Apple

Challenge the status quo

Enrich people’s daily lives

Choose values that emphasize that you're in this together

• One person, one computer.
• We are going for it and we will set aggressive goals.
• We are all on the adventure together.
• We build products we believe in.
• We are here to make a positive difference in society, as well as make a profit.
• Each person is important; each has the opportunity and the obligation to make a difference.
• We are all in it together, win or lose.
• We are enthusiastic!
• We are creative; we set the pace.
• We want everyone to enjoy the adventure we are on together.
• We care about what we do.
• We want to create an environment in which Apple values flourish.

Bring the best user experience to its customers through innovative hardware, software, and services

The rebellious creator

Rebellious creators are visionaries with a calling to change the world. They are not here to be liked, they are here to create things that make a difference. They define themselves, not by their job title, but by the impact they make.

They cannot be put into a single mold as they come from all backgrounds. They are artists, musicians, historians, and even zoologists. Their rebellious spirit is what connects them and motivates them to do things differently—to stand up to the status quo.

They are fearless. They are not afraid to show who they are and what they stand for, and have even gone so far as to raise a skull-and-crossbones flag above their headquarters. They cannot be deterred or ignored, and they are never going away.

They are the crazy ones.

Friendly, passionate, and cleverly simple

To reduce the fear people have of technology, Apple focuses on making their tone friendly and inviting. They avoid using industry jargon, and it wasn't uncommon for Steve Jobs to describe Apple products as: “amazingly zippy,” “so good, you'll want to lick them,” and “awesome.” It was this passion, mixed with clever and simple messaging, like the iPod's '1,000 songs in your pocket' and the MacBook's 'Light. Years ahead.' that makes Apple approachable and relatable to their audience.

Innovation

Co-founder, Steve Jobs often would say, "Some people say give the customers what they want, but that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do." Apple is able to do this through empathy and trying to solve their customers' problems by bringing different technologies and ideas together into one innovative solution. However, to Apple, innovation was never about being first to market but instead only focusing on creating the very best product.

Sophisticated simplicity

On the wall at Apple's headquarters, in large whitish silver letters, reads the message: Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Apple has differentiated themselves by eliminating complexity and making every product so simple that anyone can start using it right out of the box. But to make a product that simple requires a deep understanding of the product's purpose and then dedicating themselves to making it:

• Intuitive: Make it that a 2.5 year old can use it, without knowing how to read. Jobs also insisted on being able to get to wherever he wanted in three clicks.
• Uncluttered: Eliminate anything that detracts from the user experience. On the iPod the on/off button was removed after a long debate to realize it wasn't actually necessary.
• Focused: Eliminate anything that detracts from the product's purpose. The original iPod only came in white to not detract from its purpose of listening to music.

Beautiful design

The Apple aesthetic is where art, functionality, and science merge together into what Steve Jobs called 'Museum of Modern Art quality.' Apple's commitment to this vision is what makes the brand obsess over every detail of the product, even demanding that computer circuit boards are just as visually pleasing as their shell.

Creative spirits

Apple customers are artists and educators. They are early adopters of the latest and greatest products and are enamored with anything that is new and exotic. Most importantly, they are people who think differently.

“They are people who are not out to get a job done; they are out to change the world. And they are out to change the world using whatever great tools they can get. And (Apple) makes tools for those kinds of people...because a lot of times people think they’re crazy, but in that craziness we see genius, and those are the people we’re making tools for.”—Steve Jobs

Cut products to focus on quality

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Apple was 90 days from closing its doors. Their product line was bloated, unfocused, and so confusing it wasn't even clear how all 12 versions of the Macintosh differed from one another.

To increase quality and simplify the choice for the consumer, Jobs cut the Apple product line by 70%. Using a four quadrant matrix, Jobs focused the company on making just four products: one desktop and one portable device aimed at both consumers and professionals. As Steve put it at MacWorld 1998: "If we only had four, we could put the A-team on every single one of them...So, that’s what we decided to do, to focus on four great products."

