Am I Different From My Co-opetition?
By Cheval John
March 29th, 2017
I was watching movies documenting the life of Steve Jobs and how the company Apple was founded.
The fact that Mr. Jobs did not care too much about making money or what the shareholders thought when the company went public was very intriguing.
Some said that parts of the movie which was portrayed by Austin Kuecher was a bit off.
And the other movie starring Kate Winslet that showed the behind the scenes of the launches of the Macintosh Computer, Next and the iMac was a bit different from what actually occurred.
It was interesting to see that no one could truly understand the thought process of Steve Jobs and the attention to detail in each of Apple products.
I want to focus on Apple’s original Mac computer launch in 1984.
The company had one of the biggest ipo’s in wall street history in 1980 due to the success of the Apple II.
The board of directors convinced Mr. Jobs they needed a new CEO to run the daily operations of the company.
They hired John Scully as their CEO and released the most iconic commercial for the launch of Macintosh.
The Macintosh did not sell particularly well after they launched and the board wanted to put their resources in the Apple II.
Mr. Jobs believed the Macintosh was overpriced and disagreed with the board.
That disagreement led to the firing of Mr. Jobs as the board of directors sided with Mr. Scully.
As the story goes, Mr. Jobs founded NexT and their computer design was a failure.
The software for the computer was really successful.
Mr. Jobs bought Pixar and had one of the most successful movies of all time.
Apple bought NexT and Mr. Jobs was back as an interim CEO before being in that role on a permanent basis.
Mr. Jobs was wrong about the Macintosh in 1984 and the board of directors was correct.
However, Mr. Jobs was way ahead of the time because customers was not ready for the Macintosh computer.
In 1998, the customers was ready for the iMac computer and that product helped Apple to become a profitable company again.
Mr. Jobs did not want Apple to be the same company as other computer businesses because they understood that customer experiences mattered more than selling a computer product.
Watching those movies about the company Apple got me to think about if I am being different from my other business “competitors.”
We see a lot of people doing live streaming shows, podcasts, running social media companies.
I was wondering if I was doing the same thing and being a part of the crowd.
I am making my audience feel better about themselves the minute I post content on social media.
Am I a visionary?
Am I willing to hold my ground despite the objections from many who believe that you must have a 9-5 work in order to be successful and disrupt the status quo of doing business?
I do know customers want a company who cares about their well being and don’t want to be sold to.
Educational content pertaining to a company’s product or service through the medium of podcasts, live streaming shows, blog posts and YouTube videos are what will win business.
If a customer feels apart of the brand, they will do business with the brand.
That is what Mr. Jobs aspired for Apple to be: a customer centric company.
I can tell you that other people like Kristyna Torres, Michelle Van Otten and Winnie Sun are following in Apple’s footsteps in providing customer-centric service.
Are you different from your competition? You can leave your comment below
Pay Close Attention To Your Customers
By Cheval John
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to cover and work the 34th annual Houston Auto Show along with the team of In Wheel Time Radio, held at NRG Center.
What was different is that the Auto Show was moved to April instead of January due to Super Bowl 51.
The show was also happening at the same time as the Mecum Auctions show.
Though they were about 40 manufacturers there, four of them stood out to me:
Tata Motors Limited (Jaguar and Land Rover), Chevrolet, Volvo and Infinity.
I truly believed that the representatives from each of these brands were so focused on making the attendees feel welcome and also were prepared to answer all of the questions that future customers had about their vehicles.
The team from Chevrolet educated the customers about their 2017 vehicles and their new 2018 Chevrolet Equinox.
One of the product specialist let me know that they were offering a test drive of the new vehicle during the weekend of the auto show.
The attendees of the Auto Show were the first in the city of Houston to drive the Chevrolet 2018 Equinox.
If she did not let me know about the test drive of the new vehicle, I would not have traveled in the 2018 Equinox along with the attendees of the auto show.
With that being said, I will focused more on the jaguar and land rover brand in this post.
They have consistently kept their vehicles as simple as possible in order to make their customers feel appreciated.
They did not set out to be like everybody else in the automobile industry.
They pay close attention to detail in the design, the look and feel of the vehicles.
In all of the Jaguar vehicles, you will notice that the front lights looks like the eyes and face of a jaguar.
And the back lights also look like the eyes of the jaguar.
So if you see anybody driving their cars in a tunnel, you will tell right away that it is a jaguar brand.
What is more impressive, Tata Motors Limited gives them the autonomy and freedom to stay true to themselves.
It is almost like an investor from shark tank risking their own money in an entrepreneur believing that they will get double or triple the returns on their investments.
They don’t try and meddle with the designers or the leadership of the subsidaries they invested in because they truly understand what they bring to the table.
The Jaguar and Land Rover booth was very welcoming and vibrant at the Houston Auto Show (I visited their area about 13 times during the entire show).
I got a sense that the product specialists were on a mission to make the visitors feel welcome.
They were not focused on convincing the public that they should buy the company’s vehicles.
The lady who explained to me about the 2017 F-Pace model, believed the vehicle was going to solve the problem of space in a sports sedan.
She herself is a fan of sports cars.
She truly wanted to have a type of sports car with a lot of space like a family sedan.
Another car specialist gave me a history lesson of how the jaguar started out as a race car in the late 1920s.
She also explained that all of the land rover vehicles were modeled from their original farm truck design, evolved into the defender used during World War II and of course, the rest is history.
In a lot of ways, the land rover and jaguar brand reminded me of the company Apple because the co-founder, Steve Jobs, was so focused on their brand being different from the other computer companies.
They wanted to make sure their computers was not the same as everyone else.
Michelle Van Otten is the same way because her mission is to help every business owner to succeed in their companies while staying true to their core values.
The main lesson I took away from the houston auto show (jaguar and land rover brand) is this:
We have to become customer centric and not worry too much about profits.
We have to interact on a daily basis with our prospective customers via social media channels to hear their pain points.
From there, you will be able to create a product or service that will solve their specific problems and become profitable in the process.
That is what the Jaguar and Land Rover brand did and they are more successful than ever.
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