The Desk of the Richest Man in the World

The picture above is of Jeff Bezos, now considered the richest man in the world.

This is where he started.

It’s a good reminder to see that you can start with humble beginnings and end up anywhere.

When interviewed last year, Bezos laid out for all the world to see Amazon’s principles and approach, from which they never deviate. This is much like Warren Buffett, who has always been very public about how he invests and never breaks his own rules.

Here are Amazon Principles:

1) Stay customer obsessed. Versus competitor obsessed, profit obsessed, technology obsessed, or product obsessed. They keep focus on what the customer wants. Lower prices, faster delivery, more choices. They keep investing to make that experience better and better for the customer.

2) Willing and eager to invent and pioneer. Not just listen to customers, but to invent on the customers’ behalf and be willing to accept failure, because inventing and failure go hand and hand.

3) Long-term oriented. He pushes his team not to get stuck planning for the next 2-3 years. Thinking in a 5 to 7-year timeframe changes how an organization plans and implements, and forces them to always look at the big picture.

I find all 3 of these principles fascinatingly simple and smart.

In my field of real estate (and likely true for most industries) companies and owners don’t take time to develop their own set of guiding principles (from which they never deviate).

They plan only for the next month, quarter, or season, but don’t consider what they could be doing now to insure what kind of year they will have in 5 years.

What is clear to me from studying the likes of Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos is that having a set of guiding principles, an approach to how your run your organization, a business religion that you never deviate from, creates a solid foundation, a foundation upon which you can grow and accomplish great things.

Which is why you are seeing more emails from me.

I’ve made a commitment to myself to build a foundation, to follow a set of guiding principles with the goal of accomplishing great things.

I intend to pioneer new paths and to innovate on behalf of my clients, my community, my family, and I intend to document my journey. The lessons, the epic failures, the successes, all of it.

This is week 1.

These are my first steps.

Mike Turner
Host:  Idaho Speakeasy
Collaborator: Value Drive Approach
Founder: Front Street Brokers
Co-Founder: Impact Club Boise
Author: Agent Entrepreneurs
Voice: 208-340-8399