After just one year, the nearly bankrupt company turned a $309 million profit. Even today as Apple expands their product line, they use the same type of matrix to focus on simplicity and quality.

Apple's Four Quadrant Product Matrix

Give up market share for a closed system

Apple believes that to create the best products and user experiences, they need to have complete end-to-end control over the hardware and software of their products. This closed system allows Apple products to work seamlessly together, and is exactly what made the iPod to iTunes to Mac experience so much simpler than its rival MP3 players.

But choosing a closed system did come at a cost in terms of market share. IBM, and later Microsoft, licensed their operating systems to other computer makers. This was a much cheaper solution than having to buy an Apple computer, which led to the PC becoming the industry standard in the business world.

Sacrifice consumer expectations for better products

There was a time when every computer was expected to have a USB port and every phone, a headphone jack. Apple removed those and many other features along the way, in their quest to make great products.

As Steve Jobs put it, Apple has "the courage of our convictions to say we don't think this is part of what makes a great product. We're going to leave it out. Some people are going to not like that. They're going to call us names...but we're going to take the heat because we want to make the best product in the world for customers. We're going to instead focus our energy on the technologies which we think are in their ascendancy" and leave out those that they see as archaic.

A short list of updates that drove Apple customers to adapt to, and often buy, new technology, plug-ins, and adaptors:

• Replaced the 5" floppy disk for the 3.5" floppy disk with the Macintosh
• Removed the floppy disk entirely from the iMac
• Removed all Adobe Flash compatibility from their devices in 2010
• Dropped serial and parallel ports to be an early adopter of USB ports
• Got rid of optical drives (DVD/Blu-Ray players) with Macbook Air
• Removed the headphone jack from the iPhone 7

Give up revenue from promotional sales and discounts to avoid cheapening your brand

Retail discounts and sales for Apple products just don't exist. Not only do they cheapen the brand, but they create an expectation that all consumers have to do is wait and eventually the price will go down.

Don't compromise privacy even to investigate terrorism

After a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, the FBI requested that Apple "make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation." Apple refused, not because they didn't want to help, but to create a back door would weaken the security and privacy of all its customers.

Start with design

Unlike most companies who engineer their products first then hand it down to designers, Apple reverses this order and begins with design. In fact, everyone else in the organization has to conform to the designer's vision, no questions asked. When creating the Apple II, Jobs had the engineers remove the cooling fan because he believed that a quieter computer is a more beautiful computer. It didn't matter to him that the technology wasn't invented yet—it was up to the engineers to figure that out, which they did.

Spend your advertising budget only on your most popular product

When Jobs returned to Apple, he consolidated the advertising budget into one single budget where only the most popular products would receive ad dollars. By limiting the number of products promoted, heavily promoted products indirectly drove sales for Apple's other products. So when customers came into stores looking for the iPod, they were also exposed to iMacs as well.

Avoid focus groups, consultants, and market research

Imagine if the first iPhone had a stylus and a retractable keyboard? That's what Apple believes would have happened if they relied on focus groups to inform the design. To Apple, customers don't innovate, they only iterate what they have seen before. So people actually don't know what they want until you show it to them.

But this doesn't mean to stop listening to customers. Instead know your customers so well that you know what they want before they realize it themselves.

Increase anticipation with vigilant secrecy

The cost of information being released early about an upcoming innovative product is too risky for Apple. It dampens the anticipation, gives competition time to respond, allows openings for critics to criticize the idea rather than the actual product, and finally steals the thunder from the existing product line.

So it's not surprising that the penalty for revealing any Apple secret, intentionally or unintentionally, is immediate termination and lawsuits. But Apple doesn't stop there.

• Employees must sign agreements stating that they will not even tell their spouses or kids about the projects they are working on.
• Visiting guests are not to be left unattended even in the cafeteria and are asked to not share or post any details about their current location.
• Teams are purposely kept apart and don't know what the other one is working on. On launch day, they have no idea what other features in the same product will be announced simultaneously.
• New employees don't know what their exact roles are until after onboarding.
• Organization charts don't exist. They are considered information that employees don't need and outsiders shouldn't have.
• Plainclothes Apple security agents are believed to hang out at nearby bars to see if employees are staying quiet.

