For those of you who might not know, Tony Hsieh was the founder of Zappos, the e-commerce start-up that revolutionized the way we shop online by putting the customer first which inspired almost every company that followed. In honour of his life and his revolutionary thinking, our team at Little Bear wanted to pay tribute to everything he taught us. Tony was a role model and inspiration for our founder and by extension, our entire team. We thought it was only fitting to take a moment to really think about how he was a true definition of a “trailblazer”.
Throughout Tony’s working life, he was on a mission to create a company that put customer service and great culture at the heart of everything they did. In doing so, he taught all of us in the marketing and business world an endless number of valuable lessons, 4 of which have resonated with us so deeply that they still affect much of our decision making to this day.
Company Culture
Company culture may have been around in some sense of the word before Zappos, but no one did it like Tony. He created a growing and evolving ecosystem of people who couldn’t wait to go to work or couldn’t bring themselves to ever leave because of how amazing the culture really was. In his process, he created 10 core values that his team was required to memorize and recite should anyone ask. There were 10 things to check off in a day when you completed any project, and no one questioned it. Why? It worked.
- Deliver WOW Through Service
- Embrace and Drive Change
- Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
- Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
- Pursue Growth and Learning
- Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
- Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
- Do More With Less
- Be Passionate and Determined
- Be Humble
Creating these 10 pillars that his team was expected to know off by heart was at the core of his company culture. Sure, there were other everyday workplace expectations like don’t call people names or run around the office, but Tony’s core values were the foundation. Outside of these 10 expectations, he let everyone else be and work how they wanted. This seemingly “relaxed” while still laser-focused team strategy was the first of its kind, which just like really good marketing, spread like wildfire.
Our culture at Little Bear follows suit in our own unique ways thanks to Tony, but we are just one company amongst many others who adapted his strategies. Company culture exploded after Tony made the decision to focus on what a work environment should look like. Now, companies everywhere strive to create a culture that is irresistible in order to generate the highest productivity possible.
The Power of WOW
One of our favourite lessons is his well-known “Power of WOW” strategy. This strategy is exactly as it seems, finding a way to “wow” a customer. Tony instilled this ideology into all of his team members, and they always delivered. One team member helped a customer over the phone who was adamant on speaking only in the third person and trailed off into asking them for help on where he might be able to get a watch fixed, even though his company only sold shoes. Not only did this team member “wow” him enough to make him a long-term customer, but it’s living proof that Tony’s team really did always go the extra mile, and then some.
Before Tony, the idea of doing whatever it took to “wow” a customer beyond their expectations wasn’t a leading strategy. He sparked the excellent customer service culture, which quickly motivated not only companies, but marketers to think outside the box and ask themselves “did we wow our audience?”.
Now, the best part about the Power of WOW is it’s not difficult. Wowing your audience in any way that suits your brand’s voice and image is a fun trial and error strategy to play with until you find the perfect execution. What makes this strategy one of best out there is its pure simplicity. It’s not an outlandish idea to “wow” your customers. What gives it power is HOW you choose to WOW. This strategy can easily be the icing on the cake once you find the perfect way to blow your audience away.
The Triple Bottom Line: Profits, Passion, Purpose
Tony’s 3 P’s – Profits, Passion and Purpose was a driving force throughout his entire Zappos journey. His “triple bottom line” became yet another baseline for companies everywhere as it focused on more than just the dollar value.
It goes without saying that profits are important, but what about the rest? What about the Passion and Purpose? Tony introduced a concept that consumed the minds of marketers and storytellers everywhere. What is the purpose? Is there passion? From this point on, digital marketers shifted from selling a product with fluffy words to giving the product a purpose and fueling it with passion. It was then up to the customer to decide, is this for me? This strategy changed the language, messaging, and way marketers and brands communicated with the outside world.
Purpose, passion and a brand or product’s “why” is where all of us at Little Bear start, and so the story begins.
Admit and Grow from Your Mistakes
This is a big one, and not just for the marketing industry, for companies everywhere. Mistakes used to be the boogeyman in business. No one wanted to make a mistake because learning from it wasn’t the focus yet. Not until Tony that is. Just like any other entrepreneur, he made tons of mistakes. What set him apart was rather than running from them in order to stay at the top, he admitted them within his own company, and to the outside world. Tony was a pioneer in embracing failures which as we know, didn’t exactly put in a dent in his success. We think it did the exact opposite.
This shift in saying “yes” to a mistake shifted the way many companies now function internally. Now, it’s not unheard of for your boss to say “I welcome mistakes, so we can learn from them” (that was a little nod to our founder, just in case you were wondering…) Because of Tony, our company culture actually focuses a lot on mistake making. Not in the sense where we are eagerly anticipating one, but we get kind of excited when it happens. We are presented with an opportunity to break it down as a team, and maybe even discover something that would have been missed if everything was always smooth sailing.
So, making mistakes doesn’t have to be scary. Tony changed that, and all of us can continue to make it less and less terrifying by turning it into exactly what it really is – a lesson.
More Than Success
I’m going to step outside of the “we” for a moment and share a personal thought. I can’t help but think about his impact. Tony checked so many boxes in his career and when I was writing this article, it really hit me. A pathway was made for all of us because of Tony. Because of his way of thinking, hundreds, if not thousands of current and future companies and ideas will not only be successful, but they will exist on an entirely new level. Tony’s mind was the birthplace of so many incredible innovations that resulted in a new generation of people who really understand what it means to think bigger. Now that’s a legacy.
Have any thoughts on what Tony Hsieh created? Has he impacted your company, brand, culture or marketing strategies in a major way? Share it with us! We’d love to hear it.
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Article Written by:
Angelica Nicole Greene-Barrales
Marketing Lead at Little Bear in the Forest | Digital Marketing Collective
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