When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. An excellent quote from Wayne Dwyer. Do you like to occasionally review lessons Steve Jobs taught on work motivation? I certainly do. Nothing
Do you do a lot of reading? I love to read … why? To be entertained, to learn new things, and to stimulate thinking. Steve Jobs was a favorite author of mine, especially when his writing dealt with his thoughts on technology and product development. I have learned a great deal from lessons Steve Jobs taught.
I have a set of five authors that I selected over a decade ago to be my silent mentors … they mentor through their writings and presentations. Steve Jobs was one of those five mentors.
Yes … they all do stimulate a lot of thinking and learning, but they all have a great knack for entertaining while they teach and silently mentor. What all awesome mentors should be doing. They also share many other common attributes that makes them such successful mentors for me.
Related: Should a Business Send Customers to Competitors?
It probably is not necessary to tell you about Steve Jobs, is it? But here are a few words to put us on the same page. He was an American icon entrepreneur, marketer,and inventor, who was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he is widely recognized as a design-driven pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields, transforming many industries through digital disruption.
Steve Jobs.
Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC‘s mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, a year later, the Macintosh.
In this blog, I have selected my 10 favorite topics of Jobs and used quotations and a compendium of ideas from many of Jobs ‘ books, articles, and presentations to focus on what he taught on each. We use these thoughts regularly in our work with our client teams.
Lessons Steve Jobs taught … passion for life
We all know about his passion, don’t we? He exhibited it in everything he did. And he had a great way to express his feelings also. When I need a reminder on living with passion, I’ll watch one of my favorite presentation videos that Jobs created.
Lessons in motivation … trust yourself
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
He knew how to give great advice.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Work motivation psychology … simplicity focus
Steve Jobs believed in simplicity above most other things. Think simple was a key thought.
That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.
Lessons Steve Jobs taught … steal great ideas
Jobs always was shameless about stealing great ideas. Everything is life is really just a remix, isn’t it?
Don’t lose faith
Sometimes life just doesn’t go as planned. Don’t ever give up and don’t lose faith.
Choose carefully
Most people think focus means saying yes and then settling in on the issue. It really means saying no to hundreds of good ideas. So you really have to choose carefully.
Work motivation.
Creativity and innovation
Steve was a firm believer that dreams and not products were the end state customer utility that counted the most.And that held true in his own life also.
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.
Thoughts on creative innovation were his first priority.
The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament …
Lessons in motivation … love what you do
Your work is a very large part of your life. The only way to be satisfied is to do your best. And to do that you must love the work, yes?
Always be a measure of quality. People like environments where quality is expected. Make the homerun quality happen.
Take your brain but follow your heart.
Follow your heart
Remembering that nobody leaves the earth alive is a great way to avoid the trap that you have something to lose. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
What is the most memorable motivation you remember from Steve Jobs? Please share your thoughts.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy creating innovation in your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
Check out these additional articles on customer insights from our library:
The Story of How JetBlue Turns Customers into Advocates
Should a Business Send Customers to Competitors?
An Actionable Approach to Target Market Segmentation
Social networking is not about farming followers, it’s a way of cultivating relationships. Interesting statement from Hubspot. Have you taken notice of Starbuck’s creativity and innovation? When choosing to learn from others creative strategies, it is always helpful to choose one of the top dogs, isn’t it?
They have been successfully executing their social media marketing plan since the first days of social media and social commerce. For over 5 years, and their strategies have played a significant role in their growth.
Before we continue, let me ask you a question.
What social media design techniques work best for your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.
With more than 18,000 retail locations in 60 countries, the coffeehouse is the picture of success.
Starbucks rode the baby boomer trend in the 1990s, the swelling ranks of mid-age professionals that created the need for a third place, ‘ an affordable luxury’ where people could share and enjoy a cup of coffee with friends and colleagues, away from work and home.
In our opinion, the company has inserted itself into the American urban landscape more quickly and craftily than any retail company in history. It has forever changed the way companies market themselves to customers. Here is how we feel they have been so successful:
Market segmentation
The company has stayed with the upper-scale of the coffee market, competing on comfort rather than convenience, which are the case with its closest competitors, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts.
Related post: Case Studies to Evaluate New World Marketing Concepts
The company continues to focus on its original product bundle that includes good coffee, quality service, and a nice environment to hang around. They keep their attention on paying attention to the details of great execution and service.
Creativity and innovation examples … mobile and mobile payments
“We have to keep pushing innovation inside and outside of our stores, and we have to be as relevant for our customers on their phone, as we are inside the Starbucks experience,” said Schultz, in Geekwire. “And I think that is exactly what we are doing.”
