Ben Gilbert

.@gilbert and @djrosent recently shared the story of Home Depot on @AcquiredFM, which is another masterclass on building a customer obsessed culture. Home Depot has had the highest total stock return since IPO in modern U.S. market history, even more than others like Apple or Microsoft. Some examples of their customer obsessed culture: - They called their central office in Atlanta the “Store Support Center” instead of “headquarters,” because the central office exists to support the front-line associates who serve customers - They hired trained tradespeople who could actually help customers with the nuances of home projects, instead of retail associates who did not have that expertise - They gave all front-line associates equity so that everyone’s incentives were aligned Future leadership changed these policies to pump revenue and margins (hiring non-tradespeople to lower costs, not aligning executive compensation with stock value, etc), and it led to Home Depot almost dying. Their next leader got them back to their basics. It’s neither a surprise nor coincidence that the legendary retail stores of today (Home Depot, Amazon, Walmart, etc) are all legendary for their customer obsession. The episode is worth a listen, as always.