Have you ever wondered how Apple’s iPod took the world by storm?
I certainly have. It wasn’t the first or best mp3 player on the market. The first version of the iPod was SEVERELY limited. But somehow it managed to firmly place itself at the top of the heap within 3 years. Check out the sales numbers.
- 2002: 381,000
- 2003: 939,000
- 2004: 8,256,000
- 2005: 22,497,000
- 2006: 39,440,000
- 2007: 55,317,000
- 2008: 54,828,000
It’s pretty hard to miss the huge jump in sales between 03 and 04. In fact, Apple sold 8x’s more iPods in 04, than it did in 03. What caused the huge jump and how can you do the same thing? Simple, by using your operations to create products with pull, or products that are so good at helping customers make progress they seem to magnetically attract them in.
See, in 2001-2002, Apple wasn’t stupid. They were doing customer research to better understand and improve the customer experience. Steve Jobs was a nut on the subject. So, that brings us to 2003. What made such a difference? Apple rolled out the iTunes Music Store.
As a business owner, you’ve got a thousand things on your plate right now. You’re balancing family life, managing your team, client delivery, sales, hiring/firing, and more. They’re all fighting for your time and attention. Now imagine if the sales came in, seemingly independent of the effort you’re putting in.
The iPod was great and all. It made it so that people didn’t have to carry around all their CDs. But the biggest problem was that it was difficult and confusing to figure out how to get music on the iPod. With their implementation of the music store, it became easy add music to the iPod, and the player had pull.
The music store was a sustaining innovation that changed the game. Sustaining innovations give your offerings more pull. That’s what I do for my clients. We use sustaining and efficiency innovations to improve the pull and profitability of their offerings without increasing their burden.
When we work with clients, we do the deep qualitative research to understand the job our clients are being hired to do. Then we can harness the power of sustaining innovation to help customers progress better than anyone else on the market.
See? Simple.
Creating offerings with pull isnt’ some strategic wizardry. It isn’t marketing magic either. It’s just understanding the job the customer is hiring the product or service to do, and then finding ways to help them make progress better or faster than anyone else.
Let’s have a conversation about how we can alleviate your burdens so you can live and work in your strengths. Schedule an appointment here or reach out to zac@homericconsulting.com.
