The substance of Zappos Core Values provides a huge difference between motivation and inspiration. Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO indicates that once you get your vision, culture and purpose right you needn't worry about motivation. 
Tony is very big on having a meaningful higher purpose. It's the reason he's writing a book Delivering Happiness due June 7th.
People often approach Tony to ask him what's a good market to go into right now. His answer is always the same. What's the type of business you'd be happy doing for the next ten years even if you wouldn't make a penny? If what you are doing is your purpose your employees will sense that purpose. They will be engaged and this will provide a snow ball effect. He cited a line from the movie Notorious, "Don't chase the paper, chase the dream."
You may review Zappos Core Values and say that's great, but that would never work for my company. Tony agrees with you. What matters is that you have your own set of Core Values. As he stated, "It doesn't matter what your core values are, as long as you commit to them."
How important are Zappos Core Values? Tony indicated there is very little if anything he would do differently about growing and developing his company, however the number one thing he would have done differently if he would start again is to have rolled out his core values when he started the business. It's made Zappos culture stronger. In fact Culture is Zappos One Thing!
Over the next several weeks I plan to review my notes and present one to two blogs on each of the Las Vegas Sales & Marketing Growth Summit speakers. Jeff Thull, author of Mastering the Complex Sale, had advice for any business that doesn't want to be a commodity and why you're probably working too hard to make the sale. That's up in my next blog post.
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