Dave Reviews “Be Like Amazon”
This podcast audio served as the source for the blog post “Be Like Amazon – Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It.”
The transcript was rewritten to produce the blog post, which is the cornerstone of the Shortcut Content system.
Shayla: You are listening to the Shortcut Content podcast and I’m talking with founder Dave Young. Dave, tell us about the book “Be Like Amazon.” What’s that about and why do you want to talk about it today?
Dave: Well, I don’t normally do book reviews on Shortcut Content’s content channels. I’m not sure why. Maybe I need more books. But I did read this one. It was written by my friends Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg and my business partner, Roy H. Williams. And it’s a really cool book. It’s called “Be Like Amazon; Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It.” Even a lemonade stand can be like Amazon.
The really interesting thing about the book is it focuses on the four pillars, the four stone pillars of Amazon. And if you study Jeff Bezos and Amazon very much, what you’ll find is that it’s not some evil plan that Amazon put together to become what they are. It’s a pretty simple plan, and it’s all focused on customers. No matter what else they think about, they think about what would make our customer experience better, what can do that’s for the customer, instead of not helping them?
So the four stone pillars are customer centricity, continuous optimization, a culture of innovation, and corporate agility. So those four things and the book goes into depth about them, but it does it in a really interesting way. There’s only slightly more than a 110, 112 pages in this book. And it’s not written like any business book you’ve ever read. Lot of business books have charts, and numbers, and white papers, the proofs, the customer stories. There are a lot of stories in this book, but it reads like one story. So the story is a journey. And it’s a younger guy sitting with, I believe, his dad or his grandpa. It doesn’t really say. The two characters are named Poobah and Sunshine. Poobah is the old guys, Sunshine is the young guy. And it’s lessons that the old guy is teaching the young guy. And so the storytelling part of this book, if you’re familiar at all with Roy H. Williams, Wizard of Ads guy, he’s the one that storified it all for them. Eisenbergs had all the data, all the stories about Amazon, and Roy is the one that put it into story form and leads you through this story as Sunshine and Poobah are riding in a truck across the landscape of Texas, talking about Amazon, talking about all these other companies that have done similar things and how it’s turned out for them. It’s a really entertaining book, just don’t expect it to read like any other business book you’ve ever read and you’ll be fine.
I really enjoyed and I’ll read it again. In fact, the printed version of it, at the time we’re talking right now, I don’t even think it’s available, it was sold out in its first run on Amazon, and they’re printing more. I got a signed copy, because I know these guys. And there’s my confession about that. Yeah, I know them, but it’s still the best business book you’re going to read this year. So pick up a copy of it. You can get it for your Kindle. Just do a search for Brian Eisenberg and you’ll find an email that you can opt into that they’ll send you some chapters for free, if you want to do that before you buy it, but I recommend just buying it. It’s called “Be Like Amazon; Even a Lemonade Stand Can Do It.” I’ve learned lessons that I use in this business, and I’m giving it to clients and all kinds of things. So it’s a really good book.
Shayla: And we will try to find some links for you to put in this post, and in the blog post, and in the video so that you can find it. Does that sound good, Dave?
Dave: That sounds great.
Shayla: And if you have any more questions for Dave, reach out to him at ShortcutContent.com