Create a culture run by ideas, not hierarchy

All employees at Apple, from senior leaders to entry-level staff, are expected to check their egos at the door. Steve Jobs believed that innovation can only flourish if you have a courageous team of A players who are willing to speak their minds and challenge the status quo.

But these fearless A players also needed to be strong enough to risk being called a "bozo" by Jobs in the name of trying to make a better product. It was this brutal honesty that Jobs infused into Apple's culture to help quickly expose mediocrity and weed out anyone whose heart wasn't fully committed to the brand's cause and mission.

Inspire your teams by illustrating the impact they will make

After being told that the Mac load speed was as fast as it could get, Steve Jobs asked his engineers "if it would save a person's life, could you find a way to shave 10 seconds off the [load] time?"

He then went on to illustrate that if five million people were to use the Mac each day, those extra 10 seconds added up to roughly 300 million hours a year. And saving that time would be the equivalent of saving a total of 100 lives each year.

It sounds hyperbolic but by illustrating these challenges through a lens of having a meaningful impact on the world, his team became inspired to rise to the occassion. In psychology this is called The Pymalion Effect, at Apple it was called The Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field. Whatever you call it, in the end the Mac booted 28 seconds faster.

Don't be afraid to blow it up and start all over

Steve Jobs was always willing to start a project over from scratch, no matter the cost, if it meant advancing the Apple cause. Even when an executive warned him that to make a change would "blow up our own business." Jobs replied, "better we should blow it up than someone else."

• Macintosh: After millions of dollars and thousands of hours were spent developing the Lisa, Steve Jobs all but abandoned the project to build the first personal computer that would have a graphical user interface (GUI).
• iPhone: After the prototype was complete and his engineers said it couldn't be done, Jobs insisted on making the iPhone smaller. He even reportedly, threw it in a fish tank to show that their were air bubbles in it proving there was indeed extra space.
• The Apple Store: During development, the head of retail, realized that the store was all wrong because it focused on the products instead of what people could do with them. Jobs supported the last minute change and offered this insight: "We’ve only got one chance to get it right."

Sweat the details

At Apple, caring about the details is the only way to truly show that you care about the user's experience. Every person at Apple, starting with leadership, is expected to scrutinize over every detail of their division down to the pixel, spreadsheet cell, or line of code.

• Jobs once returned all of the phones at Apple headquarters because they weren't the right shade of ivory.
• Jobs spent months adjusting the colors, effects, and styling of just the red, yellow, and green buttons, in the Mac OS.
• Jobs also spent 450 hours preparing, adjusting, reworking, and practicing for the 22-minute presentation that introduced the Lion operating system.
• Designers scrutinized over finding the perfect type of rounded corner that would influence all Apple designs. They chose the squircle, a shape that every leader is expected to be able to identify on sight.
• Packaging designers opened and closed boxes for months, going through hundreds of iPod box prototypes.
• Designers tested an endless series of arrows, colors, and tapes when designing the sticker that adhered to the top of the iPod box.
• Leaders would inspect every pixel of every icon with a jewelry loupe.
• Leaders would read and rework every disclosure, terms of conditions, and agreement to make sure it had the right tone.
• Designers reworked the Apple pencil so that whenever it rolled it would stop with the logo facing up.

Look for inspiration everywhere

To Steve Jobs, creativity was about connecting two unrelated things and bringing them together. As he has said, the best way to do that is to “expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing." And Apple did just that.

• Apple II's revolutionary mouse and graphical user interface (GUI) which included colorful icons and windows were originally created by Xerox.
• Apple II's molded plastic cases with smooth edges and muted colors were inspired by a Cuisinart food processor found at Macy's.
• The MagSafe power cord that kept Apple computers from falling to the ground if you tripped over the wire came from Japanese rice cookers.
• The iMac's swivel display attached to a stainless steel neck was inspired by a sunflower.
• The concierge-style greeter and the Genius Bar was inspired by the Four Seasons' concierge service and liquor bar.
• The Apple Store's minimalist display that showcases only a few products came from Williams-Sonoma, which was displaying only two toasters compared to Target's display of thirty-one.
• The Apple Store's personal shoppers were inspired by Nordstrom's personal shoppers.
• The iPod scrolling wheel was inspired by a phone made by Bang & Olufsen (B&O).

