Tony Hsieh Quotes

Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded At Zappos, we think it’s important for people and the company as a whole to be bold and daring (but not reckless). We want everyone to not be afraid to take risks and to not be afraid to make mistakes, because if people aren’t making mistakes then that means they’re not taking enough risks. Over time, we want everyone to develop his/her gut about business decisions. We want people to develop and improve their decision-making skills. We encourage people to make mistakes as long as they learn from them. We never want to become complacent and accept the status quo just because that’s the way things have always been done. We should always be seeking adventure and having fun exploring new possibilities. By having the freedom to be creative in our solutions, we end up making our own luck. We approach situations and challenges with an open mind. Sometimes our sense of adventure and creativity causes us to be unconventional in our solutions (because we have the freedom to think outside the box), but that’s what allows us to rise above and stay ahead of the competition. Ask yourself: Are you taking enough risks? Are you afraid of making mistakes? Do you push yourself outside of your comfort zone? Is there a sense of adventure and creativity in the work that you do? What are some creative things that you can contribute to Zappos? Do you approach situations and challenges with an open mind?

For example, for most of our loyal repeat customers, we do surprise upgrades to overnight shipping, even though we only promise them standard ground shipping when they choose the free shipping option. In conjunction with that, we run our warehouse 24/7, which actually isn’t the most efficient way to run a warehouse. The most efficient way to run a warehouse is to let the orders pile up, so that when a warehouse worker needs to walk around the warehouse to pick the orders, the picking density is higher, so the picker has less of a distance to walk. But we’re not trying to maximize for picking efficiency. We’re trying to maximize the customer experience, which in the e-commerce business is defined in part by getting orders out to our customers as quickly as possible. The combination of a 24/7 warehouse, surprise upgrades to overnight shipping, and having our warehouse located just fifteen

Your personal core values define who you are, and a company's core values ultimately define the company's character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.

We must never lose our sense of urgency in making improvements. We must never settle for “good enough,” because good is the enemy of great,

company’s culture and a company’s brand are really just two sides of the same coin.

We learned a great lesson: If you just focus on making sure that your product or service continually WOWs people, eventually the press will find out about it. You don’t need to put a lot of effort into reaching out to the press if your company naturally creates interesting stories as a by-product of delivering a great product or experience.

When you walk with purpose, you collide with destiny. — BERTICE BERRY

To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means do something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver.

I failed my way to success. — THOMAS EDISON

when a customer calls looking for a specific style of shoes in a specific size that we’re out of stock on. In those instances, every rep is trained to research at least three competitors’ Web sites, and if the shoe is found in stock to direct the customer to the competitor. Obviously, in those situations, we lose the sale. But we’re not trying to maximize each and every transaction. Instead, we’re trying to build a lifelong relationship with each customer, one phone call at a time.

Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.

potential to increase the lifetime value of the customer. Usually marketing departments assume that the lifetime value of a customer is fixed when doing their ROI calculations. We view the lifetime value of a customer to be a moving target that can increase if we can create more and more positive emotional associations with our brand through every interaction that a person has with us. Another common trap that many marketers fall into is focusing too much on trying to figure out how to generate a lot of buzz, when really they should be focused on building engagement and trust. I can tell you that my mom has zero buzz, but when she says something, I listen. To that end, most of our efforts on the customer service and customer experience side actually happen after we’ve already made the sale and taken a customer’s credit card number.

Para los individuos, el carácter es destino. Para las organizaciones, la cultura es destino.

living by the philosophy that experiences were much more important to me than material things.

My advice is to stop trying to ‘network’ in the traditional business sense and instead just try to build up the number and depth of your friendships, where friendship itself is a reward