The only thing that is constant is change. Yes, I know it’s a cliché and, just like you, I hate clichés. There is a truth to them, though. If everything is in constant flux, then to keep up with the change, the protect-and-renew process should also be continuous. Hence, a business needs to perform the activities defined in this section on a regular basis, say every quarter. Once you make it a continuous process, you will have a $1 billion business in less than 10 years, just like Zappos.com.
Zappos started selling shoes online in 1999. They sell a lot of shoes—actually, a little over $1 billion worth of shoes a year to 7.4 million (one in five American) customers. Some 3.3 million of these customers have made a purchase in last twelve months. That's a 50 percent retention rate! Zappos CEO Tony Hesih has attributed his success to exceptional customer service achieved by the Power of 1. Here is a quote from his recent blog post:
“One thing I encourage you to do is to refer back to our Core Values document and specifically the challenge in there: make at least one improvement every week that makes Zappos better. Ideally, we would do this every single day. It sounds daunting, but remember improvements don't have to be dramatic. Think about what it means to improve just 1% per day and build upon that every single day. Doing so has a dramatic effect and will make us 37x better, not 365% (3.65x) better at the end of the year. Wake up every day and ask yourself not only what is the 1% improvement I can change to make Zappos better, but also what is the 1% improvement I can change to make myself better personally and professionally – because we, Zappos, can't grow unless we as individual people grow too.
Imagine yourself making 1% changes every day that compounds and will make you and Zappos 37x better by the end of the year. Imagine if every employee at Zappos was doing the same. Imagine how much better you, Zappos and the world will be next year.
It won't be easy and 2009 will no doubt present its own set of challenges, but we positively will get through it. Have a great and happy 2009!”
So here you have it: a process to improve your business by 1 percent a day. In the next section, I will share with you some advance techniques to make your life even easier when it comes to winning and keeping new customers.
The Power of 1
If you start out with $100 at the beginning of the year and you are able to increase what you have by 1% every single day, at the end of the year, you will have $3,778.34 = $100 * (1 + 1%) ^ 365. That is 37.78x what you had at the beginning of the year. Get that 1% every single day!
Next chapter shows how to grow business by acquiring new customers.
Related:
- Table of Content
- Red Queen Effect – An Introduction
- The Billionaire Code
- Cracking the Code
- Implementation Plan