Okay, I don’t really know any secrets about Zappos.com. Sorry if you’re disappointed.
Even though I don’t know any of their secrets, I am reading a fantastic book about the company. It’s called Delivering Happiness and it’s written by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com. It’s a fascinating first-hand account of Tony’s journey with this amazing company. The following is an excerpt where Tony explains how Zappos.com reached their goal of $1 billion in sales in 2008 – two years ahead of their original goal of 2010:
Looking back, a big reason we hit our goal early was that we decided to invest our time, money, and resources into three key areas: customer service (which would build our brand and drive word of mouth), culture (which would lead to the formation of our core values), and employee training and development (which would eventually lead to the creation of our Pipeline Team).
Even today, our belief is that our Brand, our Culture, and our Pipeline (which we internally refer to as “BCP”) are the only competitive advantages that we will have in the long run.
Everything else can and will eventually be copied.
Tony has a cubicle just like every other Zappos employee. Photo credit: Business Week
It’s fascinating how clear and simple he makes it. There is an important lesson to be learned here.
As Tony said, Zappos.com’s business model can be (and has been) copied. They don’t have some magical secret formula hidden behind lock and key. Tony comes right out and tells the world what their competitive advantages are. They don’t try to be the best at everything. They focused, relentlessly focused, on just three things.
The reason others can’t (or haven’t) copied Zappos.com is because it would be too simple. Yes, you heard me right. It’s too simple.
Most companies start out with a simple product, a simple structure, and a simple plan to rule the world (or at least their industry). But they become cumbersome as they grow. Mind numbing processes replace figuring things out on the fly, departmental lines replace camaraderie, hierarchies turn decision making into a tangled mess. It gets harder and harder to narrow in on what’s really important. Zappos.com makes it very clear that their Brand, Culture, and Pipeline are to be THE priorities for the company and they make hard decisions based on those priorities. Other companies might argue that they too have have clarity on their strategic priorities. But when decision time comes, they squirm and let things slide (especially when it involves difficult decisions like firing people or axing a product).
Zappos also has a very strong set of core values that I’ll talk about in another post.
As for the book, I’ve found it difficult to put down.
I’ll try not to pull anymore bait and switch shenanigans on the blog titles.
Recent Comments