10 Core Values For Building A Positive Sales Culture

Hiring Checklist – Book Review: Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh

A wonderful gift this year for your team may be the book Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com, Inc. He is creative and definitely an out-of-the-box thinker. This book is captivating for both employees and entrepreneurs. It is an easy read and is written as a comic book. Tony’s story is engaging and interesting.

He starts by sharing a story about his first business when he was in the 9^th grade. It was a worm business and although it failed it launched his insatiable appetite for business and his entrepreneurial spirit was awakened. Tony talks about his successes including the sale of his first technology company to Microsoft for $265 million and the sale of Zappos to Amazon for $1 billion which he remains the CEO of today.

Although Tony has had uncapped success he understands that with success comes disappointment. In this book Tony talks about the mistakes he has made and the difficult decisions he has been confronted with in the business world. Although challenging he learned from all of these experiences and shares these life lessons with his readers. What I took away most from his entrepreneurial journey is the importance of office culture. I especially found his perspective around hiring to be very relevant and noteworthy.

“Over time, as we focused more and more on our culture, we ultimately came to the realization that a company’s culture and the company’s brand are two sides of the same coin.”

Your culture is your brand and Tony realized that it all starts with your employees. To find the right employees you must develop a well-defined hiring process and core values of the company. He shares the Zappos list of 10 core values which are used today to hire the right people.

Zappos 10 core values:

1. Deliver Now Through Service
2. Embrace And Drive Change
3. Create Fun And A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative And Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth And Learning
6. Build Open And Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build A Positive Team And Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate And Determined
10. Be Humble

I highly recommend this book and have attached this video to meet Tony.