Empty shelf story at Amazon on post by Paul Getter.- the need to fix and have a system

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Sometimes we need enthusiasm and passion to sell But not all the time.   Jeff Bezos fojund it the hard way.  Sales were declining and upon inspection he found empty shelf in his store/warehouse.   What does it mean -  Out of stock.    Non fulfillment of customer needs.    

It means lost sales.    But to solve this gap, you have to inform your system.  If your system is faulty, you cant sell.  

Its important for businesses to to mind their system.   Businesses are sustained on good system.  Like having a good supply chain warehousing sysem.  Marketing can be exclusive of internal system.  Marketing need the support of internal system  

Therefore by fixing your system, you can improve your sales.  Its important to solve your internal problem to sell outside

Paul Getter inspiration for sellers - on being exceptional, on being outstanding

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Paul Getter the internet marketing nerd

These are some of his post at FB and we can learn a thing or two from him.  The theme is just being unusual, thinking out of the box, or a purple cow.

It is the focus of most strategist.   Do nothing exotic about your business model.  Just make an outstanding unique product or ad, to be the  most preferred and saleable 

product in the market place

And profiting from you mistakes

1.  THE BAD PEN  (a recurring theme in his writings)

      A bad pen in the batch can be your best teacher.   It teaches you to make a better product.    It can be your free consultant to improve your product and hence your company

2.  The MISSING KEY

     One day, Andrew Carnegie the steel business magnate found out that they could not start the factory because they could not find the KEY  to the warehouse Then Andrew c ordered the

     unthinkable -  destroy and stop having a lock from thereon.   What was the lock and key for -  to prevent the 1% possibility of theft.  What then was the solution:    better system, better

     process to stop the theft .   The key could not be a bottleneck for running a multimillion project.   There has to be a better way.  How many times do we find bottlenecks in the business

     that should not be there and stop the business.  Find and remove them

3.  The spotlight switch

     This is about the concert of Bayonce that experienced a brown out.  The team of Bayonce was prepared and anticipated this.    And the concert was a success.  And a PR was created:

     to highlight the  team of Bayonce -   " Bayonce concert proceeded despite brown out"   A great team, a great singer   Turn a misfortune a disadvantage into a uniqueness, a shining moment, a 

     stand out

4.   The empty table 

       The story is about Steve Jobs returning to Apple.   Apple was on verge of collapse and bankruptcy  after he was fired and other CEOs took over including Sculley, whom he recruited from

       Pepsi Cola but fired him   Steve looked at the list of the plethora of products  And initially Steve Jobs said nothing.  But he cleared the table -  removed the other non performing products and

       left just four.   More products line:    1.   Create confusion and chaos    2   Dissipate resources and management thinking and energy.  3.   Destroys focus.

      Application in marketing;    the first 5 seconds is important.  If it cant be explained in 5 seconds, then you cant sell it.      If the ad cant stop the eye of the scroller in 5 seconds it cant sell.  

      Empty table enables focus, focus, focus

     The successful billionaires are those who focus on one industry or product.   Or activity.   Conglomerates

       are long gone  So who are most successful:   Warren Buffett Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg for               staying focussed.   Most successful ads are 7 words, some say it is 15 words.  Too many tend to               confuse

     Again same thing:   from nothing to nothing.  (Pay Pal  -   Peter Thiel)

5.  Inside out

     This is reverse thinking, this is about stand out.    This is about clothing     Abercombie fitch  Other clothing focussed on things that are visible -  outside.   Fitch focussed on logos and

      graphics in the inside.   They built identity inside and out.    The bigger the logos sign the bigger the sales.   Sales fettered out when they changed the strategy.  

     So the product must be presented what it does inside -  the body, the label, not what it does outside   It is one approach.

Steve Jobs motivational commencement speech at Stanford - how being fired, left out can motivate one to greater heights

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Small failures, small rifts need not bother you on the way to success.  Being rejected is a small deal,  Its one of the blinks events on your way to success.  No one can stop you.    Failure can be the best thing that can happen in your life.  

"I was fired from the very company I created… and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me."

When I was born, my biological parents gave me up for adoption.

That moment — even though I couldn't remember it — left a mark that never fully faded.

My adoptive parents gave me love, warmth, and stability.

But inside, a quiet voice kept asking: Why wasn't I enough to be kept?

That question became my engine.

That pain — my fuel.

I was determined to build something so meaningful that the world couldn't look away.

At 20, in my parents' garage, I co-founded Apple.

No investors. No safety net. No plan B.

Just an idea — and an obsession to make technology beautiful, simple, and human.

For a while, it worked.

Then life flipped the script.

At 30, I was forced out — fired by the same company I had built from nothing.

It felt like exile.

Like being thrown out of your own home. 💼⚡

For months, I wandered in the dark — humiliated, angry, lost.

But somewhere in that emptiness… a spark reignited.

I started again.

From zero.

I built NeXT — and bought a small animation studio that would soon become Pixar.

And while I was rebuilding, life had a strange way of coming full circle:

Apple bought NeXT — not to hire me back, but to buy the technology I'd created.

That's how I returned.

This time, stronger.

Wiser.

Free from the need to prove — driven instead to create.

Together, we launched the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone.

We didn't just design products — we redesigned how people live, dream, listen, and connect.

Behind every headline was a man once rejected, adopted, and fired —

who refused to let any of it define him.

🍎📲

Because sometimes the greatest breakthroughs are born from heartbreak.

Sometimes the fall is what gives you wings.

⏳💥

"Life will hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.

Because what feels like an ending… might just be the start of something extraordinary."

— Steve Jobs