pacific+asset+management+jun+5%2c+2013

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10 Brilliant Lessons from World Class Leadership1) Find good mentors.Jobs may have been a genius, but he was also smart enough to find people hecould learn from. One of his first tutors was Regis McKenna, a legendary Silicon

Valley marketer. Jobs sought him out even while Apple was still just a two-manoperation in a garage. McKenna helped Jobs bring on Mike Markkula as Applesfirst angel investor and marketing guru. Markkula was an engineer by training but

had worked in marketing at Intel. He joined Apple as an employee (for a time hewas CEO) and created a set of founding marketing principles to which Apple stilladheres today, 35 years later.Later, Jobs befriended advertising expert Lee Clow of TBWA\Chiat\Day, whocreated Apples famous 1984 commercial and Think Different campaign. Clowbecame a lifelong advisor and friend to Jobs. Lesson: No matter how good youare, learn how to spot people who know more than you do, and then listen to

them.2) Make a great product.Kawasaki, who worked as an evangelist at Apple, says, "What Steve did that fewmarketers understand is that he first created a great product. It's hard to marketcrap. Most marketers take whatever crap is thrown at them and put lipstick onthe pig. Steve's 'secret' was to control the product and the marketing, not just themarketing."3) Stand for something.When The Apple Computer Company launched in 1977, Jobs and Markkula

outlined three core company principles. First, Apple would empathize with

customers. Second, Apple would focus on doing a few things really well. Third,Apple would impute its values (simplicity, high quality) across everything it did --not just within the products themselves, but also through the packaging ofproducts, the look of its stores, and even the way Apple created press releases. Jobs did a remarkable thing at Apple by insisting on a consistency of design andtaste across everything Apple did. Think that's easy? Look at your company's


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website. Do all the sections look like they were made by the same invisible hand?Or does the site look like a digital Frankenstein monster, with different sectionscobbled together that all bear the look and feel of whoever happened to makethose pages when that part of the site was built? And even if your website looks

consistent, does it mesh with your press releases? With your storefront? Yourtrucks? Your product packaging? That unity is exactly what Jobs pulled off.4) Spend money.Jobs was a natural showman and a fan of big gestures. One great example was the1984 commercial for the new Macintosh. As always, Jobs decided to go big. Hehired Ridley Scott, the director of Alien and Blade Runner, and spent $900,000making the 60-second spot and $800,000 to run it one time during the SuperBowl. (That $1.7 million spend would be $3.4 million today.) This was a huge riskfor the company, especially since it wasn't clear that the ad would succeed. In fact,

Apples board hated the ad so much they didnt want to run it at all.But the big bet paid off. The ad generated as much coverage as the Macintoshitself.5) Create experiences.Apple described the 1984 commercial as a form of event marketing, meaning acampaign where the promotion itself is so revolutionary or unique that it gets

covered as an event in its own right. Soon after the 1984 commercial, Jobs pulledsomething similar when he spent $2.5 million to buy the entire 40-pageadvertising hole in an edition of Newsweek. Other examples of event marketingwere the Think Different and Im a Mac campaigns. Yet another: every keynoteJobs ever did, with fans lining up overnight as if they were going to a Beatlesreunion.Jean-Louis Gassee, a former executive at Apple whose roles included runningworldwide marketing, says Jobs understood the importance of storytelling, andused it again and again in things like the "I'm a Mac, You're a PC" campaign. "We allwant stories," Gassee says. "That's why there is so much whining about Apple and[CEO Tim] Cook right now. No story."6) Keep secrets and build mystery.The reason people lined up at Apple events, aside from Jobs' rock-star charisma,was that he was a master of suspense and surprise, and there was always the


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hope that he might unveil something amazing. Months before a big productlaunch, Apple would start leaking information. First a hint, then a rumor, thenother rumors that contradicted the first rumor. Most of it was misinformation,but it drove people into a frenzy of speculation.By the time Jobs got up and showed off the iPhone, the world had been buzzingabout it for a year, with people passing around photos of supposed prototypesand designers creating their own imaginary versions of what an Apple phonemight look like. Jobs was also famous for his "One more thing" gesture, where,just when you thought a press conference was over, he'd say, "Oh, one morething," and then pull out something that blew everyone away. The lesson: Mostmarketers rush out to tell everyone as much as they can about their product.Jobs did the opposite -- he held back information to get people excited.7) Find an enemy. The first rule of storytelling is that drama requires conflict. And the first rule ofpropaganda is that you need to have a bad guy. For Apple the original bad guy wasIBM. Then the boogeyman became Microsoft. More recently, Jobs made Googleand its Android operating system the villain. In each case, Jobs message was thesame: The bad guy wants to take over the world and destroy it, and we are thenoble underdog that can keep this from happening. (Check out this great clip ofJobs painting IBM as an evil empire that wants it all, that will create an IBM-dominated and controlled future while Apple is the only hope and the only

force that can ensure freedom.)

A lot of marketers shy away from this kind of rhetoric. Theyre afraid it willrebound and hurt them. They act, very often, like needy children who want verymuch to be loved by everyone. To be sure, its definitely risky to create an enemy,especially if you choose an enemy that's big and powerful. But Jobs believed thatto sell product you had to first lead a movement. If youre going to have arevolution, you need to have something or someone to rebel against. 8) Turn customers into evangelists. Possibly the biggest thing Jobs did was turn customers into passionate advocatesfor the Apple brand. Those people who line up outside Apple stores every timethere's a new iPhone? Even when it's just an incremental improvement on the lastiPhone? They're not there for the phone. They've come to show their support forthe team, the way sports fans show up hours before a game wearing the teamcolors. Apple fans don't think of themselves as customers. They feel as if they're


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part of a movement, a mission, something larger than themselves.9) Dont talk about products.The 1984 commercial contains not a single image of the Macintosh. Theres a

mention of Apple and the Macintosh in the last 10 seconds. Same for ThinkDifferent, where the ads werent about products but rather the kind of peoplewho would use the products. In the Im a Mac campaign Jobs removed thecomputers and replaced them with people -- two characters who serve asproxies for two different kinds of computers. Or consider the ad just below here,which you'll note doesn't contain a picture of a computer.10) Use pictures, not words. Even today, on its website and in its advertising, Apple devotes tremendous effortto saying things in as few words as possible. Partly thats aligning with the core

value of simplicity at Apple. But its also because Jobs realized that images aremuch more powerful storytellers.My favorite example of this was the introduction of the MacBook Air, where Jobscame out on stage with a manila envelope and slid the slim laptop out of it.There's a video of it. If you listened to the crowd when he does this...... that onesimple gesture blew people away and said more about the product thanthousands of words could.Reach your full potential! We remain fully engaged with top tier companies.

pacific+asset+management+jun+5%2c+2013

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