What does it take to establish the biggest online store in the world, worth over $83 billion in personal wealth, and be named Time’s Person of the Year?
Ask Jeff Bezos ––the founder and CEO of Amazon.
In this post, we’ll discuss one of the largest online marketplaces and examine some of its strategies for success. If you want to succeed, too, keep reading to find out more.
Lesson 1: Focus on your customers, not your rivals.
Bezos argues that tech companies are particularly obsessive about their rivals. They wait to see what their competitors introduce before attempting to equal and outdo it. Instead, this marketplace built its Amazon Web Services (AWS) business by listening to clients. AWS was created to address issues with too-expensive in-house application hosting and open-source technologies that weren’t reliable enough to support rapidly expanding or huge businesses. AWS has grown to be a $10 billion company.
Lesson 2: Be tolerant.
Since the beginning of this marketplace, Bezos has had a vision for the company. But it’s really only recently that his vision has begun to materialize in the ways he had envisioned. And there is still so much room for development.
Patience is essential when dealing with cultures and communities that can’t always change as quickly as the technology around them. Widespread consumer norms can only be changed over time. Certain mail-order purchases may not instantly make some people feel at ease; this is especially true if the item arrives at their door within 48 hours.
Lesson 3: Take chances to lead the market.
Amazon needed three tries to successfully launch its platform for selling and fulfilling orders. First, it tried Auctions, which was essentially a copy of the business model that made eBay famous. This evolved into shops and then into Amz Marketplace, which now represents approximately half of all products. Moreover, now there are so many jobs related to the amazon platform which are either directly connected or indirectly connected to it, e.g., hire amazon va services expert and amazon affiliate marketing etc.
Lesson 4: Give your staff freedom.
This marketplace prospers by granting its employees autonomy. It gives workers a sense of complete control over their initiatives. The fact that entire departments and divisions have been created by one person or a small number of individuals.
Although that places a lot of trust in their hands and Amazon has high expectations, it also frees people to do their best work. They are unrestricted, able to take risks and pursue ideas in a way that promotes optimum achievement.
Lesson 5: Create a culture that is appropriate for your business.
As befits a corporation that has operated at just a minor profit or loss under generally accepted accounting methods for the majority of its tenure as a public company, Amazon’s own culture has renowned for being frantic and notoriously frugal.
Lesson 6: Accept failure.
Embracing failure is one of the things Amazon excels at. For instance, early in the millennium, it placed a sizable wager on Pets.com. It completely failed. It has failed to create a phone, a market for luxury products, and countless other endeavors. Despite all the failures, many risks have been profitable.
Risk motivated the creation of Web Services, the purchase of Zappos, the incorporation of Whole Foods (it’s still too early to know how that risk will pay off), as well as numerous other choices.
Lesson 7: Deliver greater value than what your clients anticipate.
One customer felt dejected after his PlayStation gaming console was taken from his front porch before he arrived home to bring it inside. He called Amazon to see what might be done as a result.
Unexpectedly, the customer service agent had a replacement one dispatched later that day—completely free—and it arrived in time for Christmas. An encounter like that will turn a frequent consumer into a devoted brand evangelist.
To a certain extent, it empowers people to avoid bureaucracy.
Bezos contends that there are two different types of decisions: irreversible turning points that top executives should be involved in, which he refers to as “Type 1 decisions,” and a greater number of tactical choices, which he refers to as “Type 2 decisions,” which a business can change if it goes wrong.
Lesson 8: Never stop trying new things.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which now generates more than $2 billion annually from clients including Netflix, Shell, and others, was merely an internal experiment when it first began.
The cloud technology infrastructure platform served as a means for internal teams to avoid reinventing the wheel whenever they set out to create a new product before it was made available to the general public in 2006.
They discovered that many teams were re-creating technology infrastructures, including web-scale databases, storage, and other capabilities that were already in use elsewhere inside the organization, spending up to 70% of their time doing so. They rapidly started experimenting with providing the same capabilities to other organizations after realizing the enormously favorable internal benefits of a platform like AWS, and the rest is history.
Lesson 9: Promote word-of-mouth
Bezos had no marketing budget when he launched the biggest marketplace of the world. His business could only succeed succeeded through word of mouth marketing.
Delivering a good product or service is the only way to achieve success and win the hearts of the consumers. And Amazon made it happen. The platform was able to secure positive comments from its consumers due to its commendable services.
Lesson 10: Make individuals succinct.
PowerPoint presentations are not permitted on Amazon. Instead, a leader must provide a six-page written note to meetings that everyone must read as soon as they take their seats. This makes the leader incredibly attentive and succinct. There is no way to create a six-page, narratively structured document without having clear thoughts. Bezos stated in reference to the memos, “Full sentences are tougher to write. They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences.”
Employees are encouraged to carefully consider their responses when writing these memos. It cuts out the filler and gives business interactions true substance.
Lesson 11: Adopt outside trends.
Jeff Bezos talks about adopting AI as an “external trend” in a shareholder letter from 2017. Since too many tech behemoths failed to adapt to change, Amazon is attempting to stay current by following the direction of technology. Amazon can remain open to a variety of options thanks to this way of thinking.
Lesson 12: Create a shortage
People will become more inclined to buy if there is a meaningful upsell with a sense of scarcity.
On Amazon, you can quickly see how many items are still available, and there is also a nice call to action.
That’s really strong persuasion. Additionally, because the item is pertinent to the customer, the online store has less resistance to sales.
Creating a sense of scarcity can boost demand for your goods and encourage customers to act right away.
Conclusion:
Amazon has taken many risks, but not all of them have been profitable. However, many of them have, and it’s all because of its unmatched leadership. This platform has been able to give employees freedom over their job while also seizing control of the market by building a complete organization that is capable of taking ownership. While not every business can achieve the same level of success as Amazon, any business may benefit from some of the leadership techniques it has mastered.
