Tony Hsieh
Tony Hsieh
Tony Hsiehis an American internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is the CEO of the online shoe and clothing shop Zappos. Prior to joining Zappos, Hsieh co-founded the internet advertising network LinkExchange, which he sold to Microsoft in 1999 for $265 million...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
philosophy numbers years
Branding Through Customer Service Over the years, the number one driver of our growth at Zappos has been repeat customers and word of mouth. Our philosophy has been to take most of the money we would have spent on paid advertising and invest it into customer service and the customer experience instead, letting our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth.
years stuff-happens rewards
If you're focused on the friendship as its own reward, serendipitous stuff just happens. I know that sounds weird, but I can tell you for our 12 years of existence, it's actually how a lot of stuff happens.
years numbers advice
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 the friendship itself is its own reward. The more diverse your set of friendships are, the more likely you'll derive both personal and business benefits from your friendship later down the road. You won't know exactly what those benefits will be, but if your friendships are genuine, those benefits will magically appear 2-3 years later down the road.
strong thinking years
I think maybe 50 years ago people and businesses felt like they had to choose between maximizing profits and making customers happy or making employees happy, and I think we're actually living in a special time where everyone's hyperconnected, whether through Twitter or blogs and so on. Information travels so quickly that it's actually possible to have it all, to make customers happy through customer service, to make employees happy through strong company cultures, and have that actually drive growth and profits.
thinking years shoes
Hopefully 10 years from now people won't even realize we started out selling shoes. They will just think about Zappos as a place to get the best customer service.
today needs internet
SEO expertise is a core need for today's online businesses.
sleep games needs
You've gotta love the game. To become really good, you need to live it and sleep it.
long empowering culture
Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own.
lines inspirational-customer-service employee
Every employee can affect your company's brand, not just the front-line employees that are paid to talk to your customers.
culture brands
Your brand is your culture.
shoes company sells
Zappos is a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes.
passion purpose best-business
The best businesses are really ones that can combine passion, profits, and purpose.
people stories shapes
Help shape the stories that people are telling about you.
seems
Things are never as bad or as good as they seem.