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Let me start this blog by stating one fact “I hate Apple products!”. Even though I have a strong disdain for the brand I do respect Steve Jobs, he was ruthless and had questionable tactics but he drove technology forward and the loss of him turned the tech world upside down and begun the downward spiral of Apple.
To understand Apple you really need to look back across their company history. I would personally suggest reading Walter Isaacson’s Biography of Steve Jobs. To give you a brief overview, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were part of a coding club, both believed what they were building shouldn’t be given away for free. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak went off and started to build the first iterations of the Apple Mac. Fast forward, John Scully was brought in as CEO and ousted Steve Jobs, he did a terrible job and nearly tanked Apple. Steve Jobs was brought back and stayed CEO until he passed away with the iPhone 5 being the last project he worked on.
Steve Jobs believed in thinking ahead. There is no point of thinking what is next, what is after? This thinking combined with a fresh design, a killer marketing plan set Apple ahead and made it a true trend setter and grew loyalty from its customers. Tim Cook then took over and this is where you see the loss of that out of the box thinking. We are now in a world of iPad Airs, iPhone S/R or finally the iPen, to be used with iPads! How long has the Galaxy Note had that? This is where the warning for all businesses comes into play.
You have done a fantastic job building your business and establishing your foot hold on the market but it doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels like Apple have, hoping that the same recipe will work time and time again. We live in a more engaging world now. Your millennial customers will do their research and trade their loyalty to the brand or company that is pushing themselves. Of course, it is not possible to just re-invent your business or develop a new cutting-edge product every quarter but think about what you can do.
I have a friend whose dad is a French Polisher. Their mind set was a sign written van and free-ads advert was enough with word of mouth… until they started losing business. Now this person can’t re-invent their services so what do they do? Starting simple with a website and local Google listing began to drive them work. Then adding social media helped strengthen the rapport with new and existing clients as they can see the work you’re doing now and read all the positive reviews you have. From here they can bring professional photography and video production to play. For the people who had to Google “French Polishing” wouldn’t a video on their website be a much better option, describing the service and showing the process? It doesn’t take much to think outside of the box but the value of Apple’s shares dropping should come as a warning… “Always do what you’ve always done, always get what you have always got”.
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