--- title: From Sales Clerk to CEO | TIME description: Brad Anderson talks about how he went from sales clerk to CEO at Best Buy. canonical: https://time.com/video/wNJHEvwd/ og:title: From Sales Clerk to CEO og:description: Brad Anderson talks about how he went from sales clerk to CEO at Best Buy. og:url: https://time.com/video/wNJHEvwd/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/wNJHEvwd/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: From Sales Clerk to CEO twitter:description: Brad Anderson talks about how he went from sales clerk to CEO at Best Buy. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/wNJHEvwd/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # From Sales Clerk to CEO > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: From Sales Clerk to CEO [Watch (HLS stream): From Sales Clerk to CEO](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wNJHEvwd.m3u8) (4:33)  _Published 2008-09-24. Brad Anderson talks about how he went from sales clerk to CEO at Best Buy._ --- Jul 27, 2023 12:52 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Know Right Now: Kentucky Clerk Going to Jail](/video/PIrPpjQW/) ### Know Right Now: Kentucky Clerk Going to Jail [Know Right Now: Kentucky Clerk Released from Jail](/video/Im7HGSAk/) ### Know Right Now: Kentucky Clerk Released from Jail [Shooting Clerks Teaser Trailer](/video/dwnbu5p1/) ### Shooting Clerks Teaser Trailer --- ## Transcript >> Hi. We're here with Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy-- and talk a little bit about how you, sort of, got involved in Best Buy. You have an interesting story, and I know you started out as a sales clerk. >> Yeah. >> Since-- how did you make the job from the sales clerk to CEO? >> Well, actually-- I think this is kind of a colorful story because I was-- we used to be called Sound of Music, so I spent the 70's in this little three- person store in West St. Paul. We had seven stores and we were losing a lot of money 'cause our strategy is kinda wasn't appropriate anymore and the company is having trouble paying its bills. So the founder of the company pulls in to my store-- that I was managing, in his car and I'm sure he's coming in to fire me. And he walked in-- >> Your sales weren't that good. >> Yeah, I was like, I [ unk ] was long hair, I wasn't a lot up here but I still have long hair. I really looked bad and then I always-- he walks into the store and asked me to come outside out of the parking lot and he said, " you know, things aren't going well ." And I said, " yes I know ." And he said, " maybe to make some changes" and I said, " I agree with you. I think we need to make some changes ". And he said-- " and so I'm considering replacing the existing management team with one of these three people. All of them worked for you at some point and time. Which of the three do you think I should choose ?" And I said, " wow, at least I'm not getting fired ." But then I did something completely out of character, I said, " I think you should choose me 'cause I think you should looked through the fact that these three guys worked for me and that I should be the person that was "-- I was shaking when I was telling him this but he looked amazed and stunned but he came back and broke the job into two jobs, left me managing the store but gave me some corporate responsibility and then shows another person as the counter- balance and had both of us do it together and that's how I got the opportunity. It was one of the things when I'm like trying to council anybody. It's a lot of this is being in the right place at the right time. >> Yeah. >> And then knowing how to seize-- and I'm the least likely the person to seize the moment. It was completely out of character. >> And then you sort of followed up in your management style to try and get a lot of the ideas from sort of the-- you know, bottom tier to the top tier level, people that like, instead of going top down, it sort of bottom up. >> Today the premise I've got is that people have insight that I can't see that is better than the insight that somebody can see, you know, especially the closer you get to the customer, the better the ability you got to see what the real needs of the business are and the harder it is for somebody to hear you, who maybe making that decision. So how do you collapse the difference distance between the person that can see the customer need and the person in the level, where they're making a decision, that's-- we've been-- we're calling it as customer centricity but that's that whole struggle, to be able to take that person and there's case in the US, you're dealing with this person with the blue shirt in the store probably has the best single insight about what your needs are. How do we as a company-- have follow his leadership not mine? >> Is there a one particular idea that you've noticed that came from sort of down in the bottom that has really helped the company? >> I think I could take you through anything we do today that we take for granted and virtually all of it came from some individual, usually a misunderstood, angry individual, somewhere in the firm, who is sitting there and saying, " why won't you do this ?" and for having trouble being heard. But, you know, whether almost any-- and that was to take these things for granted. I can't even remember who came up with the idea. I can 'cause I list it through but there are many times can. But it was always, and almost always two things, one of which the point of view that you now cherish is normal was unusual. It was hard for people to hear and understand and it had trouble hearing getting its voice. But once it does, that's-- >> What's the avenue? How do you make it easy for those ideas to be heard? >> Well, I think the worst thing to do would be to make it easy 'cause it needs to, you need to be fighting for that ideas as opposed to just having and accept it. You need-- that process of being misunderstood helps you figure out how to communicate in a way that other people can hear and then also, you need the passion to follow the idea. So the last thing I'd wanna do is build an enterprise that just made it easy to have ideas. So it needs that friction but it doesn't need so much that it smothers it. And most organizations put so much weight on that that you can't hear it. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"From Sales Clerk to CEO","description":"Brad Anderson talks about how he went from sales clerk to CEO at Best Buy.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/wNJHEvwd/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2008-09-24T16:52:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wNJHEvwd.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/wNJHEvwd/","duration":"PT4M33S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/wNJHEvwd/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```