Transformation Series: Amazon
- Liz Schehl
- Oct 21
- 2 min read
In 1994, Jeff Bezos made a career-defining choice. He left Wall Street after reading a statistic that internet use was growing 2,300% a year. He asked a bold question: What if books could be sold online…offering infinite selection, delivered directly to the customer?
What if the true value of your business isn’t the thing you sell, but the experience you deliver?
Books were just the entry point. What Bezos was really building wasn’t a bookstore at all. It was a model centered on convenience, ease, and experience. This was building a promise that whatever you wanted could arrive at your doorstep faster and simpler than you imagined.
That clarity of value has fueled Amazon’s reinvention again and again. From retail to AWS to media, and now same-day grocery delivery in over 1,000 U.S. cities (with plans for 2,300 by year-end), every expansion ladders back to the same proposition: making life easier - from A to Z.
Contrast that with Kodak. They too saw the future when they invented the digital camera in 1975, but fear of cannibalizing film held them back. Where Kodak froze, Amazon acted. Where Kodak protected legacy, Amazon relentlessly reinvented.
The lesson? Future-proofing isn’t about clinging to what you sell. It’s about doubling down on the value you create in people’s lives.
Questions to consider:
How well do you know your clients’ lives beyond the transaction, enough to anticipate needs before they surface?
Are you shaping expectations in your industry, or letting Amazon and others set the bar your clients now compare you to?
What does “convenience” look like in wealth management, and are you delivering it at the level clients already experience elsewhere?
Where can you create ease, speed, or personalization that clients don’t yet expect, but will soon demand?
If the true measure of value is how effortless you make your clients’ lives, how close are you to being indispensable?
Future-proofing means moving beyond transactions to transformation, creating the kind of experience that makes clients wonder how they ever lived without you.