Keep divisions small to maintain a start-up mentality

Apple divides itself into multiple autonomous divisions, each with fewer than 100 people. Its campus is even designed in a way that divisions are hidden from others to create the illusion of being a start-up. This has helped Apple reduce bureaucracy, increase collaboration, and promote personal responsibility.

Make your meetings more effective

First, ask yourself if you really need to have a meeting. If the answer is yes, and you really need that in-person feedback, Steve Jobs at Apple expected you to follow these three rules:

• Only invite three to five people and know exactly each person's role and responsibility. Anything more is counterproductive and anyone who just needs to know what was discussed can be sent the notes or transcript after.
• Always set an agenda and don't make it more than three items. Stay focused and make sure each item is connected to the overall purpose of the meeting.
• Keep meetings to 30 minutes, no more. Attention spans are short and to sustain a meaningful, analytical discussion is difficult. Come organized, come prepared, and break up your key items into digestible chunks.

Prioritize individual responsibilities

There are no committees and no divided responsibilities at Apple. Instead, they assign every project or task to a DRI, a directly responsible individual. This person is solely responsible for making crucial decisions and keeping assignments on track. In short, its Apple's way to know exactly who to congratulate or who to blame regarding the project's outcome. It also:

• Creates more focus: Multiple people are no longer worried about the same thing and no work is duplicated or repeated.
• Removes ambiguity and deferred responsibility: The excuses of 'my boss said...', 'that team member didn't...', or 'I didn't know I was supposed to...' are instantly gone.
• Saves time and speeds up the decision-making process: DRIs don't have to seek approval from their managers. Managers and employees aren't unnecessarily brought into email threads and meetings.

Make work the benefit

At Apple, you will most likely work harder and longer than you have ever worked in your life but will love every minute. Apple's philosophy on benefits is that: If you give people work that matters and a chance to make a dent in the universe than high salaries and perks aren't needed. In fact, at Apple:

• Salaries are competitive with the market, no better.
• The company gym and cafeteria are not free.
• There are no creative workshops, games, team building activities, or sleep pods.
• Working with nonprofits and having extracurricular activities are even discouraged as these are considered distractions.

While medical, dental, education reimbursement up to $2,500, and stock opportunities are provided, these costs are offset by low recruiting and training costs. Having a 90% retention rate, compared to the industry average of 20–30%, has its own benefits.

Survey employees to improve the customer experience

Apple Store employees are surveyed every three to four months to see how the store experience can be improved and if they would recommend the store a great place to work. This program is called the Net Promoter for People (NPP).

Employees review the results together at their pre-shift huddles and determine which issues are most important to that store's success. Over the coming weeks new solutions are tested out and successful ones are rolled out to other stores. Each solution is then evaluated in the next NPP surveys.

Put your credo in the hands of every employee

All Apple employees are given a pocket-sized credo card and are encouraged to carry it around with them. It acts as a daily reminder of what Apple stands for and what they are trying to accomplish. The front only has two words: enriching lives.

Read the full credo.

Make your welcome letter inspirational

In just a few short sentences, Apple's welcome letter lets new employees know that the work they will do is special. Their future at Apple is not about a title, a paycheck, or a daily routine but instead about unleashing their passion, creativity, and fearlessness.

Apple's welcome letter

There’s work and there’s your life’s work.

The kind of work that has your fingerprints all over it. The kind of work that you’d never compromise on. That you’d sacrifice a weekend for. You can do that kind of work at Apple. People don’t come here to play it safe. They come here to swim in the deep end.

They want their work to add up to something.

Something big. Something that couldn’t happen anywhere else.

Welcome to Apple.

