Authors: Peter Sander
Product simplicity. Organizational simplicity.
Focus
. It’s that simple.
Apple products have long been described as cool; in fact, for many admirers, they’ve become almost synonymous with the word “cool.” Steve Jobs was known to use the word quite a bit himself.
But what does the word “cool” really mean? It’s fun to look at all the snippets and scraps of slang definitions for the word. Apparently the “hip” form (in contrast to the temperature, the color, or the mood form) of the definition emerged in African American jazz clubs in the 1930s and has meant pretty much the same thing ever since. Here are a few definitions and phrases that connect with our sense of cool:
• Single-word definitions include “fashionable,” “accepted,” “admired,” and “approved.” Another somewhat vague definition is “an aesthetic combining attitude, behavior, and style,” although this does not say much about what kind of aesthetic.
• A more specific definition is “… something with ‘Zeitgeist,’” although now we must reach into the
German language for a definition of Zeitgeist—the “spirit of the times” or “spirit of the age.” Another rather graphic and alliterative definition is “avoiding mental straitjackets.”
Take your pick.
So we still don’t have a clear set of criteria; there’s no checklist for “cool.” Perhaps it’s like pornography or the innovation culture discussed in
Chapter 6
: you know it when you see it. A leader looking for a dose of cool in a product would look for these things:
• A modern, futuristic look, product, and package
• Fine, simple lines and the finest materials
• Extraordinary sensory qualities—touch, feel, sound
• Simplicity and quality in human interface—solid, easy-to-use controls and buttons
• Seductive and sexy; makes you want to look at it, touch it, listen to it repeatedly
Whatever cool is, Steve Jobs knew it when he saw it—and he knew that customers were willing to pay for it. Steve Jobs invested in products and invested in individuals such as Jonathan Ive to keep things cool.
It may seem that much of this applies only to the tech industry. If you’re running a company that makes bathroom cleaners or one that operates a taco restaurant, does any of this apply? The truth is that it takes some thought, some practice, some experimentation, and, yes, some tolerance for failure. But even if you’re in one of these less sexy businesses, you still have a whole product. If you sell bathroom cleaners, your customer must prep, use, and dispose of the cleaner, and protect her clothing while using it. There are sensory experiences, including the post-cleanup aroma. And maybe you can come up with a cool package or dispenser or holder, so cool that even the teenagers in the family want to try it.
If you’re running a taco restaurant, think again about the whole product and the whole experience, from the time customers arrive until they depart. Service, cleanliness, and sensory experience all count and count big. Instead of viewing them as necessary evils, view them as a chance to differentiate your restaurant, to show excellence above and beyond the taste of the food. Keep the menu, the décor, and the service simple. Elegantly simple.
Like In-N-Out Burger, which we visited in
Chapter 4
.
The short speech again: think complete, simple, and cool.
Here are some Jobsian product strategies:
• Always think whole product.
• Look at whole-product components as opportunities to excel, not just to meet the competition or get the job done.
• Think elegant; think simple.
• Keep the organization simple, too.
• Don’t forget cool—sleek, seductive, and sexy.
And he could sell. Man, he could sell.
—Walter Mossberg, October 5, 2011
At the Apple Music Event in October 2001, the first iPod was introduced. Here’s a three-minute excerpt from the nine-minute presentation.
The field we decided to do it in—the choice we made—was music. Now why music? Well, we love music. And it’s always good to do something you love. More importantly, music is a part of everyone’s life.
[slide, in room-sized format, on wall behind Steve: A part of everyone’s life (large target market)]
Everyone. Music’s been around forever. It will always be around, this is not a speculative market. And because it’s a part of everyone’s life, it’s a very large target market all around the world, it knows no boundaries. But interestingly enough, in this whole new digital music revolution,
[slide: No market leader]
… there is no market leader.
[slide: brand logos of Creative, Sonic/blue, and Sony]
There are small companies like Creative and Sonic/blue, and there’s large companies like Sony that haven’t had a hit yet. They haven’t found the recipe, no one has really found the recipe yet … for digital music. And we think, that not only can we find the recipe, but we think the Apple brand is going to be fantastic, because people trust the Apple brand to get their great digital electronics from.
[slide: Portable music]
So let’s look at portable music. Let’s look at the landscape.
[slide: first reveal—picture of CD player]
The first thing, if you want to listen to music portably, you go out and buy a CD player. Right? That’s one way to go. You can play 10–15 songs.
[second reveal: picture of flash player]
Or, you can buy a flash player. You can go out and buy one of those.
[third reveal: picture of MP3 CD player]
You can buy an MP3 CD player.
[fourth reveal: hard disk space player]
Or, you can buy a hard disk space jukebox player. These are the four choices for portable music right now. So let’s take a look at each one of those.
[slide with header “Player Price Songs $/Song”]
[first reveal: CD $75 15 $5]
A CD player costs about $75, holds 10–15 songs on a CD, and costs about five dollars a song.
[second reveal: Flash $150 15 $10]
You can buy a flash player, pay about double that, about $150, and it holds the same 10–15 songs, for about $10 a song.
[third reveal: MP3 CD $150 150 $1]
You can go buy an MP3 CD player, and with an MP3 CD, which you can burn on your computer, costs about $150 but holds 150 songs, so you get down to a dollar a song.
[fourth reveal: Hard drive $300 1000 $0.30]
Or, you can buy a hard drive player for about $300, it holds about a thousand songs and costs about 30 cents a song.
