“Delivering Happiness” – Zappos.com & Tony Hseih

I belong to a great organization called LA Entrepreneurs and yesterday we had the opportunity to hear Zappos.com CEO and author of Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsieh, speak with Jason Calcanis of Mahalo.com about the culture building process at Zappos.com

I really enjoyed this event because having happy employees and customers is a concept that seems so foreign here in Los Angeles but is near and dear to my heart.

Delivering personalized IT service to ÜberGeekGirl clients and leaving them completely satisfied and thrilled with the service is my passion and calling. In fact, finding and working with happy people who enjoy “happiness” and strive for it in their daily lives is a huge concept and part of the culture at ÜberGeekGirl. It was great to meet Tony and tell him about ÜberGeekGirl.

I am still reading the book, but I am thrilled so far. I encourage you to get a copy and find out what Tony has to say.

The visionary CEO of Zappos explains how an emphasis on corporate culture can lead to unprecedented success.

Pay new employees $2000 to quit. Make customer service the entire company, not just a department. Focus on company culture as the #1 priority. Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business. Help employees grow both personally and professionally. Seek to change the world. Oh, and make money too.

Sound crazy? It’s all standard operating procedure at Zappos.com, the online retailer that’s doing over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales every year.

In 2009, Zappos was listed as one of Fortune magazine’s top 25 companies to work for, and was acquired by Amazon later that year in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

In his first book, Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Ultimately, he shows how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life.