Geek Squad founder: Success comes from risk taking, creativity

By Brice Wallace

To hear Robert Stephens tell it, his success in the business world has been all about taking risks.

And many of today’s companies, he says, are avoiding it.

From having his Geek Squad company in retail stores to the selections of its name, logo, vehicle fleet and employee apparel, Stephens took bold steps in an attempt to be atypical.

“A brand has to stand out. It has to differentiate itself,” said Stephens, the founder of the computer tech support company, during the keynote presentation at last week’s ACG Utah’s Intermountain Growth Conference.

“This is where companies begin to lose their edge — they stop thinking creatively. They think, ‘Well, we can’t be creative, it doesn’t scale. We can’t be creative, it costs too much money. We can’t be creative because, I don’t know, it’s just not going to work out.’ … It’s not about being a goof. It’s not about being a flash in the pan.”

“At some point,” he said, “when a company gets very large, it stops taking chances, [starts] playing it safe, and it starts looking like every other company out there.”

Stephens founded his company in 1994. Needing a name for his computer consulting business, he first considered Techno Medic, but people thought the company repaired medical devices. He wanted a name that “implies what we do but gives us some room to breathe in case I need to shift with the market,” he said.

“Geek Squad” was a name that was both powerful and succinct. “Advertising,” he said, “is the tax you pay for being unremarkable.”

He found that same power in a logo — the company name inside an oval — that is like a family crest that looks great on a car and conveys a message better than “a van with 800 words on the side,” he said.

He wanted a distinctive vehicle fleet and settled on black-and-white Volkswagens, despite the California Highway Patrol’s contention that they too closely resembled police vehicles.

He also wanted something different for in-store employees’ clothing. He considered super-hero capes, polo shirts and black suits but settled on a look similar to one worn by NASA engineers in the movie “Apollo 13.” It features clip-on ties and white, short-sleeved, pocketless dress shirts. That look, he said, conveys the idea that geeks “think about efficiency.”

“If you’re looking to sell a product, communicate to your customers about what you stand for or what this new thing can do, don’t try to introduce them to something they’ve never heard of before. Make the unfamiliar familiar by using archetypes that are already in their mind,” said Stephens, who sold his company to Best Buy in 2002 and served as its chief executive officer and the chief technology officer for Best Buy until 2012.

“Sweating the details” on things like the company name, logo, fleet and uniforms ultimately can pay off if it differentiates a company from its competition, he said.

“This applies to very business. Every business, every day, has to make all these decisions about how are you going to look to people? How does your name sound? Do they get it? Is it interesting? Is it newsworthy? Especially now with social media. Why is anybody going to follow your company on Twitter? What do you have to say with all these powerful broadcasting tools? Now Facebook has live video; how could you use that?”

A company’s lack of innovation and creativity can stem from a founder or CEO losing curiosity, Stephens said.

“The fish stinks from the head down. I think we need leaders who are curious. Curiosity is the No. 1 thing. You don’t have to know technology. When the iPhone came out, there were a lot of executives who were sure they were never going to get rid of the physical keyboard on their Blackberry. And it’s that narrow thinking that really blocks people from seeing what’s possible.”

As for what’s possible in today’s tech world, many advances are focused on finding more efficient ways of handling certain tasks, with people interested in shaving a few minutes or even seconds off the time it takes to do something.

Stephens’ current focus is on technology that can help provide better customer service. He said he used to be bored at Best Buy meetings but turned to Twitter to search for tweets about how “Best Buy sucks.” Then he would address the issues and turn around those customers’ perception of the company.

“The first thing you do is take care of your own house, then you take care of the costumers you do have. It costs a lot of money to buy new customers, so let’s keep the ones we have happy,” he said.

His goal is to hear from customers — through chat apps — and respond in real time rather than have the customer wade through a series of back-and-forth email messages. If a company’s outbound emails feature the words “do not reply,” he said, “this is when a company gives up. I would argue that the bigger you get, the more responsibility you have to kick ass.”

That quick response shows a customer that the company cares about them, he said. Companies should insist that all customer calls be recorded, kept on file for 90 days and be available to customers whenever they want them.

“A company does not have to be perfect,” he said, “but the public should feel like the company is trying to become more perfect.”