Follow this 5-step hiring process

The Apple Store hiring process can last more than one month and has a rigorous interview process where everything is graded. Quick tip: Always smile and always be friendly.

Step One: Weed out the wallflowers
In a group setting with the candidates, hiring managers, and employees all in a large room, start asking questions. The questions and their answers are not as important as in "seeing who speaks up, how well they project, and how confident they are in front of others."

Step Two: Find team players
Break up into smaller groups of about four to five people. Present candidates with a customer service situation and see how they respond. Again, the response is not as important as how they arrive at a solution. Keep the people who ask for help and interact well with the group. Get rid of the know-it-alls.

Step Three: Find the fearless, find the fans
Give each candidate five minutes to create an “About Me” page using Page. Not only do you find the true Apple enthusiasts but you also identify the fearless applicants who speak up because they don't know what they're doing. Keep both types. Get rid of the arrogant ones who try to cover up their insecurities.

Step Four: Determine who excels at service
Now put each candidate in front of a panel of managers, trainers, and sales employees. Continue the situational style questioning while asking some technical questions. While some technical knowledge is required, the goal is to determine who is most committed to providing The Ritz-Carlton level customer service.

Step Five: Choose the passionate ones
Confirm that you have the most passionate and fearless candidates that could have gone toe-to-toe with Steve Jobs. Some questions include 'What are you passionate about in life?' (Jobs' favorite) and 'Are you a nice person?' These not only reveal the character of candidates but force them to go home and really think about their fit for the position.

Hire teachers, not tech experts

At Apple, personality reigns supreme over technical knowledge when choosing their next Apple Store employee. Skills can be taught while patience, empathy, passion cannot. In fact, the ideal candidate is not a computer expert at all, but a teacher that knows a lot about people.

Test applicants to see if they are 'wowed' by your brand

It was not uncommon for Steve Jobs to unveil prototypes of the Mac from underneath a cloth to potential candidates. If their eyes lit up, and they walked right over and started playing around with it, it was a sign they were the right fit for the company.

Ask open-ended questions during teaching moments

Apple managers provide feedback to their staff constantly, both immediately after an interaction with a customer and at the end of every shift. They use open-ended questions starting with 'What' and 'How' and avoid any negative words like 'problem.' This helps employees come to their own realization of how to build better quality relationships with customers.

Some Apple Store examples:

• "What was the experience like? I’d like to know your perspective, and then I’ll tell you what I saw."
• "What did you miss?"
• "How could the transaction have been different?”

Train employees to provide fearless feedback to each other

In the Apple Store training manual, employees are given this example as a way to provide fearless feedback to their colleagues:

• "Hi, fellow Genius. I overheard your conversation with your customer during the last interaction and I have some feedback if you have a moment. Is this a good time?"
• "Yes, this is a good time."
• "You did a great job resolving the customer's iPhone issue. I was concerned with how quickly you spoke to the customer. It seemed like you were rushing through the interaction, and the customer had additional questions."

Do not rush training

Apple Geniuses first go through an intensive two-week training program that includes role-playing exercises at a mock Apple Store and an array of certifications. This is followed by several weeks of shadowing seasoned employees around an Apple Store, where they are only allowed to observe and never interact with customers. This is all to make sure that employees have been fully indoctrinated into the principles outlined in the over 80-page Genius Training Student Workbook, which focuses primarily on empathizing with, consoling, and cheering up customers.

Create opportunities for new employees to connect with people outside of their department

On their first day at Apple, employees don't have anyone there to help them connect their computer to the network. While this forces new recruits to make connections across the organization in order to solve the problem, it is also Apple's (not-so) subtle way of saying: If you're smart enough to work here, you should be smart enough to figure this out yourself.

Now this doesn't mean new employees are completely on their own. Apple designates an iBuddy from outside the new recruit's department to help her get around the building and campus. They usually meet up only once or twice before things get too busy.

