Policymakers, central bankers and experts around the world are worried about the rising rate of inflation and the lack of competitive growth in people’s incomes. This means that the majority of the population around the world is losing real purchasing power.
On the other hand, new products are introduced in the market every day, but the buyers are limited. This is why business leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners seem to be busy finding new and unique ways to promote their products, services and brands. Struggle for growth in life, career and business is inevitable, but one way to do this is to try to learn from the lives of successful entrepreneurs who are admired by the world.
Apple Corporation founder CEO Steve Jobs (deceased) is considered to be one of the most intelligent and innovative entrepreneurs of recent times. Experts tracking Steve Jobs’ phenomenal success have attributed his unprecedented success to the seven golden rules. By following these principles, you too can take your product, service or brand to new heights.
What do you like
Speaking to students at Stanford University, Steve Jobs said, ‘In life, always do what you love to do’. At a business event with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs highlighted how his passion and the principle of doing only what he loves contributed to his success. ‘You have to work hard to be successful in life. If you are asked to work hard at a job you don’t like, you will get tired after a while and give up. But if it is such work, which you like very much, then there is no question of getting tired, but the condition is that the distribution of pleasures is fair.
Make the goal the goal, not the money
It was in the early 1980s, 1983, when Steve Jobs was trying to convince John Scully, the chief executive officer of Peps, to work with him. John Scully was reluctant to accept the offer. Jobs went to John Scully one day as a last ditch effort and said, ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling ‘sugar water’ or do you want to come and work with me to change the world’? John Scully then had no reason not to accept Steve Jobs’ offer. For Steve Jobs, making computers accessible to the common man was not just a business, it was his inner voice. ‘Don’t just think of business, find purpose in it’.
There is sophistication in simplicity
Steve Jobs once said, ‘Simplicity is sophistication’. His words are a beacon for every business leader. From the design of his products to his business strategy, Steve Jobs liked to keep every process simple, elegant and sophisticated. He thought that, ‘What a man can understand through simplicity, clarity and sophistication, nothing else can replace it’.
When Steve Jobs returned 12 years after being fired from his own company, his first decision was to discontinue 70% of the company’s products. He wanted Apple’s engineers to concentrate on the remaining 30% of products. He used to say, ‘Man has limited time and energy, spend them on things that are really important’, and ‘where is the wisdom of selling iron with diamonds in a diamond shop’?
Keep yourself close to innovation
Steve Jobs once said, ‘The secret to being creative is to introduce yourself to the best things that human beings have created and then incorporate them into what you are doing’. The Innovative Mind The world’s top entrepreneurs look outside their field for new ideas. The Apple II computer, the world’s first user-friendly computer, was conceived by Steve Jobs from kitchen appliances. Before Steve Jobs designed the Apple II, he was researching what kind of computer people would want to have in their homes.
Additionally, before opening the first Apple Store, Jobs carefully inspected an international hotel. That’s why a customer service employee in an Apple Store is called a Concierge. The concept of ‘Genius Bar’ in Apple stores is also taken from hotel bar.
Steve Jobs wasn’t the only one to look outside his field for new ideas, Tesla founder Elon Musk does the same. At the opening of a Tesla showroom in California, someone asked Tesla’s then head of sales, George Blakenship, ‘George, this showroom reminds me of Apple’. George replied, ‘It’s actually an Apple store. The only difference is that instead of computers, we sell cars’.