You may not want to keep that secret sauce so secret

Chef Chris Wadsworth is a both a food artist and an entrepreneur. The flavors of his creations are pure and inventive, the plating beautiful. Restaurant IPO, where Wadsworth is the executive chef, is one of Baton Rouge’s newest gems on the culinary scene, and is one of his seven businesses.

What’s most interesting about Restaurant IPO lies beneath the surface. To achieve the complex flavors of his tapas dishes, Wadsworth searches south Louisiana to find the highest quality ingredients. He sources sustainable meat from local farmers, eschewing factory-farmed meat. He uses only farm duck eggs, for their incomparable flavor profile. And so forth.

His utter commitment to his craft is compellingly irresistible. To him, it’s normal—it’s what he does every day to produce the results he wants. To people who are passionate about sustainable food, his quest for the best ingredients represents their personal values and mirrors the care they take to select ingredients for their own kitchen. Personally, when I saw how our values aligned, business owner to customer, I instantly became a customer for life.

How often do you take for granted the best parts of your work? Take stock in what’s great about your company. What do you value most deeply about how you run your company, how you produce your product or provide your service? Your company’s secret sauce may not be what you think it is. But it may be the key to winning over the kinds of customers you’ll love.