April 12, 2012

“Delivering Happiness” by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

I rarely find an organization that practices what I fundamentally believe is required to distinguish oneself in the market to succeed and survive. My regular reader will know that I am relentless in advocating proven and practical BE DiFFERENT Practices to create distance between yourself and the competitive herd. I am a ‘SIMPLE’, ‘EXECUTE’ and ‘ONLY’ strategy hawk, a ‘VALUE’ marketing guy, a ‘relationship’ sales believer and a ‘dazzling experience’ customer server.

This book is evidence of a leader that also believed in these principles and built a phenomenally successful business by relentlessly applying them.

Tony has created an interesting and enjoyable read by his informal captivating writing style. You don’t have to ‘fight the words’ on every page. You find yourself easily consuming page after page effortlessly. The recounting of his early years and what he did to prepare himself for ‘The Show’ was informative and to the analytical hemisphere in each of us made it easy to predict his future as a business entrepreneur.

But what impressed - no, WOW’d - me was the rich examples of what he did to establish Zappos as a DiFFERENT Company; one that focused on a single value dimension to attract and build a loyal customer base; one that literally created a culture that served his chosen strategic direction.

In no particular order, here is a sample of the climax learning moments for me in Delivering Happiness:
> Never outsource a core competency. He unlike others resisted the economic temptation to outsource his call center operations.
> You always have a choice of which table to sit at (from his Poker days). Choose the table - pick the customer group to serve - that maximizes your chances of success. WHO to SERVE.
> He had an audacious goal of generating $1 Billion in revenue by 2010. This growth goal drove all activity in the business. An excellent example of HOW BIG in action.
> Lifelong learning through the Zappos Library. People make their business - everyone’s business!
> THE strategic driving force behind Zappos is to create WOW experiences for customers, employees, suppliers and owners. Tight strategy. Easy to understand. Easy to relate to.
> All activities are aligned to the service experience goal. Direct Line of Sight for all people in the organization. Random Acts of WOWNESS are expected and are a part of performance management.
> When Zappos can’t supply what the customer wants, they are directed to research their competition. They are driven by the relationship NOT the short term sale. Lose a Sale BUT Save the Customer.
> The language of Zappos is all about the customer. NOT Call Centers, BUT The Customer Loyalty Team.
> They created, published AND - more importantly - PRACTICE the Ten Core Values of Zappos.
> The #1 Core Value = Deliver WOW Through Service
> The power of 1%, a blog posted by Alfred the CFO/COO. A brilliant example of ‘get a nano-inch of progress FAST. Increments of advancement add up to impressive performance improvements.
> Weirdness is promulgated as a differential advantage. Tony’s words “We want the company to have a unique and memorable personality”.
> Build a pipeline of people rather than thinking of individuals as assets. You need to build a steady stream of people with the skills and competencies you need. A Pipeline Team delivers courses to various departments.

As an Author I was WOW’d by the way Tony and crew distributed the Advanced Copy of his book for comment. Delivering Happiness was made available to bloggers who post blog articles regularly with a ‘promise’ to blog the book on the Publication date June 7, 2010. What a slick method of, first, getting the Advanced Copy out to a large group of people; second, receiving complementary promotion of his book, and, third, gathering a repository of Critical Praise testimonials for his book. Brilliant example of how Authors can use Social Media to leverage their work. Nice!

Rarely have I seen such a cornucopia of ‘stuff’ that not only mirrors the business practices I believe in but which also have been executed in the real world. Tony has personally breathed life into the notions that people espouse as the right things to do. He did it and he nailed it in his book.

I strongly recommend Delivering Happiness to anyone looking to build something successful and memorable.

Cheers,
Roy
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Posted 4.12.12 at 05:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 5, 2012

Hyatt Maui BE Your Brand

I love the Hyatt. But our recent trip to Maui left me disappointed.

Always go there. Traditional Hawaiian Ambiance with music. Great Servers and Service.

What happened? They transformed a large part of the round-the-pool eating area into SELF SERVE.

What? The things that reinforced the Hyatt brand have been removed.

The reason? Cost cutting I am told.

Servers are pissed but are making up for management’s short sightedness by bending the Rules and taking care of people. Long live the Frontline!

Hyatt: get your thinking straight and keep the stuff that makes your Brand special.

