CUSTOMER FIRST
ⒸUSTOMER OBSESSED
LEARN AND BE CⓊRIOS
INVENT AND ⓈIMPLIFY
ⓉHINK BIG
ⓄWNERSHIP
HAVE BACKBONE, DISAGREE, AND COⓂMIT
DIVE DⒺEP
DELIVER ⓇESULTS
ⒻRUGALITY
BⒾAS FOR ACTION
ⓇIGHT, ALOT
HIGHEST ⓈTANDARDS
EARN ⓉRUST
| # | Principle | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Customer Obsession | Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. |
| 2 | Ownership | Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job." |
| 3 | Invent and Simplify | Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here." As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time. |
| 4 | Are Right, A Lot | Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs. **This is about exercising good judgement.** |
| 5 | Learn and Be Curious | Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them. |
| 6 | Hire and Develop the Best | Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice. |
| 7 | Insist on the Highest Standards | Leaders have relentlessly high standards — many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed. |
| 8 | Think Big | Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers. |
| 9 | Bias for Action | Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking. |
| 10 | Frugality | Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense. |
| 11 | Earn Trust | Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best. **This is about not being arrogant.** |
| 12 | Dive Deep | Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them. |
| 13 | Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit | Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly. |
| 14 | Deliver Results | Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle. |
I recently completed a 6-week coding bootcamp. I loved it! I decided that I wanted to work in a similar environment because I love creating things, being surrounded by developers, and just creating cool stuff that matters! The difficult work was also energizing to me because I was learning so many new things. It opened my eyes to the rock stars of the developer world. The most powerful companies in the world started with one line of code!
In a way, working for myself for the past 10 years has allowed me to find myself and discover new talents to realize more of my potential. I've determined however that I miss working with others and want to be part of something bigger than myself.
The Amazon interview process has been a great opportunity for me to reflect on my achievements over last 10 years:
I truly enjoyed the 6-week CodeSLO bootcamp. The time flew by. As a writer, I see the evolution of writing is morphing into coding. The next bestsellers will be more apps, not books. Working towards to completion of a tangible product I can claim ownership to inspires me. I valued the consistent structure (2 hours every night) and end game (hackathon).
Working at Amazon would be an opportunity to surround myself with the best of the best. I know that the path to realizing potential is to surrounding myself by others who help me see past my own limitations. I experienced this first hand when I trained for an Ironman with others who had done races of that distance previously. Working for yourself is like riding by yourself Working for Amazon would be like riding with a pack of faster riders.
What if everyday at work was like the hackathon?
...and how I have demonstrate them in my life.
While Amazon has 14 leadership principles, two of the highest valued ones are Customer Obsession and Earning Trust.
Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
Tell the story of the last time you had to apologize to someone.
I got upset with a teacher who had a habit of blasting her music to get ready for the next class, while were still cleaning up and enjoying our post-yoga bliss. Although she wasn't in the room when I spoke to management about it, it got back to her and she was notably upset for weeks following. I apologized but probably waited too long and since I didn't deliver the news, I have no idea how it was delivered! Lesson learned - next time, I'll talk to the person directly and wait for a time when I'm not upset by it.
Recently, I had failed to complete a milestone (title setup) for a client, several weeks after I should have. Because I tracked the milestone in AuthorDock, I was able to see that the ball was in the clients court, although I'll admit I was not explicitly clear in my request for him to review what I had sent AND never follow-up when he didn't respond. I take ownership on the incompletion.
When you're working with a large number of customers, it's tricky to deliver excellent service to them all. How do you go about prioritizing your customers' needs?
I definitely run into this with my own business. In 2018, I established a VIP model. Clients who need my services now pay a monthly fee. Outside of specific project work (which I still to), the VIP model allows me to allocate time for clients each month on a everything they might need. The recurring income alled me to to hire an agent to do the work. Clients get either 2.5/4 hours (level 1) or 4.5/6 hours (level 2) of time on a retainer each month. (The time difference is whether it's my time or agents who work for me at a lower hourly rate - me/agent). All our time is logged in AuthorDock, so I can let the client know when they are exceeding their retainer. Unused time carries over to the next month.
