Why Your Business Needs To Be Amazon, Nordstrom And Walmart Rolled Into One

At an ad agency I used to run, we went after a piece of business from a client that wanted us to deliver a high volume of low-cost work. While my team specialized in premium marketing — creating exceptionally crafted advertising— we were willing to be flexible to win the contract. We won the deal but the work wasn’t a natural fit for our team. Eventually, we hit a wall and parted ways with the client. With a little time and distance, what went wrong became clear to me: We didn’t have talent on our team who thrived on creating large volumes of work for a client looking for maximum efficiencies. Instead of asking our team to reinvent themselves on the fly, we should have brought in reinforcements who got excited about this type of work. Today, I’ve realized that every company that wants to scale beyond a narrow niche needs three distinct teams to compete effectively for customers. These teams’ approaches to partnering with customers and executing on deliverables should mirror those perfected by three famous retailers: Nordstrom (high-end service), Walmart (value, speed, scale) and Amazon (innovation). Fortunately, all can be adapted to an entrepreneurial company’s budget. Read more at Forbes.