Teach mistakes

To Apple, learning about past failures is just as important as past successes. At Apple University, an MBA-like program, courses and lectures are dedicated to:

• Mistakes Apple has made in the past
• Company responses to public relation disasters, like the Tylenol tampering crisis of 1982
• The downfall of companies that once dominated their field, like A&P and Sears

Lectures with lively debates are also given regarding controversial decisions Apple has made in the past, like allowing iPod and iTunes to be compatible with Microsoft's Windows system.

Master the 67 competencies

As part of their yearly development, Apple managers are expected to improve upon at least 2 of the 67 competencies of Lominger's management model outlined in the book, FYI: For Your Improvement. Some competencies include being action-oriented, approachable, and dealing with ambiguity. Apple Stores also carry free copies of the book for staff to read.

Let loose the creative inner genius

Teach and empower people to do something they never thought they could do, and they will change the world for the better. With that belief, Apple focused on making products that place power into the hands of the everyday people, giving them the freedom and ability to disrupt industries and challenge the status quo. With iMovie, customers become filmmakers, with an iPhone they become photographers, and with GarageBand they can become recording artists.

Apple celebrates people that think differently and sees themselves as a vehicle through which customers can express themselves and their individuality. So much that when customers break out into an Apple Store Dance, employees just cheer them on.

Reveal the product in a way that reinforces its value

Macintosh: In 1984, with a goal to make computers more friendly, Steve Jobs revealed the Macintosh by having the computer say 'hello' to the audience.

iPod: In 2001, Steve Jobs pulled the iPod from his pocket proving that 1,000 songs could fit in it.

iPhone: In 2007, Steve Jobs told the audience to expect three new products: A new iPod, a phone, and an internet connector. He repeated this until it was clear that all of these features were wrapped into one device.

MacBook Air: In 2008, Jobs introduced the "world's thinnest notebook" by taking it out of a manila interoffice envelope.

Follow the APPLE five steps of service

Step one: Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome
Within 10 seconds of entering a store (regardless of how busy it is), greet each customer with a friendly warm welcome. The key here is to make eye contact and be fully committed to offering a customized, unique, and meaningful experience.

Step two: Probe politely to understand all of the customer’s needs
Never push for a sale. Instead, ask open-ended questions that start with 'How' and 'What.' These questions encourage customers to open up more about their needs leading to a more meaningful and insightful conversation. Apple employees preempt these questions by asking permission. This can sound like: "I’d like to take you on a tour of the iPad, but before I do, may I ask what you’ll be using the iPad for?"

Step three: Present a solution for the customer to take home that day
Customers leave happy when they are provided with a solution, even if its not the one they originally expected. So, if customers are not ready to make a purchase, Apple employees offer to sign them up for a free in-store class to become more familiar with the product. Also, if customers can't get an appointment at the Genius Bar, employees look for openings at nearby locations.

Step four: Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns
Actively listen and repeat back the customer's needs and concerns, so they know they are heard. Then tailor the conversation around resolving those issues. If a customer cares about high-quality photos, don't spend time talking about video games. Apple employees also always reinforce that they do not work on commission and that their only goal is to help a customer grow.

Step five: End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return
Always make customers feel good about the experience. Escort the customer to the door, thank them, and invite them to return again with a "We'll see you next time." Also, if a purchase was made, congratulate them, summarize the benefits one last time, and reinforce the good decision they made.

Follow the 3 Fs of empathy

Apple store employees deal with frustrated, worried, and angry customers all the time. While they are trained to "not apologize for the business [or] the technology," there is a heavy emphasis on being empathetic to the customer's problem. To do this, Apple trains their Geniuses to follow the 3 Fs:

• Feel: First acknowledge the customer's feelings
• Felt: Let the customer know they are not alone and that either you or someone else has been in the same position.
• Found: Finally, provide an opportunity for the customer to move beyond their initial objection or negative feeling.

See Apple Genius training examples.

Reset internal clocks to make wait times less painful

Waiting can be excruciating. Apple solves this problem by altering customers' perceptions of how long they are waiting. The concept behind this is simple: Every time you check-in with, smile at, or say 'hello' to waiting customers, their internal clocks are reset making an 8-minute wait feel like two.

At Apple Stores, the first reset happens within 10-seconds of you walking into the store. An employee greets you, takes your name, and assigns you an associate.

