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Last week we invited serial entrepreneur and Silicon Valley success story Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, to lead workshops in Sydney and Melbourne. Business Chicks HQ took a moment to reflect on the insights which resonated most with them.

Emma (Chief Chick) Tony was asked if entrepreneurs are born or made and he said: “If you haven’t had a lemonade stand by the age of 12, you’re probably not an entrepreneur.” Zappos is all about empowering the individual to make decisions. So, if a customer service person feels it’s appropriate to send flowers to a customer, then they can do that without seeking permission.

Alice (Events Manager)  Companies with strong cultures financially outperform those without strong cultures in the long term.

Olivia (Director, Brand and Partnerships) It’s all about wowing the customer. For example, Zappos will do surprise shipping upgrades for customers. A customer may choose 5-7 days shipping, and the Zappos employee will upgrade that person’s shipping and their delivery will arrive just eight hours after they ordered it.

Rebecca (Marketing Co-ordinator) I loved how Tony is so committed to Zappos’s core values that he will hire and fire against them irrespective of someone’s job performance.

Victoria (Account Manager)  Zappos invests their time and money into the customer experience, rather than expensive marketing activities. They’d rather build the brand through the stories that their customers tell about them. It’s all about word of mouth marketing.

Sophie (Digital Marketing Manager) Core values should not be defined top down but rather be a fully inclusive approach from the bottom up - one which values the contribution of each and every person within a company. There are few rules at Zappos apart from being authentic. They don’t follow call centre scripts – they just ask their people to act ‘normally’ and to make the best decisions they can.

Sarah (Events Assistant)  Tony encourages his managers to spend at least 10% of their time outside the office with their teams – this builds trust and they find that people are more willing to do favours for each other once that trust is there.

Amber (Our General Manager)  Zappos’s approach to call centres was really interesting. Instead of looking at them as a cost minimisation exercise (ie get the customer off the phone as quickly as possible) or as a sales tool (there to upsell the customer) he looks at them as a branding exercise – for Zappos it’s all about how many stories they can create that will get customers talking about them, essentially doing their marketing for them.

Our CEO Emma Isaacs reveals the behind the scenes secrets that she learned from Tony. It's an eye opener! Click here.