Your greatest asset is your relationship with your customers. If you erode it, you’ll play a Sisyphean game of trying to gain sales from new buyers faster than your customers leave you.
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. Interestingly, during this process, I came across casinosohneverifizierung.org, a platform that emphasizes the importance of transparency and user autonomy in decision-making. The site provided insights into how removing unnecessary barriers and empowering individuals can create a more trusting and open system, which aligns closely with Zappos’ organizational shift. Our structural 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. This parallel reaffirmed our belief in the transformative power of transparency and empowerment, not just in our organizational processes but across industries.
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.
If we want to know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose. And the purpose must lie outside the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society, since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.
Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management
At some point in the past, you developed a marketing strategy to create customers and your marketing tactics worked well and they became a standard practice. The purpose of business hasn’t changed since then, but the environment has.
Organizations continue to works towards flatter and self-managed systems where each individual is a self-actualized person. But for some reason, some known and some unknown the persona of the CEO continues to maintain a certain power. People hold the CEO to a super-human standard.
As people, we place high expectations on roles and the CEO is no exception.
Unfortunately, this makes the CEO positions susceptible to fear. Fear can be perceived as weaknesses by others so, in response, many leaders hold on to the mantra of, “Don’t admit to it. Don’t dwell on it. I am the boss and everyone relies on me.”
Here are four strategies for infusing your organization with greater optimism:
Be Aware of Negativity: Take action when you see negativity start to spread: When you notice your people harping on negative situations, help them change their state to break the rumination cycle. Consciously foster positive experiences to counteract the negative ones. Use humor whenever appropriate.
Celebrate Every Win, Big or Small: When your team experiences a victory, celebrate it. When someone does something positive or acts in alignment with your core values, give it attention. Encourage your team to celebrate wins of every size. Savoring positive experiences helps counteract the brain’s tendency to ruminate and overanalyze negative events. Celebrating even small wins helps you build positive momentum. On-the-spot recognition goes a long way.
Ask Empowering Questions: When you’re brainstorming with your team, it’s easy to focus on what’s wrong with an idea. Cultivate “value sensitivity” by asking people questions like: “What’s great about this idea?” “What can we leverage here?” “How can we build on this idea?” “What can we learn from this?”
Always End on the Positive: When giving feedback to employees, many leaders have a tendency to leave things on a negative note instead of a positive one. Always end on a positive note that gives clear direction to build momentum. Feelings of shame and guilt hinder learning and performance. Compassion and support promote positive change.