I know yesterday I wrote I am not really into posting videos; I guess I have changed. Last wee ABC’s Night Line was at the offices of Zappos.com…you know the online shoe company? If you are not familiar with them now, you will want to be after watching the video NightLine produced.

The reason I am posting it here is because Zappos.com is a model of what I think a business should look like. If Tony Hsieh, can build a great company then so can others. I want to be one of those “others.”

Here is where to check out the video:

NightLine Video - Zappos.com

Here is Inc. Magazine article about Tony and Zappos.com:

How I Did It: Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com

When I woke up today I sarted my day with Seth Godin’s newest blog post.  In the post he writes about a custom t-shirt company that calls him three days after he put in his order.  Was there a problem?  Not at all, they had noticed the t-shirt was for a non-profit cause and were calling Mr. Godin to see if they could contribute to the cause.  This was a total surprise for Seth; there was nothing on the t-shirt company’s website bragging about such a policy.  So he concluded his pst with a new rule: “The value of a perk is inversely related to the expectation of that perk”

I agree with him, this t-shirt company was doing this not because it would bring them accolades or so they could write about on their blog.  Nope they did this because of who they are as a company, because they think contributing to causes is the right thing to do.

I have to tell you that I love the new business world, whatever label you want to put on it.  This is truly a new world where the good guys do finsih first.  I look forward to creating value and having it be a urprise to our clients.

Yesterday I said I wanted to build the “anti-merchant account company.”  Now it is time for me to define what I mean by that.  So I am going to start writing about a single value each day that I am building into the DNA of this company from the very beginning.

I am going to start with the most important value, which is love.  I know this sounds a little funny for a businesses first value to be love, but why not?  I was first introduced to this word being applied to business when I read Love is the Killer App several years ago.  In this book the author, Tim Sanders, the former Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo!, expounds about actually focusing on loving you clients and co-workers.  Since I read his book, the idea of loving clients has been in the forefront of my mind, nonetheless I have both failed miserably and succeeded greatly at applying his message.

As a result of trying to live this out I have learned a few things that have shaped my defenition of this value.  Here is what I mean by love as a value for this company:

• Seeing clients as people not just profit centers.
• Asking, from the very start, “how may I serve you?” and then actually listening to their answer.
• Going out of our way to create extra value for each client, no matter how large or small they are.
• Creating ways to share knowledge that will help our clients grow and prosper.
• Taking full responsibility when the sh** hits the fan; even when we did not cause the problem.
• Telling the truth, even when it hurts, even though we may lose a client.

Doesn’t this all seem like basic stuff?  This is just “golden rule” behavior and yet, surprisingly, I believe these types of actions make us stand out now and always will.  If we were to just focus on this value I think we would succeed at building the “anti-merchant account company.”  However, this is just the first value I am ging to write about as we set out to build one kick butt company.