By Mark Mitchell
Special to Ontario Construction News
Tony Hsieh, the recently retired founder of the online retailer Zappos, passed away from injuries he received during a house fire.
I’m fortunate to have met Tony back in 2010 when I attended one of his workshops and spent a couple of hours on the phone helping to make his customers happy.
I attended the customer service workshop during Zappos’ annual vendor party. The party was a no holds barred event with rock bands, a circus, drinking games, and more – all to show their vendors how much they were appreciated.
Tony came dressed as a lamb. I didn’t recognize him at first, but luckily I managed to get a photo with him.
Tony was a true visionary and I learned a lot of powerful lessons from him. I still bring some of those insights to the building materials companies I work with.
Lesson 1: Don’t let others dissuade you from your vision
When Tony decided he wanted to sell shoes online, everyone told him he would fail. The common sense at the time was that people would only be willing to buy shoes if they could try them on first.
Tony saw the limitations of buying shoes from brick and mortar retailers and the benefits of shopping for them online. The industry experts couldn’t see that the world was ready to change, but Tony could.
Lesson 2 – Attitude is more important than experience
My first experience with the company was a tour of their offices in Las Vegas. I was in town with my son, Blake. I had a free day between two trade shows and he announced that we were going to take a tour of Zappos.
That struck me as strange. Why would anyone want to tour the offices of a company?
Still, I was open to the idea. My son’s recommendations for secret bars and restaurants, unusual hotels, or shopping experiences have never disappointed me, so I was curious to see what I would learn.
Since my visit, Zappos has taken over the Las Vegas city hall building and helped revitalize the downtown area. But at the time, they were housed in a nondescript office building in an office park.
That plain facade didn’t prepare me for what was inside. As soon as we walked into the reception area, I was struck by how informal and energetic the atmosphere was. They even had a popcorn machine. This was noticeably different from most reception areas, which are usually quiet, designed to impress and have not much more than a phone with a list of names with their extensions.
Companies used to have receptionists, the best of whom made every visitor feel important and set a positive image for the company. Zappos reception area, however, had a desk manned by not one but two receptionists. They were dubbed “The Can Do Department” and in addition to all the standard tasks receptionists are expected to do, they also helped employees solve problems.
They would field all sorts of issues, like:
- “I just moved here, where can I find a (whatever they are looking for)?”
- “My windshield is cracked. A repairman is going to replace it in our parking lot. Can I leave the keys with you so I can focus on my work?”
As we toured the offices, each department stopped what they were doing and greeted us in their own unique way. Some of them turned on a boombox and danced. Others broke out into song.
It felt like everyone at Zappos must have been a cheerleader at some point in their life. It was strange at first, but you soon realized how great it is to be surrounded by so much positive energy at work.
They created this remarkable environment by being “Slow to Hire and Quick to Fire.”
Zappos has an extensive interview process to identify people who have a positive attitude and are supportive of others. It doesn’t matter if you’re more qualified than all the other candidates, you won’t get the position if you’re not a good fit for their culture.
They believe that they can teach you how to get better at different aspects of the job but they can’t teach attitude.
Once they hire you, they try to get you to quit. I don’t know how they do it today, but when I visited Zappos they would offer new employees $1,000 to leave the job. If someone is willing to march out the door for $1,000, they probably weren’t the type of person they wanted.
If you get past all of that and show signs of being difficult to work with, you get a warning. The next step is getting fired. There are no second or third chances. That’s because they operate on the assumption that one person who is difficult to work with can spread their bad attitude to other employees. A single bad apple can spoil the whole bushel.
How many difficult people are in your organization because of their perceived expertise? That’s exactly what I asked myself after the Zappos workshop. When I returned to work, I fired a person that I viewed as irreplaceable even though they were difficult to work with. It was amazing to see what a positive and immediate effect this had on the rest of my staff.
The right attitude doesn’t just have a great effect on other employees. It also affects customers, suppliers and anyone else who deals with the people in your organization.
You might not go to the same extremes as Zappos, but you should consider making attitude one of the factors you consider during the hiring process.
Lesson 3: Selling your product is not the best way to sell your product
Zappos has expanded into a wide range of products. But when I was there, they were still only selling shoes.
Except, that’s not really what they were doing. Every employee was told that they’re not selling shoes – they’re making people happy.
The idea was that if you focused on making people happy, the shoe sales would take care of themselves.
Because of that, their telephone sales reps were not evaluated on traditional metrics like:
- How quickly they completed the call
- How many shoes they sold
- How many second pairs or upgrades they sold
- How many dollars in sales
Instead, they were encouraged to just chat about whatever the customer wanted to talk about. It didn’t even have to be about shoes.
