<p>Remember in 1999 when the first Blackberry was released?</p>
<p><em>It was revolutionary</em>: a mobile device that instantly made you connected and accessible anywhere you went.</p>
<p>Techies everywhere fell in love, and Blackberry quickly became the leading hand-held device.</p>
<p>Until Apple came along, that is.</p>
<p>Their revolutionary iOS reinvented how devices should operate, and it didn&#8217;t take long for Blackberries to become obsolete.</p>
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<p>It&#8217;s a tale as old as time—and the nightmare of every business owner.</p>
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<p>Today, no one turns to Blackberry for business advice.</p>
<p>Instead, we look to Amazon, a startup that quickly dominated its industry and <a href="https://www.adamenfroy.com/how-to-sell-on-amazon" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">set the standard for every business</a> in just about every industry.</p>
<p>Now, guided by the book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XXT8LRP">Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It</a>, we have the framework for your business to do just that: set the standard for your own industry in the same way Amazon does it for its own.</p>
<p>In Be Like Amazon, authors Jeffrey Eisenberg, Bryan Eisenberg and Roy H. Williams lay out 4 core principles that are responsible for Amazon&#8217;s explosive growth.</p>
<p>And here&#8217;s the exciting part…</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2>Anyone Can Do It</h2>
<p>While we all aim to imitate Amazon, can we really be like them?</p>
<p>We haven&#8217;t got an unlimited budget, a fleet of drones, or 43% of market share.</p>
<p>If that&#8217;s your worry, here&#8217;s the good news…</p>
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<p>Being like Amazon isn&#8217;t a matter of size or budget or nifty technological gadgets.</p>
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<p>It&#8217;s about reinventing business growth and rethinking your industry&#8217;s &#8220;operating system&#8221; so you can outpace the &#8220;Blackberries&#8221; in your space.</p>
<p>How?</p>
<p>By understanding (and implementing) the 4 pillars that drive Amazon&#8217;s success.</p>
<p>CEO Jeff Bezos has made these timeless concepts the foundation for every business he runs, regardless of its industry or the type of product it offers:</p>
<ul>
<li>B2B – Amazon Web Services</li>
<li>Ecommerce – Amazon.com</li>
<li>Media – Amazon Prime</li>
<li>Publishing – The Washington Post</li>
</ul>
<p>In each instance, Amazon&#8217;s 4 pillar business model is responsible for their incredible growth and profits.</p>
<h2>Amazon&#8217;s 4 Pillars of Business Success</h2>
<p>Amazon&#8217;s 4 pillars are universally the best way to operate and grow a profitable business today.</p>
<p>They work equally well for digital and physical businesses. And they&#8217;ll keep you focused on what matters most, guiding your decisions, your priorities and your day-to-day operations.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s take a look.</p>
<h3>Pillar #1: Customer Centricity</h3>
<p>You&#8217;ve heard of WIIFM, or <em>what&#8217;s in it for me</em>, right?</p>
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<p>For Bezos, customer centricity is WIIFM on steroids.</p>
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<p>Rather than trying to stay ahead of his competitors, he tries to stay one step ahead of his customers.</p>
<p>Essentially, to be like Amazon, you&#8217;ve got to be obsessed with your customers&#8217; experience, prioritizing their needs and desires above everything else. Amazon, is after all, the most customer-centric company is the world.</p>
<p>For instance, Amazon puts a chair in every boardroom to represent the customer — a physical reminder to innovate on their behalf.</p>
<p>And Amazon Echo, which began as a simple <a href="https://www.wishup.co/blog/virtualassistantjobdescription/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">virtual assistant</a>, has evolved into Echo Look, a hands-free camera and style assistant, and Echo Show, a communal household computer.</p>
<p>Amazon doesn&#8217;t even consider starting a new project until they&#8217;ve looked at it through the customer&#8217;s eyes. If someone wants to recommend a new product, they must write a (pretend) press release outlining the benefits of the product they envision.</p>
<p>Only after reviewing it from the customer&#8217;s perspective can they talk about code or get input from designers.</p>
<h3>Pillar #2: Innovation</h3>
<p>This is about coming up with new ideas and new ways of doing things, but not for the sake of creativity or impressing stockholders.</p>
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<p>True innovation is about bringing value to your customers — because innovation that doesn&#8217;t benefit and serve your customers won&#8217;t help you grow.</p>
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<p>Today, Amazon flexes its innovation muscles by exploring <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/?p=29817">artificial intelligence (AI)</a> and outer space (through Blue Origin, Bezos&#8217; private space company).</p>
<p>But innovation isn&#8217;t confined to radical new ideas. It happens anywhere you creatively serve your customers, from your office cubicles to your meeting rooms.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s how Bezos has<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/8/11879684/walt-mossberg-jeff-bezos-amazon-blue-origin-code-conference-2016"> explained</a> his approach to innovation: &#8220;I like to wander&#8221; down the paths of ideas.</p>
<p>Wherever he wanders, he likes to leave room for inspiration, preferring &#8220;loose&#8221; meeting agendas over rigid ones. And when it comes to <a href="https://startup.unitelvoice.com/agile-project-management-for-startups" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">project management</a>, he likes to be &#8220;stubborn on the vision, but flexible on the details.&#8221;</p>
<h3>Pillar #3: Corporate Agility</h3>
<p>Corporate agility is about speed of execution, the ability to remain flexible and adaptable regardless of your business&#8217; stage of growth.</p>
<p>Often, as businesses grow, they lose that ability, and as soon as they do, it&#8217;s often the beginning of the end.</p>