Cheers,
Roy

Posted 4.5.12 at 05:10 pm by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 6, 2011

RIM Cost Cutting Won’t Cut It

The Battle
Apple is BE DiFFERENT
This is not the first time I have written about Research in Motion (RIM). The links are above.
My views have been consistent: RIM ‘s competitive position is faltering because they have not moved off their original (tired) strategy of selling Smartphones. Flogging Technology. Pushing features. Compare this to Apple’s strategy of launching hundreds of thousands of applications which create unique and interesting experiences for their fans. And Google’s strategy to leverage their platform and functionality for mobile users.

In the beginning when they literally had no competition the pure product play worked for RIM as it did for any innovator in the early adoptive period of a disruptive technology. The Blackberry device sold like hot cakes and RIM became an investor’s delight. However, I have predicted that the winner in this arena will be the supplier that innovates around Experience Creation not products and technology. And I think Apple has the clear advantage (today) over everyone else.

The recent announcement that RIM plans to layoff people as a cost reduction measure tells me they are in SERIOUS TROUBLE . Cost cutting isn’t a strategy. It’s a reaction to a strategy that in fact is NOT WORKING. It is a short term tactic to preserve margins in the face of an eroding market position. It’s meant to placate the investment community. It’s an admission that they cannot solve their financial challenges by successfully competing.

I am not a fan of short term cost cutting. Bad stuff can happen. Customer service can suffer because the wrong costs are removed. External market activity can be given a lower priority than looking internally for efficiency improvements. Customer programs can be curtailed or cut out entirely. Employee training can be suddenly viewed as “discretionary” and substantially reduced.

Valuable employees leave and take with them their experience and expertise which they gladly give to another company (usually a competitor). The remaining employee population starts to worry about their own future; productivity declines.
The Company’s Brand suffers. Their people-cutting actions speak volumes about their lack of humanity to the markets. People leaving start talking on social media about how they have been treated and about other “goings-on” in the company that may not be flattering.“The Cut” can actually exacerbate an ready bad situation.
There is only one viable option for RIM (sorry, but I’ll say it again). They MUST dump their technology-centered strategy. Start innovating around VALUE and EXPERIENCES for their Fans. Time to change the game. The current direction isn’t working.

And PLEASE. They need to get off the copycat approach. They cant effectively copy Apple or Google. They have proved they don’t measure up.
I’m afraid if RIM can’t renew themselves (which I think they can, by the way. They just need a serious intervention) they will fail.
If you’re not DiFFERENT you’re dead, or soon will be. Want proof? Is Nortel still around?

Final point: NO organization can survive with two CEO’s.
Tick.. Tick… Tick… Tick

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 8.6.11 at 05:20 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 1, 2011

I Like Part 1

GAGA Misguided
Secret Gathering Process
Power Up with Customer Secrets
I have yet to see a single organization conform to BE DiFFERENT Practices in every way, but there are some organizations that are brilliant at some of them. Study these.

Chubb Insurance. Ever hear of an Insurance Company applauded for turning an extremely painful experience (we had a flood in our home that wreaked havok on 30-40% of it which had to be restored) into a delightful one? Probably not. But mine did. Nivian Chan has an amazing habit of ‘saying yes’ to ease our pain while at the same time admirably representing her company and it’s interests. Words to describe my experience with Chubb: hassel-free, humane, caring and understanding. Amazing.

Zappos. Tony Hsieh’s company delivers happiness. Happiness, a key strategic concept. It’s not about the shoes. It’s about surprising and Wowing their fans. A call center that isn’t outsourced because it is seen as loyalty building tool and not a cost to be controlled. Too bad other CEO’s didn’t have Tony’s insight. Check out his book if you want a great read and if you want to learn how to create a culture obsessed about pleasing your customers.

Cactus Club Cafe. I wrote a Blog Article on this organization a while back. Two things strike me about Cactus. Number One: they have a philosophy and culture of saying YES to whatever their guest wants even if it means running out to get an ingredient they need to prepare a meal that isn’t on their menu! Number Two: everyone in the Cafe understands what ‘House of Yes’ means and they explain the concept with passion and conviction. Ever run into a Frontline employee who really doesn’t get the strategy of the company they work for? Happens all the time. Not at the Cactus Club.

More to come in future Blogs. If you have any examples of BE DiFFERENT organizations please pass them along to me for sharing.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 8.1.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)