Business Lessons from a Soda Jerk

John Nese is a modern day soda jerk. He’s passionate about “flavored water with a lot bubbles.” Soda makes him smile, makes him happy. He’s the proprietor of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles. His store sells about 500 different sodas from small, independent-run soda makers. His business is a prototypical purple cow, worthy of word-of-mouth.

Watching the video below will not only make us smile and happy, it will make us smarter about business strategy and jealous we don’t have the same passion for what we do that John Nese does.

We’ll become smarter because we’ll see first-hand how passion propels performance, how being more selective makes a business more effective, and how sharing inspired expert knowledge will never go out of style.

We’ll become jealous because we’ll see someone who has made the necessary sacrifices in life to pursue their calling.

Enjoy. (Thanks Seth and Neal for bringing this video to my attention.)

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Comments

[Nathan]

I liked this guy's passion so much I actually placed an order at his website. He made me want to become a soda pop fanatic!

[Sheldon]

This is a very interesting video. I can see how his passion has helped him learn his industry very well. However, I was often told that passion is not a good reason to start a business because the passionate make bad business decisions. I don't know how true this is, but I did work with a guy who had a passion for computers; he started his business and shortly afterwards he was giving away service. I have since left his company and have no clue how he is doing; however, I have not heard anything about his company lately.

[Jay howeller]

Man, can i get a store like this where im at....PLEASE

[Nancy Rodrigues]

It is refreshing to see that there are still a few people out there who took courage, intuition and passion to start a business. With the business monopoly we have today, these entrepreneurs are intimidated and find it extremely difficult to get finance help. I believe we need that same enthusiasm to start and compete against the giant business, and maybe be able to start a middle man revolution back the way we had it before. Quality and customer service will improve as well as the lives of many people who wish they could start their own small business without feared of being eliminated by the monopoly.

[Shopalu]

This is the kind of stuff young "professionals" need to take note of.