Every few minutes after that, a greeter or manager will check in with you by name with an update on the associate's availability. By the time the associate arrives, you don't even realize how long you have been waiting while also feel acknowledged and looked after.

Get to yes by avoiding negative language

While Apple employees are instructed to never push for a sale, they have been trained to avoid words that could turn people away from making a purchase. Apple's Genius Training Student Workbook, gives a full list of examples that include:

• Do not use 'bomb,' 'crash,' or 'hang.' Avoid 'freeze.' Instead, use 'unexpectedly quits,' 'does not respond,' or 'stops responding.'
• Do not use 'bug' or 'problem.' Instead, say 'condition,' 'issues,' or 'situation.'
• Avoid 'supported.' Replace it with 'compatible' or 'works with.'
• Steer clear of 'incompatible' and 'not compatible.' Try 'does not work with.'
• No Apple products are 'hot'—at most they're 'warm.'
• Do not use 'eliminate a problem.' Instead, say 'reduce it.'

Understand how customers are feeling by their body language

Make no mistake, Apple employees are paying attention to every customer's body language. Apple's Genius Training Student Workbook goes into great detail about how to identify a customer's mood based on their gestures. Some examples include:

• Cooperation: Sitting on edge of chair, hand-on-face gestures, unbuttoned coat, head tilted
• Expectancy: Hand-rubbing, crossed fingers
• Evaluation: Hand-to-cheek gestures, head tilted, stroking chin, gestures with glasses, pacing
• Acceptance: Hand-to-chest, touching, moving in closer
• Confidence: Steepling hands, hands joined at back
• Frustration: Short breaths, 'Tsk!', tightly clenched hands, wringing hands, fist-like gestures, pointing index finger, palm to back of neck, kicking ground or imaginary object
• Boredom: Drumming on table, head in hand, blank stare
• Suspicion and secretiveness: Sideways glance, feet or body pointing towards the door, rubbing nose, rubbing eye
• Nervousness: Clearing throat

Don't time conversations with customers

The Apple experience is about connecting with people—and that takes time. Managers never ask employees to 'wrap it up' when they are talking with a customer. This gives employees the freedom to have in-depth conversations with customers. If they spend twenty minutes talking about football and no sale is made, that is perfectly fine, as long as every customer leaves feeling happy and appreciated.

Invite the customer to play and take control of the experience

Apple devised subtle ways for shoppers to take ownership of their buying experience by making it already feel as if the product was theirs. To do this, Apple sales associates would:

• Place all products on display, turned on and connected, to invite people to come in and play and explore.
• Position computer screens at 90-degree angles forcing customers to reposition them to their liking.
• Guide, not show, customers on how to find solutions for themselves, so they become more comfortable and engaged with the product.
• Request permission to step in and help a customer with a task by asking: "May I touch your computer?"

Prioritize education, not sales

The Apple Store itself was designed as a place to help people learn and grow. While only 25% of Apple Stores are dedicated to products, the other 75% are dedicated to:

• Individual workshops and classes on how to use Apple technology
• Free lectures and seminars on how to improve your photography, music, video, coding, art, and design
• Concierge service where Geniuses answer your questions and find solutions

By making the store a place focused on personal development, Apple turned what could have been a standard sales floor into a playground for kids and adults. And the results? Apple Stores make on average $4,032/sq ft compared to product driven stores like Tiffany's who makes $2,600/sq ft and Best Buy who makes $930/sq ft.

Showcase the technology

Walk into an Apple Store and a specialist uses an iPad to check you in. Walk over to the computers and all of their details are displayed on an iPad next to them. Walk up to sales associates and they will ring you up using an Apple device. Apple is even experimenting with an iPhone app that lets customers check themselves out without speaking to anyone.

By making their devices a part of the entire shopping experience, Apple not only showcases their capabilities but also excites people about using the technology themselves.

Remove check-out lines

Apple first asked themselves: How fast can we get people through the register? But the real question became: Why stand in line at all when a specialist can come right to you? So, Apple removed all cash registers to make the check-out process as simple and fast as possible.

