Ben Wright breaks down how Amazon built $500 billion in sales through customer obsession: guarantees, fast delivery, competitive pricing, wide selection, and easy technology. Sales leaders should copy the system: delight customers, automate personalization, gather data, and improve 1% at a time.
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In this episode, we will uncover some of the sales lessons we can take from Amazon's amazing global success. Welcome to Sales Process Made Easy the show helping seven to eight figure industry construction and trade. Sales and business leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so your team can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, a leader who has been building businesses and sales teams just like you for the last 20 years. In this podcast, you will learn how Amazon so successfully grew their sales, the lessons for us as sales teams and leaders, and what we can do to take some of that amazing success from Amazon and roll it into our business. It's no doubt that Amazon has built a business in a rapidly expanding or exploding market. But that's simply not the only reason for me that I see that they're succeeding. And by the way, I've heard plenty of people say they were right product, right time, and there's a skill to that. However, Amazon have been able to do some other or roll out some other parts of their business that have been so successful for them that actually relate back to very basic sales and marketing principles. For me, where Amazon has really grown their sales so successfully is around their just relentless customer obsession. There are guarantees around products if they don't work through third party suppliers. You can't get that from many marketplaces. Fast delivery, manageable prices, not always the lowest, but manageable prices, really wide range and easy to understand and work technology. Now I will say that their obsession with prime, for example, has frustrated me along the journey. However, on the whole I, I am always shopping confident with Amazon around their product, guarantees around the recognition that their price is going to be pretty good and their delivery fast and reliable. And that for me is where they've been able to really grow or exponentially grow their business. Because in 1994, only 30 years ago, they were a simple online bookstore. They rapidly expanded from there. They launched prime, they developed cloud services, but really focused heavily on improving customer experience and achievable prices, right? So for them, this created such a loyal customer base that a couple of years ago their sales topped 500 billion. Now, $500 billion makes it one of the most valuable companies in the history, right? This all stemmed back from that ability to offer customers what they wanted, where they wanted it, with a real focus on their journey. So the lesson that we see here for business leaders in particular, and something for you to think about, is how you could obsess over your customers more. I work with many, many sales Leaders and business leaders who believe they're customer focused. But when we talk about exactly how that practically works, what we find is a focus constrained by their systems rather than a system built around delighting their customers. Right? So it becomes still a sales process versus a sales experience. So the lesson that we can have here is around obsessing over our customers and continually innovating on ways that we can serve them better. Now that may be products, that may be services, but it might simply be experiences for them that are more enjoyable, easier to run through, create greater trust or just give them confidence. Things are going to happen because as sales and business leaders, if we can be always looking for ways to delight our customers, then for me, that ticks off the obsession over customers. If as leaders we can learn how to create a culture that focuses on customer outcomes, it's not just us, but the rest of our team are consistently focusing on being 1% better each and every day for our customers. Right? Then we are on the right track where we can leverage technology to enhance our sales processes. So allow us to automate what doesn't create value. Right? Personalize at an automated or a sub atomic level that is personalizing what is a standard quote template, but making it easy to get them out on mass. Right, where we can be gathering data around our customers, competitor information, what's working, what's not working, where we're bold and absolutely open to growing how well we serve our customers, that starts to set that customer obsession. And whilst it's not the only thing that's gonna make us successful, it's a great lesson from a business that has exploded in terms of its growth, right. And become one of the most successful businesses in the world. And just a little bit of customer obsession can help us as leaders grow our businesses too. So the lesson coming out of today, the thing to think about is what you can do to increase your focus on customers. We don't all need to be the next Amazon, but if we can all serve our customers better and better each and every day, then we will close more deals, we will build stronger long term relationships and both our sales and profit numbers will grow. Right? So obsessing over your customers, if you're leaving with an emotion from today, then that word obsession is fantastic. Take whatever you're doing into your next sales engagement and really drive in hard around what you can do to really look after this customer and see where it lands you. Grateful for you to listen to this, particularly these episodes around learning from businesses and leaders of the past. Right? They're short, sharp ways that we can get a whole lot of knowledge on those who have succeeded before us and take out one action item from each of those. So we're dropping episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please keep thinking around how you can be 1% better each and every day because it will make all the difference. Bye for now. Are you struggling to grow your monthly sales numbers? Feel like you've reached a sales ceiling, are involved in every deal, or have no real sales system in place to help you grow? And is that causing a level of worry or stress? Stress about how you can get more sales in the future? If that's you, that's exactly why we created the Sold Out Sales Teams program to help you get month on month sales growth with less stress. In just the first week, we will lock down your quoting process to grow sales by 25 to 30%. And that's just week one. And for the first three podcast listeners that we speak to this week, we'll offer you a bonus one on one strategy. So session with me to make sure you can pay off your investment even faster. Which by the way, for most businesses is only one or two extra sales to book in, click the link in our Show Notes. It's a direct calendar link so you can instantly confirm your meeting time.