This provided my business with a base line of income and helps me account for what was previously unbilled time when a client would call or email me asking a question. This doesn't work without a good time tracking software. I recently invested in a time tracker that goes a step further in tracking how I spend every minute!
Give me an example of a time when you did not meet a client's expectation. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?
Met with a local client after an extended phone consult, she realized she needed my help. Her book reflected her investment in it, which was not sufficient. She signed on for a 5-hour retainer but quickly burned through the time. She was not happy with the initial cover work I commissioned. Because I had my hourly person working on it, she burned a lot of time creating a cover the client didn't go with. Lesson learned was not to pay a designer unless we use the cover she create. Actually, I still pay the designer a fee for her time even if we don't use it, but it's more as a gesture of goodwill since it's less than half of what she'd earn if we used her design. Bottom line is that I'm able to cut my losses early. The good news is that as a result of me stepping up and 'eating it' on the cost of the cover, she hired me for more work and allowed me to recoup the losses on our first engagement.
Red flags were there: she extended her initial consult far beyond the usual 15 mins I offer.
Another client (Mary) liked the her idea of the VIP retainer, but her idea (expectation) was different what I offered. A few months into it, realized she wasn't utilizing the time. The lesson learned? A mismatch in expectations. Next time: Be sure expectations are clear on both sides - to the extent it would be helpful to have her tell me what she understands is included in the agreement. What saved me is that I had a log of where we spending her time, although she explained they were not on what she valued. While I did check in with her a couple of times throughout or engagement, each time she was too busy to talk. If not for AuthorDock, I would have likely had to refund her a portion of our fee.
I always prioritize client work before my own. To a fault, because I failed to build recurring revenue (information products) during a time when I could have dominated the space.
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job".
Tell me about a time when you had to leave a task unfinished
Most recently on github, I created a spine width calculator. It's functional, but not responsive. I'll work on it this weekend.
After I submit a title to IngramSpark, I have to for approval. I put a reminder on my calendar for 3 days later to check the status.
I offered to help a friend get his songbook up on Amazon. We ran into some snags because their book was not setup for print-on-demand. Suffice to say, after many attempts (I've probably spent close to 4 hours on the project), the book still isn't ready. I took it as far as I could with my own experience, so I referred him to a colleague who is an expert with InDesign to help him finish it up.
Tell me about a time when you had to work on a project with unclear responsibilities
I'm in the midst of one right now - We are working on a book for a chiropractor and continue to reveal more things he wants to add related to the book that was never part of the original scope. Part of his plan to was offer an online assessment for readers. It's not that I can't help him, I just don't have the bandwidth and he has limited funds. I found him a resource on Fiverr that he's now working with to develop assessment using Jotform.
Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here". As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.
Tell me about a time when you gave a simple solution to a complex problem.
If I ask a client for a description to put on Amazon, often I'll get back a PDF or a screenshot with text that I can't grab. I discovered a solution w/Google Keep that allows you to grab text from an image with incredible accuracy. Grammarly works with Google Keep, so it ends often ends up improving what an author sent me (and I send it back to them).
IngramSpark requires a conversion to 4 different currencies, yet doesn't offer a simple conversion tool like KDP. Since the exchange rates fluctuate, you need to always check the latest rates and all the conversion webtools only allow you to check one currency at a time. We wrote javascript that pulls current exchange rates from the Currencylayer API at our Hackathon. You can see it at here. Note: for repetitive calculations, I'll use Google Sheets or Instacalc.
Tell me about a time when you invented something.
Other ways I've demonstrate creativity?
Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.
This validates the reason why learn, do, teach works!
Tell me about a time when you were wrong.