<p>As an example, after a Kodak employee invented the digital camera in 1975, management promptly killed it. They were afraid digital innovations would cannibalize film sales.</p>
<p>Is it any surprise they filed for bankruptcy in 2012?</p>
<p>Since then, the <a href="https://www.kodakphones.com/us/">Kodak brand has done a complete 180</a>, following this Bezos pillar.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-23502" src="https://bcwpmktg.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Kodak-Phones.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="334" srcset="https://cms-wp.bigcommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Kodak-Phones.jpg 2874w, https://cms-wp.bigcommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Kodak-Phones-300x157.jpg 300w, https://cms-wp.bigcommerce.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Kodak-Phones-750x392.jpg 750w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></p>
<p>To be like Amazon, you need to be so agile, you&#8217;re willing to disrupt your own business. Bryan Eisenberg even recommends you create a team whose sole job is to put you out of business — because if you don&#8217;t come up with the innovations that shake up your status quo, someone else will.</p>
<p>&#8220;Give them the resources they need and cut them loose,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Then be agile and execute their ideas.&#8221;</p>
<h3>Pillar #4: Continuous Optimization</h3>
<p>Continuous optimization is hard for most businesses because it means you&#8217;ll never be satisfied or settle for &#8220;good enough.&#8221;</p>
<p>From messaging to packaging and returns, from your business operations to how your bathrooms are cleaned, there&#8217;s always room for improvement.</p>
<p>Optimization is about improving processes so you can become more efficient and bring more value to your customers.</p>
<p>Emphasis on bringing value to your customers.</p>
<p>Though each improvement may only shave percentages off your time or costs, over time, they add up. The result is higher profits and, if you&#8217;ve implemented the first pillar, happier customers too.</p>
<h2>The Tiny Shift that Yields a Big Aha!</h2>
<p>Do the 4 pillars really spell success?</p>
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<p>As a test, Bryan Eisenberg ordered a Rubik&#8217;s Cube from a popular toy store and from Amazon.</p>
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<p>The first thing he noticed was that on Amazon, the toy was half as expensive.</p>
<p>Score one for Amazon.</p>
<p>The next thing that stood out was his experience when the boxes arrived in the mail. Both had free two-day shipping (something Amazon has forced so many online businesses to do by being so dang good at it).</p>
<p>Amazon&#8217;s box had their custom-made packing tape emblazoned with &#8220;Echo&#8221; and things you might say to her, such as, &#8220;Alexa, tell me a joke.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mind you, this tape isn&#8217;t just another opportunity to promote their newest innovation. It&#8217;s an innovation in and of itself.</p>
<p>This tape is strong enough to hold the box shut, but it&#8217;s easy to open with your bare hands. So within minutes of delivery, Eisenberg&#8217;s kids had ripped open the box and were playing with their new toy.</p>
<p>Not so with the toy-store packaging. That box required a knife to cut through the tape. Then, the toy was further packaged in clam-shell packing that&#8217;s impossible to open.</p>
<p>Clearly, Bezos understands that the customer experience doesn&#8217;t end when UPS delivers your order. It includes frustration-free packaging and your first impression of the product itself.</p>
<p>This is a minor shift in perspective that makes a major difference in… well… everything.</p>
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<p>Amazon&#8217;s 4 pillars, then, aren&#8217;t actually about making your business more successful.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s just a side effect.</p>
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<p>The 4 pillars are about creating an Aha! moment at every touch.</p>
<p>So the question is, &#8220;How can you add an Aha! moment after your sales?&#8221;</p>
<p>For physical products, how can you make something as mundane as the packaging a memorable experience?</p>
<p>For digital products, how can you create delight and an intuitive experience accessing your product? How do you ensure, once they&#8217;re there, that they use it?</p>
<p>As marketers, we tend to focus all our attention on getting the sale, but it&#8217;s important to think about how we can optimize the experience immediately following the sale.</p>
<h2>Bottom Line + Next Steps</h2>
<p>Many businesses start out strong. In their first year or so, they&#8217;re great innovators with good customer service.</p>
<p>But as they grow, they begin to add layers of management and bureaucracy, making innovation all but impossible.</p>
<p>The original passion for the customer often dissipates. Profits become the highest priority, and innovation and optimization grind to a halt.</p>
<p>Amazon&#8217;s 4 pillars are designed to keep your focus where it belongs: on the foundational principles that spur growth and profits.</p>
<p>Make them the pillars of your business, and you&#8217;ll easily Be Like Amazon. Or don&#8217;t, and you&#8217;ll be like Blackberry, Kodak, Blockbuster, and other brands that failed to innovate.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s an easy choice when you think about it.</p>
<h3>Action Items</h3>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IHhWCA-ePHU" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<ol>
<li>Watch the interview above to see what Ryan Deiss and Bryan Eisenberg discussed around the 4 Pillars of Amazon’s Success last time Bryan stopped by the DigitalMarketer office!</li>
<li>Go to<a href="https://belikeamazon.com/fourpillars/"> belikeamazon.com</a> to find out how your company rates on the 4 pillars of Amazon success.</li>
<li>Get the book:<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XXT8LRP"> Be Like Amazon: Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It</a>.</li>
<li>Become obsessed with applying these pillars to your business.</li>
</ol>
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