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Amazon is the world’s leading e-commerce website. Today it offers more than 86 million products in 27 different categories. In addition, it is present in more than 30 countries, with more than 294 million active customers. And it was all born out of Jeff Bezos’ crazy idea to sell books online.
Now the questions we are all asking are: What did Jeff Bezos do to create such a successful and profitable company? What are the skills of this entrepreneur who decided to give up the financial world to dedicate himself to his innovative business idea?
Moreover, did anyone have faith in Jeff Bezos when he decided to start selling books online?
Although he is considered a genius, Amazon’s founder possesses two key qualities that all entrepreneurs need: perseverance and perseverance.
The secret of his success lies in knowing how to overcome difficult moments and apply 5 sales strategies, which after many years he shares as advice to all of us who are starting our own business.
1. Be 100% obsessed with customers:
Jeff Bezos recounted that an experience that shaped his life and thinking as an entrepreneur occurred on September 22, 1994, just ten months before he opened Amazon.com on the Internet.
Bezos attended a course conducted by the American Booksellers Association on how to open a bookstore.
There he met Richard Howorth, one of the professors teaching the course. The facilitator was a customer service fanatic, and during his presentation he told an anecdote about his way of serving his customers with excellence:
“One time a store worker came up to Howorth’s office to tell him that a customer had a complaint. The angry customer told him that objects from the store’s balconies had fallen on her cart, soiling it.
Howorth offered to wash it at a service station, but by the time he arrived the place was closed for renovations. So his solution was to take it home, get out a hose, soap and brush and wash it himself.
Back home the client’s attitude changed, she became friendlier and even ended up buying several books.”
This story caught Jeff Bezos’ attention, and inspired him to focus on customer service as the differentiating value of his venture. As he himself said:
“We know that, if we can keep our competitors focused on us, while we focus on the customer, we will do well.”
2. Stubbornly inventing and reinventing until you do it the right way:
Jeff Bezo is a persevering leader, so his business philosophy has revolved around trying as many times as it takes to get a good result. Twenty years later, his business idea has become an e-commerce giant.
You will always have a problem to face in the business world, but as Jeff Bezos advises everyone starting a venture:
“Whenever we have a problem, we never accept black and white thinking. We try to come up with a solution that achieves both. You can work your way out of any trap if you are convinced you can do it.”
3. Focus on the long term:
Jeff Bezos’ leadership has landed him on the list of the best examples of long-term vision in the world of profitable business.
Amazon.com was founded in 1994, but it was not until 2002, eight years later, that it reported its first profits. Its cost was $5 million, meaning that each share was worth 1 cent.
What did Jeff Bezo do during these 8 years of losses? He didn’t waste any time or stop trying. He invested money to grow his operation. Its annual growth rates were so high that its competitors were unable to catch up.
4. Have a “it’s always day one” philosophy:
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, this advice is key to achieving it:
One day he just couldn’t take the life he was leading anymore, so Jeff Bezos made the decision to give up his million-dollar salary and bonuses. And he took a gamble on founding Amazon, and every day since then has been his first day.
Every day you will face new challenges, but you will also find new ideas and avenues to exploit. By becoming an entrepreneur, your work will cease to be routine, because you will be measuring your results and not the number of hours you work.
5. Grow in those areas where you can exploit your brand name, skills and customer base:
Why books? Because after a thorough analysis of the market and consideration of every possibility, he concluded that he had a good chance of success.
The reason for starting to sell books was not because he liked them, but because it was the best opportunity to start. While it was not a way to win in the short term, they did have a long-term future.
Selling books was a school to learn how to master a whole new world, selling on the Internet with a payment system, either by credit card or digitally, a new logistics system and even the simple purchase button.
The work of Jeff Bezos and his team was notorious, they managed to differentiate themselves and find a system that could be replicated in other products. Amazon’s rapid expansion into other goods then began.
In an interview for San Jose Mercury News Jeff Bezos regarding Amazon’s growth, Bezos explained that:
“We’ve always said we would expand into areas where we were able to leverage the three things you can normally leverage in a business: our brand name, our skills and our customer base…music is a natural area where you can leverage all three of those elements.”
Amazon.com continues to grow day by day, still maintaining products such as Kindle, Audiobooks, as well as its web storage services. In addition, its horizons have expanded to the audiovisual world with Amazon Prime.
Jeff Bezos’ childhood dream was to meet the stars. This year he did it.