The Amazonification of American consumerism has disrupted numerous industries. Companies on Main Street, USA often find it arduous to compete against Amazon’s business model of a large selection of products delivered fast at a low price.

Some companies have stepped up to the challenge and have retained market share and margin. Business leaders who want to do more than merely maintain must develop their leadership know-how. One way to sharpen those skills is to study what has worked for Amazon’s founder and former CEO, Jeff Bezos. We can cull some tips from a recent Bezos interview with podcaster Lex Fridman.

7 straightforward strategies for growing your business, according to Jeff Bezos

1. Understand the challenges but be optimistic.

Every startup company has low odds of survival. And many projects of mature companies fail. It’s helpful to know the odds to understand the reality of what might work and what might not. But that shouldn’t mean you can’t be optimistic. You can live with a duality in your head — you know what the baseline statistics say about startups or innovative projects, but you also must embrace the anxiety that it creates and move forward.

2. Day 1 thinking every day.

Every day, you decide what to do to move the company forward and remain relevant because “Day 2” is “stasis,” followed by “irrelevance,” then followed by “excruciating painful decline,” followed by “death.” And that is why it’s always Day 1 at Amazon.

You should avoid doing things the same way just because that’s been what has been working or because it’s easy to keep doing it. You get to start fresh and make new decisions every day about customer needs, operating procedures, and innovation.

There will be many traps to pull you into Day 2 thinking. Bezos has a “starter pack of essentials” for those who want to avoid falling into those traps. Bezos advises to maintain “customer obsession” but to have a “skeptical view of proxies.” Proxies are the processes or key performance indicators that decision-makers have historically used to guide outcomes to favorable results. To that, he suggests an eager adoption of external trends and the employment of high-velocity decision-making.

3. Measure what matters.

Mature companies may find that they’re tracking a metric that is no longer relevant. Suppose a company started tracking the number of contacts a decade ago and still is today. In that case, the company would be delighted to see that number increase. Perhaps when that KPI was chosen, it was the right measurement at the right time. However, it may no longer accurately measure the intended outcome. Customer preferences change, and they may not find delight in some other criteria.

4. Data is important but listen to your customers and employees.

Bezos advises, “When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. It doesn’t mean that you slavishly follow the anecdotes; it means that you go examine the data.”

5. Permit people to share strong opinions.

Create a culture where the most junior member can overrule the most senior if they have data, anecdotes, or intuition. To encourage this, Bezos will speak last in every meeting because he knows, from experience, that even knowledgeable, strong-willed participants will wonder, “Well, if Jeff thinks that, maybe I’m wrong.” Ideally, comments are made in the order of seniority so that less experienced people can share their uninfluenced ideas. This allows unfiltered opinions to surface and be explored.

6. Act on the small things.

You should put most of your time and energy into the big things — the things that, 10 years from now, probably won’t change. For example, Bezos finds it hard to imagine a shift from customers desiring low cost, vast selection, and quick delivery.

In addition to the challenge of working on those big things, there are also other less critical customer service deficiencies, which Bezos calls “paper cuts.” Amazon will list these deficiencies and assign dedicated teams to fix them, so these small things don’t become big problems.

Bezos finds that the teams working on the big issues never work their way down the priority list to find the time to stop the paper cuts. Special teams are needed to focus on these matters that may not be a priority relative to the big things until they become their own big problem.

7. Be stubborn on vision but flexible on the details.

Amazon makes a list of “tenets’ for projects. Bezos says that tenets are not principles because principles should not change frequently. The tenets Amazon uses, however, are more tactical than principles; they can evolve rapidly. When Amazon works on a project, it writes out the tenets of the business plan, but in parentheses, writes “unless you know a better way.” Decision-makers are encouraged to improve the process in real-time.

Bezos explains that it is vital that you don’t “get trapped by dogma.” He says, “ You don’t want to get trapped by history. It doesn’t mean you discard history or ignore it. There is so much value in what has worked in the past. But you can’t mindlessly follow what you’ve done. That’s the heart of Day 1.”

Bezos continues, “Long-term thinking is a giant lever. You can solve problems if you think long-term that are impossible to solve if you think short-term.” This quote should resonate with the shopkeepers-turned-CEOs of thriving small businesses.

Leaders need to hire smart people to help manage projects and run day-to-day activities, even if (perhaps especially if) their tactics are not precisely yours. Being stubborn on the vision but flexible on the details allows leaders to steer their ship past the horizon to lands their competition can’t yet see.

This article first appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on February 2, 2024.