The video represents Jeff Bezos, Chairman, and CEO of Amazon, who was the featured speaker at the April 20, 2018 Closing Conversation of the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s Forum on Leadership, in partnership with SMU.
They opened the conversation with the question about starting of the business, when Jeff invested a lot of money but lost a lot of money as well, and how he looks at that time from this perspective. He explained that they were enthusiasts and they believed in the project they started, which help them to stay committed to the major idea. In business, money should be in the second place, the first place is reserved for love and passion to work.
He also advised to future businessmen that loss of market value or permanent dropping of stocks value does not mean that they are working their job poor, either they are dumb. That is a just permanent barrier, which could be avoided. It is also important to have some kind of support and mentoring from the person that we believe the most, so they can help us in bad times.
The most important thing that people should know about the job they start is focusing on the business and staying elementary. That is not easy sometimes, as people who work are sometimes forced to expand their business on secondary things.
When it comes to Amazon, whatever their secondary jobs were, they always had few excites that they followed no matter what is currently happening on the market and what are their interests or market demands at that moment.
- The bottom line of their business psychology is customer obsession, which should be always above competitor obsession and other interests.
- They are always carrying about originality and uniqueness. It is not important what is attractive and modern at that moment, as the much more important is to be different or to offer at least one thing that is offered only in Amazon.
- Jeff also recommended to future businessmen to be patient, which they on Amazon experienced in first years of existing.
- Finally, Jeff said that every business must be done perfect and professional, whatever prognoses or results are. “If you do something, do your best”, that was his advice.
Jeff Bezos believes in “Day One” philosophy, meaning that, no matter how many employees, users, customers and managers that build a scale of management they have, their most important resource are people who work at the front line, directly with customers. They support the value of a small company even though Amazon now has 600,000 people who work for them. That is why he always believed in anecdotes and live people stories more than data because those represent the real life.
However, it is most important to change yourself and adapt to all changes in your business. As a leader of the large company like Amazon Jeff Bezos has been faced with many challenges and changes, which changed him, too, and that adaptability is a definitely important businessman characteristic if you want to keep your business successful.