So we looked at this and studied all of these and
[highlighting Hard drive line on slide]
said, “That’s where we want to be.” That is where we want to be. And we are introducing a product today that takes us exactly there, and that product is called
[slide: iPod]
iPod.
iMac. iBook. iPod.
iMac. iBook. iPod.
The presentation continued for six minutes, defining the iPod and its benefits, and demonstrating how it
worked. It wasn’t the most dynamic or the most entertaining of Steve’s pitches. Most of his pitches, surprisingly to some, had a fairly serious tone. But it was a great example of the style and substance that Steve delivered repeatedly and predictably for years, especially after his 1996 return to Apple. In very simple, straightforward terms, he conveyed the need, the problem, the solution, and how it works. The need, the product, and how to use it. Why, what, and how.
Steve didn’t just give the simple, straight, and clear three-step program. He loaded it with market insight, built it up, and brought it to a dramatic and memorable close. After his presentation, you knew exactly what the product was, why it existed, and what it was for. You knew why you came to watch, and you remembered every bit of it.
Some great leaders fail because they’re brilliant and accomplished but can’t get their message out to others. Others are great at the message but have nothing to say. Steve Jobs was a master at both. A lot of leaders get the nuts and bolts right and guide their organizations to do some pretty good things, but they fail because they can’t or won’t get the message out. They can’t sell. They can’t evangelize. They can’t
inspire
.
Steve Jobs gave an excellent example of how the message not only sells the product and the company, but also energizes the organization. He was a great example of
how getting the message right also establishes and sells you as a leader.
Steve became not only the public face of his visions and the public face of his products, but also the public face of his company.
What could be simpler? And yet, do we see other business leaders on stage, or in any other format, doing this? We touched on this in the previous chapter. When was the last time you saw a corporate leader in the same video frame as one of his products? Let alone explaining the market, explaining the product, and explaining how it works?
Lee Iacocca set this standard at Chrysler. We’ve seen Dave Thomas evangelize hamburgers for Wendy’s. We’ve seen Herb Kelleher giving us down-home talks from the center aisle of one of his Boeing 737s. We’ve seen a few snippets of Sam Walton and Bill Coors here and there. But for the most part, American CEOs and business leaders have stayed away from the product, stayed away from the stage, and stayed away from the company’s message. They’ve let the ad agencies take over.
Of course, that’s part of what made Steve’s spokesmanship so unique. It wasn’t only that he did it, but that he did it so well. We looked forward to his
annual January Macworld appearances because we would find out the next really cool thing that was coming from Apple. We were also energized because billionaire Steve Jobs took the time and made the effort to talk to us. He talked to us at our level, as though he were sitting in our living rooms demonstrating the product. It made us respect him and his company all the more. It
inspired
us.
And, as we’ll discuss in a minute, it also inspired his employees. Wouldn’t you work enthusiastically on a product that your CEO made a huge personal effort to promote? Yes, of course you would. It would give you as an employee validation and a sense of pride in what you do. What you do is important. What you do means something. What you do is worthwhile.
It’s hard to put a finger on why other CEOs and business leaders don’t take advantage of such a huge opportunity. A CEO or leader who is willing to “eat his own cookin’” will bring popular appeal to the product and to herself. Such a willingness builds credibility and makes the relationship between the customer and the company more human. If nothing else, it saves money, as expensive actors and other substitutes don’t need to be brought in.
Personally conveying the message shows passion. It shows commitment. It shows that you’re behind the product, the culture, the vision, and the customer.
In the case of Steve Jobs, the message became part of the whole product.
How do you deliver a vision? How do you deliver a major strategy speech that defines your path to the world—in eight short minutes? How do you announce in five minutes a product that will change the world? Steve Jobs was a master at understanding customers, creating visions, building an innovation culture, and delivering products.
But there was
one more thing
: Steve Jobs could sell. He could evangelize. He was also a master at delivering the message about the customer, the vision, and the product. By the time the presentation was finished, you knew exactly why the product was made, who it was for, what customer problem it solved, and how it worked. Steve’s amazingly simple message sold the product to customers, to channel partners, to platform partners and software developers, to the trade press, and to venture capitalists and financiers on the outside. But that’s not all. Steve’s presentations went a long way toward selling and evangelizing the vision and the business to the
inside
—to Apple employees.
I believe that from the start, Steve’s messages were crafted to serve two masters—to evangelize outward and
to evangelize inward to build and reinforce the culture. Steve’s talks inspired employees to be creative and productive, and they reinforced the vision.
It was an immensely positive cycle. Deliver the vision that inspires your team to produce great products that you evangelize to the world—which in turn inspires your team onward. What other CEO, or business leader at any level, do you know of who does this?
Like everything else in Steve Jobs’s world, his messages were handcrafted to perfection and were hallmarked by a simplicity and an essence of good design.
First, he would set the stage. His opening statement was often something like, “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything….”
From that point on, most of Steve’s presentations followed a fairly common structure:
•
Why we need it
. As part of setting the theme in the opener, Steve would describe the current situation, why it leaves something to be desired, and what Apple wants to do about it. If there were any numbers or tables in Steve’s slides, this is where they would enter the discussion. The tables and figures
usually described a current market. Frequently there was some accompanying history—early products and their impact, the history of PC evolution, and the like. However it was assembled, this part of the pitch set the stage.