In this engaging discussion, Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, shares valuable insights on pricing strategies and the necessity of charging what you need to sustain a business. He explains how to define company culture by boundaries and reflects on his 47-year partnership with Paul Saginaw, rooted in shared vision. Ari emphasizes the importance of employee ownership and attention to detail for consistent customer experiences. He also discusses the lessons learned from both failures and successes over the decades.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Let Passionate Insiders Lead New Ventures
Let new business ideas come from passionate internal partners who will sustain the work long-term.
Give emotional and financial equity to those who will live with the business day-to-day.
insights INSIGHT
Tiny Failures Become Big Problems
Small operational failings compound over years and can bankrupt a business long after they occur.
Focus on tiny quality details daily to avoid long-term decay.
insights INSIGHT
Perpetual Purpose Trust Protects Values
A perpetual-purpose trust (employee ownership) can prevent a business from being sold away from its values.
Ari and Paul gifted the brand into a trust so it can never be sold and staff will own increasing shares.
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This week, we’re replaying one of my favorite conversations of the year, a Q&A session we recorded in May at our 21 Hats Live event in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses. If you’ve already listened to our conversation with Ari, I encourage you to listen again. It’s worth it.
And if you haven’t heard it, well, you’re in for a treat. Much of the discussion focused on a topic that haunts just about every business owner, and that’s pricing. Specifically, Ari talked about how he learned to charge enough to run a healthy business and why he’d rather go out of business charging what Zingerman’s needs to charge than go out of business never knowing whether customers would have paid the true cost of great food and great service. (Spoiler alert: They have not gone out of business.)
Not surprisingly, the 21 Hats Live participants had lots of questions for Ari, including how he and his partners decide whether to launch a new business, how he and co-founder Paul Saginaw have maintained their partnership for more than 40 years, how he and Paul are approaching succession, and whether he thinks of himself as successful, which prompted Ari to share that his mother never stopped pleading with him to take the LSAT. You know, just in case.
We’re re-playing the episode in part because we took Thanksgiving week off from recording but also because it offers a little taste of what it’s like to attend a 21 Hats Live event. As you may have seen in the Morning Report, I’ve just announced that our fourth annual in-person event will take place in Cincinnati in May. Once again, it will be a terrific opportunity to connect with others who understand what it takes to build a business. If you’ve ever wished you could spend more time with people who really get what you’re going through, this is your chance. We will have peer group conversations on topics you help pick. We’ll get VIP tours of iconic local businesses. We’ll eat good food. We’ll build relationships. And we’ll leave inspired.
But spots are limited. For more information and to register, please check the newsletter I sent out on Sunday. Or shoot me an email, and I’ll make sure you get the invite. You can reach me at loren@21hats.com.
21 Hats Podcast 
