Have you delivered happiness to your fans?

On Monday June 7 Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, releases his book titled “Delivering Happiness“. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy to read before the official on-sale date and it should be required reading for everyone in the sports business world.

The first half of the book is about Tony’s experiences with entrepreneurship, his rise as a dot com founder, his struggle to find purpose after selling his company to Microsoft, and then how he eventually found his way to Zappos.com. For an entrepreneur like myself, the stories and insights into the success and failures he has had throughout the years was great. If you have or plan on starting a business of your own, or work in a start-up environment, you’ll love this part of the book.

But the real gems for those involved in the sports marketing and business worlds come in the last half of the book. You’ll learn how Zappos.com evolved over time into being known as one of the #1 companies in the world for customer service. Tony gives some great tips on how to instill customer service into all parts of your organization, and use a high level of customer service to build your brand.

There are so many good takeaways that sports organizations can use in how they communicate, interact, and serve their fans.

Like a good playoff game where the best plays happen in the closing minutes, the last chapter of the book teaches you how to build your own “happiness framework”. To paraphrase Tony, the parallels between what makes people happy and what makes for great long-term companies are obvious.

Pick up a copy of Delivering Happiness today and share it with your colleagues. You’ll learn how to get yourself, and the rest of your organization, on the path to happiness in life and in business.

Back in 2008 Dan gave a TED Talk and one of the examples he used to highlight just how irrational we are sometimes as consumers was an order page for the Economist. So much thought goes into creating the best copy for subscriber acquisition or renewal pieces that sometimes we forget that we need to make sure we are saying the right things and framing offers the right way all the way through the entire checkout process if we want to achieve maximum conversion.

The Economist order page example offered three choices:

• Online subscription for $59
• Print subscription for $125
• Print and Online for $125

Dan saw this order page and called up the Economist to see what they were thinking and why they would frame the offer in such a way. Clearly nobody in their right mind would choose option #2. Unfortunately by the time Dan got to the right person at the Economist, the offer page was replaced.

So Dan decided to test the original page with 100 MIT students. Here is what they chose:

• Online subscription for $59 (16%)
• Print subscription for $125 (0%)
• Print and Online for $125 (84%)

This would seem to make sense right? The third option looks like an incredible bargain and so 84% of the students chose that option.

A natural reaction would be to eliminate the option nobody wants, so Dan eliminated the middle option. It’s amazing the result this change had on what people chose:

• Online subscription for $59 (68%)
• Print and Online for $125 (32%)

What a difference! Which result do you think the Economist would prefer? Clearly the result where 84% of people chose the higher priced option. But they would probably never figure out how to achieve this result without testing.

So, two lessons to take away from this:

1) Always be testing and tweaking your offers, and

2) Don’t hesitate to test offers that seem to make zero sense…those which nobody would choose. The “dummy option” could have a profound (and profitable) effect on what they do ultimately decide.

You can watch the entire Ted Talk embedded below. The example illustrated here begins at the 12:35 mark.

It’s a short read, but as Gary likes to say, there’s no fluff. He’s right. Each of the nuggets are pretty short but definitely inspiring. I feel like I’m already on the path that Gary describes in the book, but I’ve definitely got a ways to go before I consider myself a success. Crush It! definitely opened my eyes to some of the things I could be doing to speed my business growth process along.

I have to admit though, I read most of it while in the bathroom. The short chapters are perfect for this. 5-10 minutes per chapter and your done. For some reason I don’t think Gary would care.

I read the hardcover version of Crush It! but one thing I still might check out is the Vook for Crush It!. According to their website a Vook is:

“…a new innovation in reading that blends a well-written book, high-quality video and the power of the Internet into a single, complete story.

You can read your book, watch videos that enhance the story and connect with authors and your friends through social media all on one screen, without switching between platforms.

Vooks are available in two formats: As a web-based application you can read on your computer and a mobile application for reading on the go. With the web-based application you don’t have to download programs or install software. Just open your favorite browser and start reading and watching in an exciting new way. You can also download and install the mobile applications through the Apple iTunes store and sync them with your Apple mobile device.”

The video content with Gary looks great (you can see a preview here) and the price has come down quite a bit since I first checked it out (now $6.99…it was $11.99) so it seems like a great deal.

But no matter what format you prefer, check out Crush It! and get ready to be inspired and motivated to take those next steps in getting your business up and running.