s what you have talked about and NOW is the time.” He knew well that Best Buy had, at my creation of WOLF five years ago, given me the full ownership rights to WOLF including the intellectual property and the right to take it outside anytime in exchange for me to build it first at Best Buy. As we talked, I realized that he was indeed right and it was time to have an impact on building incredible business growth while continuing to build a global network of female leaders and empowering them toward success. And I felt confident that the WOLVES of Best Buy would continue on the mission and be my partners as well. Hopefully I had made my mark and left my legacy there in a way that would be sustained. Now was the time, indeed!

The time was now for three reasons I wrote on a cocktail napkin as we talked:

1. Women are dominating the spend in nearly every single industry from consumer electronics, healthcare, automobiles, and even beer sales at rates over 80 percent in most industries globally, and yet, companies were not designed to serve them!

2. The current economy situation only heightens women’s role controlling how every single dollar gets spent and the companies that authentically serve them will win today and long-term.

3. The reason why so many others’ attempts to focus on women have failed, is that nearly all of the other companies are led at the top by men who are great, but do not have the lens of what women want! Just ask them how many things they have returned to the store because their wife wasn’t shopping with them and wait for their sheepish grin!

We are here for you guys! With WOLF, we proved at Best Buy that for this new business growth, you must have those consumers… WOMEN – who have the insights directly innovating every single facet of the business for themselves. WOLF also proved that if you give the innovation keys to women, they will not only grow the female business in eye-popping ways but will also lift the waterline for men’s business as well. And, this doesn’t even start to talk about all the benefits of culture change that will occur as well for both women and men.

With the partnership and amazing insights of WOLF’s 35,000 female employees and female customers from all over the U.S. and Europe, we achieved amazing financial growth, with women creating everything from a new gift registry, new marketing, new product offerings, new recruiting, and many others. They even created several new store designs, including a WOLF Omega female consumer designed in Denver, CO. All this innovation from their lenses did the job at Best Buy by increasing female revenue by $4.4 billion… yes, that is $4.4 billion… in less than 5 years. And that wasn’t all – working together as partners, we decreased female turnover by more than 5 % each year, increased the number of females working at Best Buy by more than 20% and increased the revenue mix of females spend in every single territory in the company to historic levels. In fact, today at Best Buy, the top customer in the company is, yes, you guessed it, a female in a company that for 35 years focused on the male customer! Most importantly, because WOLF is an innovation capability, we built leadership skills in every single person (female and male) involved in WOLF inside the company and outside the company in the U.S. and Europe. We built big business and in the process grew people at all levels. WOLF does indeed mean business!

As I looked across the table at my friend, he had the largest smile I had seen in some time as he said, “And that’s just it! I am glad you made your decision Julie!” The time was now to help companies grow business sitting right in front of them before their competitors did and also build leaders globally that just happen to be women! And so, WOLF Means Business opened for business. Ladies, the time is NOW!

By Julie Gilbert