It didn’t make sense, but it worked.
You can apply the same philosophy in building materials. Your customers don’t want to be sold a better product. They want a solution to a problem.
In other words, they want you to do what you can to make them happy.
With that in mind, you should take a good hard look at your metrics. Are you measuring your employees on the activities and outcomes that will genuinely help your customers and make their day?
Lesson 4: Support your employees
In the Zappos reception area, I noticed a bookcase with a dozen copies of the best-selling business books. I was told that the employees could take any book that interested them, either to read on their own time or to take part in the reading groups that were set up for each of the books on the shelves.
The employee support didn’t stop there. Our first stop on the tour was a meeting with the company life coach.
Her job was to meet with every employee and help them set and achieve their life goals. She pushes everyone to have a Big Ass Goal – one they might not even believe they could achieve.
That goal could be buying a house, becoming a department head, or something that aims even higher. It could be a personal goal like losing weight or finishing a college degree. If your goal was to move to another country or start your own business, it could even involve leaving Zappos.
It didn’t matter what the employee’s goal was – Zappos wanted to help them achieve it.
They also found ways to recognize employees frequently.
I saw these “You Wow Me” notes everywhere I looked. Employees were encouraged to hand these out to others to let them know their actions were valued and appreciated.
I don’t know about you, but when someone thanks me for something it makes my day. Imagine what a difference it would make if your employees were getting an “Atta Boy” a few times a month?
Most building materials companies spend their time pointing out what’s wrong instead of celebrating what’s right. It’s easy for employees to get criticized for a misstep and very hard to get recognized for a win.
That shouldn’t be the case. It doesn’t cost anything to show appreciation more frequently. The result is more of the behavior you want, fewer good employees leaving and a better customer experience.
Lesson 5: Have a unique and believable value statement
Many building materials companies have a Mission, Vision, or Value Statement but most of them sound the same and they’re usually not very believable.
When the company’s statement says that it supports the employees but the employees don’t actually feel supported, they start to wonder what other parts of the statement are bullshit.
The Zappos Value Statement was different. It wasn’t some generic corporate copy. It was the company’s actual values, the ones that are unique to Zappos and that they continue to follow to this day.
I got to spend time with many Zappos employees. I even worked the phones with a rep for a couple of hours. I didn’t find one disgruntled employee. Not a single person I met called bullshit on what Zappos says they are.
It doesn’t take a lot of poking around to find disgruntled people at most building materials companies. That’s a problem, because my experience at Zappos helped me realize just how harmful these people can be to a company’s performance.
Most companies are very aware of who these people are but they don’t make it a priority to replace them. They know it would take time to find a replacement, so they figure it’s easier to do nothing. Besides, difficult people are just a part of life.
I used to feel the same way until I realized that people are a large expense. It doesn’t make sense to settle for a lower level of performance just so you can put up with a few people who have a bad attitude.
If the people who dislike working for you don’t leave, is it because no one else wants them? Is working for you the best job they could find?
That’s a bad sign. I would rather work with people that other companies would like to hire. I want the kind of team my competitors wish they could poach. It takes a bit more work to make sure they feel valued, but it’s worth it.
Your employees should be like a professional sports team that plays well together, not a group with one or two stars trying to hold up the entire organization. Zappos has shown that having an effective team is a real competitive advantage.
Several Zappos employees told me that they could earn more working somewhere else but they stayed because of how much they enjoyed working at the company. They didn’t want to trade more income, if it meant having to put up with a more normal and far less enjoyable work experience.
That’s an important thing to remember. Even if you don’t pay more, you can still assemble a team that performs so well they lower your costs while growing your business.
There I am, sitting in Tony’s office. His desk was located right in the middle of the action, just like he was.
I am so grateful to my son for introducing me to Zappos. And I’m grateful to Zappos and Tony for all the lessons I learned while I was there.
He was a very smart, funny, confident and innovative visionary. He was a generous person and I’m sure he still had lots more lessons to share. He will be missed.
Building materials suppler consultant Mark Mitchell of Whizard Strategy originally published this article in his weekly eletter. While the Wall Street Journal and other media have reported that Tony Hsieh died in the fire on Nov. 27 after a “spiral of drugs, alcohol and extreme behaviour,” Hsieh’s business operations and client service lessons remain valid.
Reprinted with permission. See www.seethewhizard.com, phone (720) 775-1184 or email mark@seethewhizard.com.