Booking a booth at the L.A. Book Festival. It was the worst investment I made in the last 5 years. I recouped some of the cost from other authors, but lost credibility with some as well.
Tell me about a time when you had to work with incomplete data or information.
Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.
Tell me about a time when you influenced a change by only asking questions.
Tell me about a time when you solved a problem through just superior knowledge or observation.
Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.
Tell me about a time when you mentored someone
Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and driving their teams to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
Tell me about a time when you couldn't meet your own expectations on a project.
Tell me about a time when a team member didn't meet your expectations on a project.
Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.
Tell me about your proudest professional achievement.
50 Interviews.
Tell me about a time when you went way beyond the scope of the project and delivered.
A successful client licensed the rights of his book to a book publisher who brokers one-time volume sales with Barnes & Noble for popular titles. I spoke with the publisher and convinced him to let me make the changes he wanted in the source doc (which was in MS Word). The extent of his changes however were definitely more extensive that I would have thought and we went back and forth a least a dozen times. Ultimately he torpedoed all my work, electing to hire another designer who built the book in InDesign! As frustrated with the experience as I was (I took a loss), I did end up with a beautiful template we can use on a future project.
New cover for Megan McGreen.
Line drawings for Chris Werness.
Everything for Rorion Gracie - from how to migrate quickbooks, to reducing his GoDaddy bill, to managing his GSuite account, to building a website!
Helping my clients tech-challenged clients like Terry and Rorion with whatever they get stuck with.
Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.
Tell me about a time when you took a calculated risk.
Tell me about a time you needed to get information from someone who wasn't very responsive. What did you do?
Find out what mode of communication they prefer: email, text, or voice. Everyone has a preference and it may not match mine. I might also ask someone who knows them. I'd refer to a deadline in my message. I'd try to find out how I can make my offer more appealing by offering to help however I can. As a last resort, I would consider approaching their boss.
TechBrew
Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense.
Tell me about a time when you had to work with limited time or resources.
Hackathon this year. We only had 7 hours to complete a project. We had to scale back the scope to get it done. It was a great team effort (3 of us) and getting the CSS right took longer than we expected - thankfully we had the time to get it just right!
CIPA president. When I took over to president, I was shocked to learn the club has more than $10,000 in debt! By the time my term was up, the club was back on a path to profitability.
Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.
What would you do if you found out that your closest friend at work was stealing.
Tell me about a time when you had to tell someone a harsh truth.
Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.
Give me two examples of when you did more than what was required in any job experience.
Taking Bert to the doctor (numerous times) and to the verizon store to get his service turned back on.
Important
Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
Tell me about a time when you did not accept the status quo.
Tell me about an unpopular decision of yours.
Tell me about a time when you had to step up and disagree with a team members approach.
If your direct manager was instructing you to do something you disagreed with, how would you handle it?
Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.
What is the most difficult situation you have ever faced in your life? How did you handle it?
Getting 'redeployed' into the competitive sales group for traditional 'blue suit' competitive sales with a manager who was under pressure to get squeeze more sales! He didn't ask for me, instead I showed up and along with me, his quota went up. Tension from day 1. When I finally left, he admitted that I last longer than anyone else had previously! I think I was somewhat naive. IBM was not expanding, they were contracting - so job opps within IBM were limited. Everyday, I had to do my best. I owe lasting as long as I did (nearly 2 years) to the years of self-help consumption! Ulitimately, it did lead me to another job and I am thankful that the time I did spend in competitive sales made walking into my new role much easier (I had to cold call for the first 3 months at 3t.)
Ironman - I felt that if I could complete an Ironman, than I could complete anything. Perhaps more than anything - completing the Ironman gave me the confidence to finally step out on my own - something I had wanted to do for years, but never had the courage (or perhaps necessity) to do.
Give me an example of a time when you were 75% of the way through a project, and you had to pivot strategy - how were you able to make that into a success story?
