Having spent nearly twenty years studying and analyzing a unique breed of companies that have an uncanny way of attracting and retaining loyal customers, the topic of values becomes unavoidable.
The primary ingredient behind compelling stories come down to one thing: problems.
The protagonist faces a challenge and tries to overcome it. This is the essence of drama and the key to good storytelling.
Without problems—without troubles and tensions—there’s no story. There’s nothing to engage us.
The reason our stories, messaging and marketing fall flat is that the people we want to serve are not motivated by our need to be seen, to be heard or to close a sale. People—your audience, customers and clients—are motivated by their need to be seen, heard and understood.
Bernadette Jiwa, The Right Story
Despite the amount of money companies spend on customer insights, most companies don’t value true insights.
Insights should tell you something new; they should change the way you think. Yet, most companies reward predictable results instead of game changers.1
On average, companies value “insights” that confirm what they’re already doing. At best, they want “insights” that only slightly modify what they’re already doing.
Close your eyes. Picture Steve Jobs.
Black mock turtleneck? Jeans? Sneakers?
Jobs designed his outfit to convey both his personal brand and the Apple brand of simplicity. But, it also had a second benefit: it simplified his life to focus on tasks that matter.
Cult Branding was founded on Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. Maslow’s hierarchy offers a simple framework for understanding customer behavior: humans have inherent needs that they try to fulfill—consciously or unconsciously—in everything they do.
Although Maslow’s hierarchy offers significant explanatory power, it does not provide a complete explanation of brand loyalty. A more complete explanation involves taking a step back from Maslow and understanding how humans react when something happens to them.
Zappos is on a journey: a journey to become a 1000-year-old company. As we turn 20 years old this year, we believe we are just getting started.
But the reality is, in the landscape of company lifespans, we are old. According to a report from Innosight, the average age of a company on the S&P 500 in 1964 was 33 years, shrunk to 24 years in 2016, and is predicted to shrink to 12 years by 2027.
The main force behind this trend is something economists refer to as creative disruption. Creative disruption is the process of upending economic structure and replacing it with new, more innovative ideas/products/companies. Innovation in the market is happening faster and quicker. So is Zappos (and everyone else) doomed at age 20?
I mentioned Zappos is on a journey. Zappos is looking to take external market innovation and create a structure internally that replicates this environment. This doesn’t happen in an instant. It has been a journey to get to where we are today. And, we will continue to be a growing and innovating processes years from now. Our organizational structure evolution (Holacracy, Teal, market-based dynamics) is driven by metamorphosis in 5 main areas: profit to purpose, hierarchies to networks, controlling to empowering, planning to experimentation, and privacy to transparency.
Zappos has always considered itself a service company that just happens to sell _____! What fills in the blank? That isn’t for me or Tony Hsieh our CEO to decide. Well, it is, but it’s also for every other member of our organization. The blank can be filled by anyone at Zappos. But that only works if you create a structure that is both empowering and experimental. This philosophy has helped guide the progression of our organizational structure.
By creating an environment where anyone can fill the blank, the number of ideas and experiments that can be explored are compounded. This leads to a more diversified Zappos. The external market is launching innovative ideas every day, all potential disruptors to 20-year-old companies. Zappos is creating a space for these ideas to be launched from within.
Every marketing company claims to have “the answer.” But, solutions to marketing problems aren’t simple 2+2=4 answers.
Solutions to marketing problems are like learning acting: Sanford Meisner, one of the greatest acting teachers of the 20th century, would sometimes expel students from his class, not because they were bad actors and didn’t have a chance in the field, but because he knew he wasn’t the right teacher for them.
What makes a theatre production great is what makes a brand great. This shouldn’t be surprising: strong brands are expressions of a core idea that their customers love; and, great shows make us fall in love with language, a character, a relationship, an idea, or pure visual beauty—something that cuts to the core of what the show is really about.