Tony Hsieh
For me, the most fun is change or growth. There are definitely elements of both that I like. Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly and turn fast.Collection: Business
Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can't deliver good service from unhappy employees.
A bigger business is like a cruise ship: There are lots of amenities and you can go a lot further, but it's harder to turn quickly.
Our customers call and e-mail us to say that's how it feels when a Zappos box arrives. And that's how we view this company.
I view my role more as trying to set up an environment where the personalities, creativity and individuality of all the different employees come out and can shine.
For me, my role is about unleashing what people already have inside them that is maybe suppressed in most work environments.
We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn't want to just sell shoes. I wasn't even into shoes - but I was passionate about customer service.
There's a big difference between motivation and inspiration: Inspire through values and motivation takes care of itself.Collection: Motivation
Customer service shouldn't just be A department, it should be the entire company.Collection: Service Culture
Your personal core values define who you are, and a company's core values ultimately define the company's character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.Collection: Character
Get the culture right, and everything else just falls into place.Collection: Fall
Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience.Collection: Nice
Stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion.Collection: Success
To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means do something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver.Collection: Mean
Whatever you're thinking, think bigger.Collection: Inspiring
Have fun. The game is a lot more enjoyable when you're trying to do more than just make money.Collection: Fun
The best businesses are really ones that can combine passion, profits, and purpose.Collection: Passion
Your culture is your brand.Collection: Design
The ultimate definition of success is: you could lose everything that you have and truly be okay with it. Your happiness isn't based on external factors.Collection: Definitions
For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.Collection: Motivational
Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.Collection: Motivational
Success is getting to a point where you'd be truly OK with losing everything you have and starting over.Collection: Losing Everything
Never accept or be too comfortable with the status quo, because the companies that get into trouble are historically the ones that aren't able to adapt to change and respond quickly enough.Collection: Change
A great brand is a story that never stops unfolding.Collection: Stories
Open, honest communication is the best foundation for any relationship, but remember that at the end of the day it's not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most.Collection: Motivational
Studies find top 3 most stressful moments in people's lives: death, divorce, and properly pronouncing "Worcestershire sauce."Collection: Food
...the best leaders are servant leaders - they serve those they lead.Collection: Leader
Whatever you are thinking, think bigger.Collection: Inspirational
To never forget that the most important thing in life is the quality of life we lead.Collection: Things In Life
Most companies are very quick to hire and slow to fire, when really it should be the other way around.Collection: Fire
I'd rather spend money on things that improve the customer experience than on marketing.Collection: Inspirational
I think the most important thing is just if you hire people whose personal values match the corporate core values - and not just the stated ones.Collection: Thinking
Most innovation comes from outside your industry applied to your ownCollection: Innovation
I made a list of the happiest periods in my life, and I realized that none of them involved money. I realized that building stuff and being creative and inventive made me happy. Connecting with a friend and talking through the entire night until the sun rose made me happy. Trick-or-treating in middle school with a group of my closest friends made me happy. Eating a baked potato after a swim meet made me happy. Pickles made me happy.Collection: Motivational
Be true to yourself. If you follow that principle, a lot of decisions are actually pretty easy.Collection: Decision
Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always winsCollection: Winning
Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.Collection: Inspirational
I believe that there's something interesting about anyone and everyone - you just have to figure out what that something is.Collection: Motivational
You've gotta love the game. To become really good, you need to live it and sleep it.Collection: Sleep
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.Collection: Strong
Don't play games that you don't understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.Collection: Inspirational
Don't be cocky. Don't be flashy. There's always someone better than you.Collection: Inspirational
I thought about how easily we are all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life.Collection: Thinking
I think when people say they dread going into work on Monday morning, it's because they know they are leaving a piece of themselves at home. Why not see what happens when you challenge your employees to bring all of their talents to their job and reward them not for doing it just like everyone else, but for pushing the envelope, being adventurous, creative, and open-minded, and trying new things?Collection: Motivational
Problems are just mile markers. Each one we pass means we've gotten better.Collection: Motivational
Happiness is really just about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (number and depth of your relationships), and vision/meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself).Collection: Numbers
SEO expertise is a core need for today's online businesses.Collection: Needs
The problem when someone feels burned out, bored, unchallenged, or stifled by their work is not the job itself but rather the environment and playground rules given to them to do the job at hand.Collection: Motivational
Zappos uses call center technology to track average call time per agent. But the goal isn't to reduce this average - it's more important that we make an emotional connection with the customer, rather than just quickly getting them off the phone.Collection: Educational
Things are never as bad or as good as they seem.Collection: Seems