The Amazon Script – Clone Amazon’s Success
Want a site like Amazon? What can you learn from them?
Jeff Bezos shared six thoughts on his success with Amazon during an interview on Forbes. Let’s break it down for small internet businesses and see how well WE can do in our future’s too.
1. When you have a window of opportunity, go for the jugular – even if you have to exhaust a huge number of resources.
The internet is a very fast environment for business in all terms. Growth, death, leaders, followers, etc. So moving fast into the opportunity is key. However, it’s also paramount to take your time to do the research and make sure it’s a real opportunity and not something else. He mentions resources too. Small businesses might not have all of the same resources at the fingertips of larger corporations. Resources also are more than just capital. It could be time, equipment, personnel and more. If you are operating a home office make sure it’s all worth it before spending the nest-egg or quitting your day job. Or find ways to keep costs down such as with affordable seo.
2. Think long-term meaning 5 – 7 years, not 5 – 7 months.
I say this to many clients who are seeking quick financial salvation in internet marketing. Yes, there are some marketing tecniques such as social media marketing which provide quicker results but it is not lasting. Got a rush from a Groupon campaign? It too will fizzle once the coupons are spent. Every other part of your day to day business is going to shore up your future. Marketing simply gets people to your door or website. It’s now up to your business model and daily practice that will help turn them into customers who stay with you and support you as well.
Planning for the long term also means changing and growing your business to stay relevant and profitable. Be open to new ideas, pay attention to your industry, keep overhead in check to remain agile and, as Drucker would ask, question segments of your business (services or products too) and determine if you should keep them, kill them or revamp them all together.
Dell’s early success was based on people and businesses seeking to replace or purchase cheap computers. After a huge growth and sales term for a short number of years growth slowed down. Corporations were still growing and expanding but not at the same rate as they were. Plus after all major corporations upgraded, it would take a few years for them to need to be replaced.
My point is the need to be honest with yourself in terms of growth and potential. If you won’t need the large staff after a 12 month marketing cycle think about short term leasing and contract hires or what ever fits your model to remain open to change, good or bad.
3. Long-term market share is more important than short-term profits because without long-term market share there will be no long-term profits.
Market share might not sound like something small businesses have to be too concerned with at first thought. Someone who sells solar gadgets just wants to sell them but might not be thinking or knowing who else sells them, what is the demand, what is my competition like and is it increasing? If you just want to sell 100 units so you can make rent, that is nice this month. But what about next month’s rent?
Think about your marketing and spending on growing your brand and long term standing as a business in your market. Think about getting customers to return for this or related projects. Find ways to interact with them so that they refer friends or others. Keep up with changes in your industry and markets. I don’t mean jump from trend to trend but build with confidence after research forging a path based on your strategy.
4. It’s ok to make mistakes but it’s not ok to be timid.
Mistakes are part of life. The mistakes that have been made before and documented are lessons we can learn beforehand and avoid. But don’t let the possibility of mistakes prevent you from taking the next step. Notice I didn’t say taking risk. It makes it sound as if every next step is risk. If the later was true we’d never learn to walk, run, jump, and so on that would have gotten us to the moon, invent the internet, cook with fire… you get the point.
Learn as much as you can even WHILE you take the steps to launch and operate. Fear is there to tell you to learn and be ready, not sit and do nothing. In business and especially as a leader, having your long term plan will help you know what to do in a situation that requires you to think and act fast. So plan but then act upon that plan.
5. Obsess over Customers.
Most small businesses are not spending tens of thousands on an ad campaign so we can sit at our monitors and watch sales go from zero to 100,000 units in seconds like television ads propose. So those five customers you have to day are extremely important but also valuable. In “Crossing the Casm” Geoff Moore drew out a curve graph showing how an innovation moves through time. The number of clients increased through four groups. Innovators, early adopters, early and late majority, and laggards. Your first five customers are links to many more potential clients and prospects. It’s like sales people that have first hand experience with your product, have a better trust relationship with prospects and can provide real world testimonials about your business.
Conversely they could be billboards of how well you are not doing as a company. OIl industry can be seen as a product we need to move away from but everyone still goes to the pump each week. BP had an accident and tarnished the company and brand moving car owners to fill up across the street at another gas station even if it was a few cents more per gallon.
What about the value of your customers? At first glance it may appear that the value is clear. Purchases over time minus cost to acquire, etc. But how else can you extract value from them? Surveys, questionnaires, feedback, really engage with them and learn from their perspective. What did they think? What was missing? What was right and what was wrong? Is there something that can be improved? The answers could be simple. Add more color options or more ways to ship. Gift wrapping or personalize. Other insight might not be that simple but could spark value addition to your current offering guiding you towards revisions or future changes to put on the market to help bolster growth again. Can improvements be an addition to existing customers, etc.
Your customers can be creative and see your products in whole other ways you might not. Without creative outside thinking we’d be missing a lot more than just Slinkies and Silly Putty (which were accidental discoveries for different intentions).
6. Be first in a big market.
Anyone who’s ready any business book has heard this. Anyone who’s read a few of them as also read that if you can’t be first, make a sister market and be first in it. I like to think of it in these terms; followers get leftovers, and I don’t want to live on leftovers. Gift stores are everywhere. Be the one that offers all eco friendly products and recycled stationary. Find a niche for your business and be the leader in it. We offer internet marketing. But we are top at simple pricing and easy to understand packages for small businesses.
Ask yourself about your idea or current business. How is it special? I mean really different? Not crazy outlandish but unique from the others yet accessible of an idea enough to create real demand. Then make it your focus to let that market know you are first and there for them. As the market grows so will your profit based on market share. Nurture it, create a place to educate and communicate such as a forum or open blog. Become the Xerox in your industry or market.
In closing you need to be passionate, hungry, and want to hunt over gather. If you want to succeed then go succeed. It’s a verb. And if you need help, or just want to brain storm, I’d love to talk.