How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.
How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.
How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.
How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.
How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.
How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.
There are very few people in the world today more closely associated with innovation than Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs. He is the classic American entrepreneur—starting his company in the spare bedroom of his parents’ house, and pioneering the first personal computer for everyday use.
Steve Jobs has something to teach you about your career, your business, and your brand. He thinks differently about every aspect of business – from product design to marketing to communications. Here are the 7 principles responsible for Jobs’ breakthrough success.
Principle One: Do what you love. Passion is everything. Innovation—which simply means—new ways of doing things that improve our lives---cannot flourish unless you are truly obsessed with making something better—be it a product, a service, a method or a career.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
In 1972, Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College in Portland after just one semester,
He stayed another 18 months to “drop in” to those classes he enjoyed, like calligraphy. Calligraphy didn’t have any obvious practical application in his life but it would come back to Jobs when he created the Mac
The Macintosh was the world’s first computer with beautiful fonts and typography. If Steve Jobs hadn’t followed his passion, we’d still be entering line commands.
How to do find your passion? Passions are those ideas that don’t leave you alone. They are the hopes, dreams and possibilities that consume your thoughts. Follow those passions despite skeptics and naysayers who do not have the courage to follow their dreams.
Principle Two: Put a dent in the universe. This speaks to vision. Innovation doesn’t take place in a vacuum. You need to know where you’re going, what the ultimate destination is, and you need to inspire others, evangelists.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Steve Jobs has never underestimated the power of vision to move a brand forward. In 1976, Steve Wozniak was captivated by Jobs’ vision to “put a computer in the hands of everyday people.”
1979, Jobs took a tour of the Xerox research facility in Palo Alto, California. There he saw a new technology that let users interact with the computer via colorful graphical icons on the screen instead of entering complex line commands.
It was called a “graphical user interface.” In that moment, Jobs knew that this technology would allow him to fulfill his vision of putting a computer in the hands of everyday people. Jobs later said that Xerox could have “dominated” the computer industry but instead its ‘vision’ was limited to building another copier. Two people can see the same thing but perceive it differently based on their vision.
Steve Jobs set out with a vision to change the world. What’s your vision for your product, brand, and your career?
Passion fuels the rocket, but vision points the rocket to its ultimate destination.
Principle Three: Kick start your brain. Creativity leads to innovative ideas. Jobs believes that a broad set of experiences expands our understanding of the human experience. A broader understanding leads to breakthroughs that others may have missed Breakthrough innovation requires creativity and creativity requires that you think differently about…the way you think.
The idea fell from a tree, literally. Steve Jobs had returned from visiting a commune-like place in Oregon located in an apple orchard. Apple co-founder and Jobs’ pal, Steve Wozniak, picked him up from the airport. On the drive home, Jobs simply said, “I came up with a name for our company—Apple.” Wozniak said they could have tried to come up with more technical sounding names but their vision was to make computers approachable. Apple fit perfectly.
Steve Jobs creates new ideas precisely because he has spent a lifetime exploring new and unrelated things—seeking out diverse experiences. Jobs hired people from outside the computing profession, he studied the art of calligraphy in college, meditated in an Indian ashram, and evaluated The Four Season s hotel chain as he developed the customer service model for the Apple Stores. Look outside your industry for inspiration.
Principle Four: Sell dreams, not products. Your customers don’t care about your product, your company or your brand. They care about themselves, their hopes, their dreams, their ambitions. Help them fulfill their dreams and you will will them over.
When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after a 12-year absence, Apple faced an uncertain future. Jobs closed his presentation that year at Macworld in Boston with an observation that set the tone for Apple’s resurgence: “I think you have to think differently to buy an Apple computer. A lot of times people think they’re crazy, but in that craziness we see genius.”
How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.
Principle Five: Say no to 1,000 things.
Jonathan Ive, Apple design gur: “We are absolutely consumed by trying to develop a solution that is very simple, because as physical beings we understand clarity.” Your customers demand simplicity and simplicity requires that you eliminate anything that clutters the user experience.
Steve Jobs reduced complexity in the Smartphone category by eliminating the keyboard.
The iPad is so simple a 2-year-old can use it.
The Apple Web site features one product.
Steve Jobs’ advice to the new Nike CEO, Mark Parker.
The designers behind the wildly popular Flip videocamera found inspiration in Apple products. Their goal—anyone should be able to enjoy it out of the box in 30 seconds.
Simplicity is the elimination of clutter—for Apple and Nobu.
Principle Six: Create insanely great experiences.
Jobs has made the Apple Store the gold standard in customer service by introducing simple innovations any business can adopt to create deeper, more emotional connections with their customers. For example, there are no cashiers in an Apple store. There are experts, consultants, even geniuses, but no cashiers.
Apple created an innovative retail experience by studying a company known for its customer experience—The Four Seasons. Apple Stores would attract shoppers not by moving boxes, but by “ enriching lives.” The lesson—don’t move “product.” Enrich lives instead and watch your sales soar.
Principle Seven: Master the message.
You can have the most innovative idea in the world, but if you can’t get people excited about it, it doesn’t matter. Steve Jobs is considered one of the greatest corporate storytellers in the world because his presentations inform, educate and entertain.
Most PowerPoint slides are a confusing, convoluted mess.
This is a real PowerPoint slide used by the U.S military. If commanders can understand this, they can win the war.
Steve Jobs thinks visually about presenting ideas, products, and information.
If information is presented verbally, your audience will remember 10% of the information. Attach a picture and retention goes up to 65%.
Innovation takes confidence, boldness and the discipline to tune out negative voices.
Perhaps the ultimate lesson that Jobs teaches us is that innovation requires risk-taking and risk taking takes courage and a bit of craziness. See genius in your craziness. Believe in yourself and your vision and be prepared to constantly defend those beliefs. Only then will innovation be allowed to flourish and only then will you be able to lead an “insanely great” life.
How do you see your customers? Help them unleash their inner genius and you’ll win over their hearts and minds. Nobody cares about your company or product. They care about themselves, their dreams, and their goals. Help them achieve their aspirations and you’ll win them over the Steve Jobs way.