5 Lessons you have to Learn from Apple's Steve Jobs
Author: Gustavo Valencia1.- Innovation:
Steve Jobs has shown the world that the limit is on our imagination. His first creation a mouse-driven graphical user interface (the Macintosh - 1984), after being fired, he bought a computer graphics division from Lucasfilm later renamed PIXAR (producer of 'Toy Stoy', 'A Bug's life', 'Monsters, INC', 'Finding Nemo', 'The Incredibles', 'Cars', 'Ratatouille', 'Wall-e' and 'UP') and 10 years later in 1996 returned to Apple to drive profitability. In the course of the next years Apple launched:- iMac
- iTunes
- iPod
- iPhone
- iPad
- iCloud
2.- Own your products:
Apple is one of the handful of companies that constantly introduces breakthrough innovation and each and every time an innovation was due to market, there it was Steve Jobs captaining the ship. Each year at the WWDC you would expect a great innovation to be unveiled by Steve.Fortune once wrote with regards to Mr. Jobs: '(he) is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs' he was always in front of the Apple ship, needed to overview every innovation and supervised each patent (in fact he's either the inventor or the co-inventor of over 230 approved patents).
'I'm the only person I know that's lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year…. It's very character-building.'
3.- Be passionate:
One of the most impacting 'tools' Apple owned in their Marketing Mix was Steve Jobs passion in the course of WWDC. People don't buy products, people buy ideas, they follow passion consequently Steve Jobs success.In a 2008 interview for the NYTimes, Steve said about the new MacBook Air:
'I'm going to be the first one in line to buy one of these,'. 'I've been lusting after this.'
You just have to watch one of his presentations to feel the passion on his words.
4.- P.R. Events are vital to a major innovation
Some marketers fail to understand the strength of a PR event, but a company like Apple, has been ready to attract all the interest weeks before a new launch at the WWDC and a long time after, just by building the right BUZZ and constantly delivering. At first, those presentations were actually like many other company's presentations, but with Steve's groundwork and delivery the PR events developed into innovation events.5.- Quality matters
It doesn't matter if you're developing a breakthrough innovation or just an incremental invention but you should keep in mind that the consumer is not as unwitting as a couple of years before. Today's consumer investigates, talks to other consumers and looks for referrals in advance of buying a product. So if your product is not of great quality, your consumer will know.Apple is positioned as a superior product because of Steve's mindset:
'Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.
But my advice is that you have to balance between what you want to offer and what you want to charge and not every company can be an apple.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/5-lessons-you-have-to-learn-from-apples-steve-jobs-5163250.html
About the Author
A little about the author:
Gustavo Valencia is an international (EU & Latin-America), award-winning, multi-lingual Group Brand Development Manager - with the commercial and market insight, strategic timing and creative flair to project lead differentiated brand development, product positioning and marketing plans to optimize consumer awareness and GP of world-class premium brands. He writes on https://tavovalencia.wordpress.com about his marketing views.