“By further enhancing our already world-class digital technologies, through the introduction of capabilities like Mobile Order & Pay and soon-to-be delivery, and expanding our loyalty program, we are driving traffic as reflected in the 4 percent growth in traffic in Q3—bringing in new customers and deepening our connections to our existing customers, elevating the Starbucks brand and our customer experience, and streamlining our in-store operations.”
In many cases, a mobile campaign is mostly a novelty and consumers are excited by the newness of using their phones in a different way. But back in January, Starbucks introduced a program that made it easier for customers to buy coffee. The brand was ahead of the curve on mobile payments, a segment that is still in its infancy in the U.S.
In March, Starbucks revealed that the plan, which relied on customers using the Starbucks Card Mobile iPhone and BlackBerry apps, was a success. Some 3 million people at that point had paid using the app. For customers, there’s a clear benefit to using the technology — it lets you pay faster.
Starbucks is doing 6 million in mobile app transactions weekly
While many mobile payment apps like Google Wallet have struggled to gain traction with consumers, the Starbucks mobile payments app stands out as a success.
At 6 million average weekly transactions in the U.S., it now accounts for a full 15% of transactions made at the U.S. Starbucks-operated stores.
The Starbucks app is on track to process over $1.5 billion in payment volume in the U.S. in 2014, according to our estimates. In the second quarter, it accounted for 15% of the transactions in U.S. company-operated stores, averaging 6 million transactions per week.
Starbucks stores are everywhere, coffee is purchased habitually, the app incentivizes regular purchases through its rewards-loyalty program, and the app works on the majority of smartphones. The app’s success is not due to the ease of payment with a phone. So it has succeeded despite the fact that it is not more convenient than credit or debit cards or cash.
Importance of creativity and innovation … new social media innovations
One of the earliest adopters of the use of social media for marketing and social commerce, Starbucks has certainly taken a leadership position. Their social media strategy is built around their company website and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, G+, YouTube, and My Starbucks Ideas. We will review Starbuck’s social media strategy in detail below.
So, one way to reward customer loyalty is to provide an app.
In-app customer loyalty programs can truly help businesses go that extra mile in customer retention, encouraging customers to perform certain actions that will grant them a special benefit, such as a discount on their next purchase, VIP access to your new collection, or a coupon to redeem on other services.
An excellent example of how apps can help brands establish long-lasting relationships with their customers is the Starbucks Official App. The app combines a highly intuitive interface with a tailor-made dashboard to offer an enhanced, more personal user experience.
The Starbucks app also keeps users connected to their card, so they can just scan to pay while earning Stars in the My Starbucks Rewards™ program. By accessing a dedicated section in their dashboard, users can track the Stars collected and redeem their rewards in the loyalty program.
Moreover, the gift section within the app allows users to send gifts and coupons to their friends via the app. This, of course, generates a profitable word-of-mouth campaign around the brand, using happy customers to spread the word via an engaging mobile app. Win-win!
See this article on Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Starbucks’ new “#sipface” campaign has made a huge splash in the Instagram world. Launched to promote the new Frappuccino Happy Hour menu, the campaign encouraged fans to post creative pictures of their “#sipface” on Instagram which were curated and displayed on Frappuccino.com. Starbucks has been ranked the “fifth-largest brand on Facebook with 34 million fans,” and has over 3.6 million followers on Twitter.
Starbuck’s business crowdsourcing, via its My Starbucks Idea website, has been a huge success. Why may you ask? Because they have combined the concepts of change, experimentation, social media, customer engagement, and market research and made the results key components of both their brand as well as their marketing strategy. Have you given My Starbucks Idea a try? What did you think?
Starbucks has clearly embraced the digital realm. With a strong presence on multiple social networks, the brand has set a high bar when it comes to being social and engaging its customers. They are at or near the top of nearly every major brand ranking in social media.
Why is Starbucks such a social media marketing success story? There are seven key reasons their social media strategy is a successful difference maker for their marketing campaign:
Here is our take on why:
Partnership examples
The New York Times top news of the day and a selection of articles will be available free via Starbucks mobile app for 10 million My Starbucks Rewards loyalty members, along with the opportunity to earn “Stars” through paid digital and print subscriptions to the pub.
“We see a future in which the Starbucks retail experience seamlessly extends to the mobile devices our millions of customers carry with them every day,” said Schultz, in a press release. “Our relationship with The New York Times is the perfect example of bringing this vision to life.”
Starbucks and Lyft have struck a multi-year deal where all Lyft drivers can become My Starbucks Rewards loyalty program gold level members, with both drivers and riders able to earn MSR loyalty Stars. Lyft drivers can also receive Starbucks eGifts cards from customers via the Lyft app for a more personal thank-you.