Make your employees' wardrobe stand out

When employees wore black shirts they blended in too much with the customers. Too many different colored shirt resulted in confusion. Apple found that blue shirts were just right because those stood out best and made it easy for customers to find employees.

Choose a location where the people are

With the focus of Apple Stores being on non-Apple users, Steve Jobs didn't want people gambling with their time to go to a remote location. He located Apple Stores in malls to reduce the risk for these non-users to make it possible for them to just come in and see what the company was about. In this way, people were only gambling with twenty feet of their time.

Keep your homepage simple

When a consumer lands on Apple's website, they should be able to find what they need within thirty seconds and within three clicks. To help with this, Apple keeps its homepage simple and unobtrusive by removing unnecessary distractions like rotating banners and keeping the word count under 50 words.

In fact, when the iPad went on sale, Apple's homepage didn't show any competing messages. It was just a large picture of the iPad with three simple words: iPad is here. That's it.

Make your marketing about values

Create a message map for each product

Message maps are simple one-page visual descriptions of a product. At Apple, they use them to lay the foundation for all of their messaging from a 30-second elevator pitch to a 10-minute conversation with a customer. By keeping their message simple and consistent, Apple makes it easier for employees and customers alike to repeat and share the story.

Step one: Create a Twitter-friendly headline
This will be your overarching key message. It should summarize your product's value in one sentence that is less than 140 characters.

• iPod: 1,000 songs in your pocket.
• MacBook Air: The world’s thinnest notebook.
• iPhone: Apple reinvents the phone.
• iPad: A magical and revolutionary device.
• iTunes Music Store: Music downloads done right.
• iCloud: Stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices.

Step two: Create three (or at most four) supporting messages
Neuroscience finds that people can only recall about three or four pieces of information at most, so Apple boils their messages down to just that.

• The iPhone was (1) a revolutionary phone, (2) the Internet in your pocket, and (3) the best iPod ever created.
• The MacBook Air was (1) thin, (2) light, and (3) wicked fast.

Step three: Develop three or four details for each of your supporting messages
These details can include data, stories, and examples. This is where Apple staff have the flexibility to make the stories they share more personal or relatable to the customer.

Step four: Share and repeat the message ad nauseam
Relentless repetition is the key to memorability. Yes, it might seem creepily cultish; and yes, you're going to get tired of the message; but that's exactly when customers are able to just start repeating it themselves. So stay strong and stay the course.

Showcase your cause, not your product

Apple's 1984 ad, which introduced the Macintosh, shows no images and describes no details about the product. It is an ad focused solely on what drives Apple as a company and is considered one of the best television ads of all time.

Sell benefits, not features

Twenty-two months before the iPod was released, Creative, a company specializing in audio technology, introduced their own mp3 player. They had the qualifications, the experience, and were first to market, but their Zen player never gained popularity. The problem was that Creative's messaging focused on the features: "5GB mp3 player." Apple, on the other hand, focused on the benefit: "1,000 songs in your pocket."

Unfortunately for Creative, people don't care, and most times don't understand the features of a product. What they do care about is what the product could do for them. And that is what Apple's messaging always does—it answers the question: Why should the customer care?

Even when someone comes into an Apple Store, instead of using terms like 5G, 4K, and 1080P, sales associates focus on how the device benefits the customer: enjoy games, send email, take awesome photos, and so on.

Turn your ads into manifestos

The Apple store was designed to appeal to non-Apple users and show them what actually is possible with an Apple product. Before opening their doors for the first time, Apple ran this ad, 5 down, 95 to go, as their manifesto to those non-users.

Choose a brand name that is approachable

In a time when computers were intimidating to use, Steve Jobs wanted his computer company to embody friendliness and approachability. After visiting a commune in Oregon, which he would refer to as an apple orchard, Steve Jobs suggested to his partner, Steve Wozniak, that they name their new company Apple. They both figured, what could be friendlier and more approachable than an apple? In fact, the bite taken out of the logo was added to further humanize the brand.