How To Outperform The Stock Market By 679% (2024)

If you invested in the DOW during the ten-year period from 2009 to 2018, your portfolio would have increased by 184%. If you invested in the S&P your increase would have been 207%. But if you had invested in the ten companies ranked in Siegel+Gale’s World’s Simplest Brands report, you would have outperformed the average of the major indexes by a whopping 679%!

For the past eight years, Siegel+Gale has surveyed consumers to determine which brands deliver a “simpler experience.” This past year more than 800 brands were considered as they interviewed more than 15,000 customers in nine countries, including the US, Europe, India, Asia, and the Middle East.

The top brands deliver a simple experience that is clear, easy-to-use and is intuitive. They’ve eliminated friction.

This past year’s Global winners:

1. Netflix
2. ALDI
3. Google
4. Lidl
5. Carrefour
6. McDonald’s
7. Trivago
8. Spotify
9. Uniqlo
10. Subway

In the US, I wasn’t surprised to see the winners:

1. Lyft
2. Spotify
3. Amazon
4. Costco
5. Subway
6. Google
7. McDonald’s
8. KFC
9. Southwest
10. Zappos

Another way of saying it is that these brands are convenient. Simplicity is “simply” another form of convenience. In my book, The Convenience Revolution, I outlined six convenience principles, the first of which is simply to reduce friction. While that is a part of all six principles, companies like Lyft, Amazon, and Netflix have made it part of their entire value proposition. Reducing friction is another way of saying, just be easy and simple.

Here is where it gets interesting. The stock portfolio is about investing in the top ten companies each year. That means some will fall off and others will roll on. The discipline of dropping and adding the right stocks is what yields the impressive return. (And it goes without saying that the standard disclaimer applies: past performance is not an indication of future performance.)

If you’re not into investing, you’ll still find the stats and facts from the report fascinating, especially if you are a business leader.

• 55% of people are willing to pay more for simpler experiences.
• 64% of people are more likely to recommend the brand that delivers a simple experience.
• The companies that fail to provide simple experiences leave an estimated share of $98 billion on the table. If you look at that stat more optimistically, that means other companies are profiting from the companies that are not so simple to do business with.

Ricardo Saltz Gulko, customer CX expert, gives an example in his recent article about a simple and simplified culture. He compares Aldi, which has made the simplicity list, to Tesco. How complicated can it be to buy ketchup? According to Saltz Guco, in the UK Tesco stocks 28 choices of ketchup, versus Aldi, which sells just two.

What friction can you eliminate? What do you love about Netflix, Amazon, Google, and the other winners you’ve done business with that you might be able to incorporate into your organization? It’s important to realize that your customers aren’t just comparing you to your direct competition. Yes, you compete with your direct competitors, but you are being compared to the companies that provide the easiest and most convenient experience. You are compared to the best service the customer has ever received from anyone and any company. The bar is raised. It’s time to be easy and convenient, or risk losing business to your competitors who are.

David Srere, co-CEO and Chief Strategy Officer at Siegel+Gale sums it up quite well. “The top performers in our study operate in crowded, highly competitive marketplaces. That said, their ability to consistently deliver their brands with simple, compelling experiences sets them apart. Companies will benefit greatly by keeping it simple for customers…or suffer the consequences.”

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