“This is a great win-win,” said Adam Brotman, chief digital officer, Starbucks, in a press release. “Our digital loyalty ecosystem can help strengthen Lyft’s ability to attract and retain customers, while at the same time accelerating the incrementality of redemption of rewards.”
Sometimes it’s the simple ideas that are the most effective and I love this one from Starbucks. The coffee giant has teamed up with Twitter to launch the Tweet-A-Coffee campaign. This allows people to send a $5 Starbucks gift card to anyone in the US via Twitter.
It’s a really simple idea, users just need to link their Starbucks and Twitter account and mention @tweetacoffee to send the gift card to a friend, family, follower, or anyone for that matter. They can even include a message to let them know that their next Starbucks is on them. Unfortunately for those of us that are outside the US, Tweet-A-Coffee is only available in the states right now.
Employee engagement
Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz decided to do something about the recent stock market turmoil. He proceeded to address some major concerns—not directly to customers, but rather, to his employees.
All 190,000 of them.
In an interesting memo Schultz spoke directly to employees and encouraged them to show special concern for consumers:
Our customers are likely to experience an increased level of anxiety and concern. Please recognize this and–as you always have–remember that our success is not an entitlement, but something we need to earn, every day. Let’s be very sensitive to the pressures our customers may be feeling, and do everything we can to individually and collectively exceed their expectations.
Credit Schultz with his efforts to use this situation to improve customer service. If I’ve learned anything through the years, it’s that you have to stand up for what you believe in, despite the naysayers. Schultz seems to have a similar view. He’s not without his critics, but his memo shows his refusal to stand by idle.
Customer engagement is not a trivial item for Starbucks, is it?
Customer generated content
When Starbucks takes a photo, it shares it on Instagram, posts it to Facebook, tweets it on Twitter, and pins it on Pinterest. It clearly goes to where all its customers like to hang out. Cross-promotion is more valuable as the world becomes more digitally focused.
Each network provides an opportunity to reach a new audience, and integrating your strategy on each is crucial to increasing visibility and promoting the brand.
Another great example of user-generated content, Starbucks’ White Cup Contest launched in April 2014. Customers across the country were asked to doodle on their Starbucks cups and submit pictures as entries. The winning entry would be the template for a new limited edition Starbucks cup.
Nearly 4,000 customers submitted entries in a three-week span. The contest was a great way for Starbucks to earn publicity and prove that it strongly valued customer feedback.
Geofencing
Starbucks has utilized geofencing, which is where you can set a virtual boundary around a specific location, like a store. Once they cross that set geofence, people with the Starbucks app receive a location-based notification highlighting a coupon or offer and reminding them there’s a Starbucks nearby. This kind of personalization inspires more engagement and brand loyalty and provides the ability for any business to make national campaigns hyperlocal.
Experience customization
Starbucks provides its unique experience through programs such as My Starbucks Rewards, personalized “signature” drinks, and localized store experiences. Their social sites, in particular, Pinterest and Instagram, encourage users to share their Starbucks moments’ whether it be the return of a favorite holiday drink or just an artsy coffee cup shot.
Sticking to core USP
Starbucks is another successful business that makes for a great case study on unique selling propositions. They went from a small coffee shop in Washington to one of the most recognized brands in America, and they transformed this country from a nation of Folgers drinkers to a nation of coffee connoisseurs.
To become familiar Starbucks’ unique selling proposition, you can ask this question: “What does Starbucks stand for, and what is it that they’re known for?” The answer is simple: They stand for premium coffee beverages, and they’re known for the same.
Don’t be fooled!Although Starbucks does offer items other than coffee drinks,what they are uniquely known for are high-quality coffee beverages.
The bottom line
Starbucks is one of many businesses we can learn from. Those that do things to fit the system never create change and a lack of change leads to stagnation – personally and corporately.
How often do you hear “We don’t do things that way here” in meetings? Breaking those corporate habits is critical to maintaining momentum in the business.
Howard Schulz’s book ‘Onward’ tells the journey of the salvation of Starbucks and is one of the best books I’ve read about connecting culture change to business results.
Lots of ideas here that can be easily replicated … which ones do you feel could benefit your business?
How could you improve the Starbucks Coffee Social Media campaign concept for your business?
Do you like to read the best social media educational blogs? There are quite a few great ones out there. The very best out there, BY FAR, is the one Neil Patel puts out. You’ll find lots of great tips, examples, and actual results from his businesses in his blog. His material in Quick Sprout is also excellent.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on social media platforms from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
About Social Media … Ways to Use Social Media for Learning
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
