Who wants to be a "C" company? Do you have a plan to accomplish it? Michael Dell, of Dell Computers and Tony Hsieh, of Zappos.com both discuss the keys to their businesses are their three C's.
In 1999 Michael Dell spoke at the Detroit Economic Club about building a competitive advantage in an Internet economy. This was only four years since the consumer had access to dial up Internet service, so he at the time was one of the top experts with Dell Computers. He taught that there were three critical C's to building a business in the Internet age: Content, Commerce, and Community.
Content - Needed to be compelling content, what people wanted.
Commerce - All transactions involved, order status, simplicity of delivery.
Community - Building a relationship with company, consumers, and providers.
In a nutshell, Content meant that you had the products or services that people wanted to buy. Commerce meant that your systems were user friendly and your processes created a positive experience. Community was the trickiest part. In fact, in that speech Dell said no one had it figured out. The key to Community in a brick and mortar world was geographic location. Your consumer community was those places that were on the roads between your work and home, between your home and your kids' schools, and between your home and your church. Likely your grocery store, hair stylist, drugstore and more are on one of those roads. You move or change jobs your consumer community changes.
In the Internet-Commerce world everyone is next door, so the community has to be created by experience. If a clerk at the grocery closest to you makes you mad, you vow never to go back. And you'll keep that vow - until you need groceries next week. However, if you go online and you burn a bridge, it remains burned. As agents, how consumer-friendly are our online presences? Can we give a wow experience?
In 2013 Tony Hsieh spoke of the three C's of Zappos.com and their company's culture. Those three "C's" are Collisions, Community and Co-Learning.
Collisions - Are those serendipitous "bumping into" meetings. They strive to maximize the serendipitous interactions and have taken steps to help facilitate those collisions: all of their employees go in and out the front door; they have food and drinks available during working hours, but on different floors; company parties; and events are all used to encourage more collisions.
Community - Is the ongoing interaction created by those collisions. Culture to a company is the same as Community is to a city. Community is where Collaboration takes place. It is where those who work together and those whose work brings them into collisions from auxiliary industries come together to create fresh perspectives and possible solutions.
Co-Learning - This is the result of the Collaboration of the Community where, organically, the members of the Community teach and learn from each other. It is not top-down directed, while it may take the form of a classroom setting. More likely than not, it is going to be organic and quick. Simply one person showing another something that the other wants to know. Then, the one learning shows what they learned to another, spreading information informally and almost virally.
The ingredients for Serendipity are to put people together in a vibrant, populated environment created for those Collisions. There must be a culture of openness, collaboration, creativity, and optimism.
To maximize the serendipitous interaction you need a density of population in the office or community. Always prioritize collisions over convenience, and create a space that attracts different groups of people to collide.
In 2014 there was a group of us who went through the Zappos and Tony Hsieh's Downtown Project in Las Vegas and saw the "Three C's" in action. What most amazed us was that those three C's are exactly what the culture is at our RE/MAX Ability Plus. We hadn't named them before but the idea of Collisions is exactly what our Café-dominated offices are for. With our working patios and our events, we created Collisions with more than 20,000 people last year alone. The design of our offices and the culture of sharing and openness creates that Community of Collaboration that fosters that ongoing Co-Learning. That was the most exciting part of the trip: to finally label our day-to-day world in such a way we can focus on increasing those mutually beneficial Three C's.
Tony Hsieh says that one of their goals in his Downtown Project is to create a Three “C’s” climate that fosters when you visit that part of Las Vegas you come away smarter. I believe that at RE/MAX Ability Plus that same goal exists, no matter if you are one of our agents, a visiting agent, or any partner from the overall industry, you too will come away smarter from the experience.
A great brand or company is a story that never stops unfolding.
