Apple reports that on the first day they sold more than $150,000,000 worth of iPads. I can't think of a product or movie or any other launch that has ever come close to generating that much direct revenue.
Are their tactics reserved for giant consumer fads? I don't think so. In fact, they work even better for smaller gigs and more focused markets.
- Earn a permission asset. Over 25 years, Apple has earned the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to their tribe. They can get the word out about a new product without a lot of money because one by one, they've signed people up. They didn't sell 300,000 iPads in one day, they sold them over a few decades.
- Don't try to please everyone. There are countless people who don't want one, haven't heard of one or actively hate it. So what? (Please don't gloss over this one just because it's short. In fact, it's the biggest challenge on this list).
- Make a product worth talking about. Sounds obvious. If it's so obvious, then why don't the other big companies ship stuff like this? Most of them are paralyzed going to meetings where they sand off the rough edges.
- Make it easy for people to talk about you. Steve doesn't have a blog. He doesn't tweet and you can't friend him on Facebook. That's okay. The tribe loves to talk, and the iPad gave them something to talk about.
- Build a platform for others to play in. Not just your users, but for people who want to reach your users.
- Create a culture of wonder. Microsoft certainly has the engineers, the developers and the money to launch this. So why did they do the Zune instead? Because they never did the hard cultural work of creating the internal expectation that shipping products like this is possible and important.
- Be willing to fail. Bold bets succeed–and sometimes they don't. Is that okay with you? Launching the iPad had to be even more frightening than launching a book…
- Give the tribe a badge. The cool thing about marketing the iPad is that it's a visible symbol, a uniform. If you have one in the office on Monday, you were announcing your membership. And if it says, "sent from my iPad" on the bottom of your emails…
- Don't give up so easy. Apple clearly a faced a technical dip in creating this product… they worked on it for more than a dozen years. Most people would have given up long ago.
- Don't worry so much about conventional wisdom. The iPad is a closed system (not like the web) because so many Apple users like closed systems.
And the one thing I'd caution you about:
- Don't worry so much about having a big launch day. It looks good in the newspaper, but almost every successful brand or product (Nike, JetBlue, Starbucks, IBM…) didn't start that way.
A few things that will make it work even better going forward:
- Create a product that works better when your friends have one too. Some things (like a Costco membership or even email) fit into that category, because if more people join, the prices will go down or access will go up. Others (like the unlisted number to a great hot restaurant) don't.
- Make it cheap enough or powerful enough that organizations buy a lot at a time. To give away. To use as a tool.
- Change the home screen so I can see more than twenty apps at a time (sorry, that was just me.)
As promised, the folks at Vook made their deadline and were ready on launch day. It's early days, but it's pretty clear to me that the way authors with ideas will share them is going to change pretty radically, just as the iPad demonstrates that the way people interact with the web is going to keep changing as well.
[It turns out that Modern Warfare 2 did far better in its launch than the iPad. Thanks Jon, for the update].
April 7, 2010
Alas, ten years later, this post is obsolete.
I’m leaving the text below just in case, for history, but feel free to move on.
You can find the book here.
Josh Bernoff is a generous guy with an unusual hobby… he likes to make book indices.
Safer than juggling knives, that’s for sure.
Josh just posted the missing index for my book Linchpin. Usually, the publisher does the index, and I’m embarrassed to admit I hadn’t realized it was missing. Now I’m glad it’s here.
Two asides about the book: The full-length audio (itunes, audible) is probably the best reading of one of my books. Audio books work (for me) when you can listen to them more than once. I listened to my Zig Ziglar tapes more than a hundred times each–and I’m glad I did. And the hardcover, (bn) I’m told, is selling twice as fast as any book I’ve ever published. Thanks for that.
Enjoy the index! Special thanks to Josh for making it happen.
April 6, 2010
The reason you have a front lawn? It's a tradition. Lawns were invented as a way for the landed gentry to demonstrate that they could afford to waste land. By taking the land away from the grazing sheep, they were sending a message to their neighbors. We're rich, we can happily waste the opportunity to make a few bucks from our front lawn.
Conspicuous consumption has a long history. Wasting millions of dollars on a shark in a tank, or on $50,000 platinum stereo cables that sound an awful lot like $2000 stereo cables (which sound a lot like $200 stereo cables). And on and on.
In fact, the origins of the luxury goods industry lie in this desire to waste, in public. 350 years ago in France, Jean-Baptiste Colbert dreamed up the idea of bespoke, rare goods as a way of improving France's balance of trade. LVMH and other huge corporations collect brands that telegraph scarcity above all else. Not that they're better at performing the task at hand, merely that they are expensive and rare.
(Interesting note: it's estimated that 20% of all the women in Japan in their 20s own a Louis Vuitton bag… scarce?)
In every city there are expensive hotels that are noisy, with $56 breakfasts, no parking, blinds that don't make the room dark and rooms that don't have enough closets. But the very waste of paying extra to stay there ensures that you'll be surrounded by others just as wealthy and just as interested in proving it.
Rich people will always indulge the desire to stand out, but I wonder if there's a new version:
Spending on and investing in time, not stuff.
And it's not so wasteful, this focus on craftsmen.
The new trend in spending money is to buy things that are painstakingly hand built instead of efficiently mass produced. It might not be a better price than what you could buy at Target, but the very fact that you can pay for an artisan to create it, an artist to design it, a talented worker to bring it to life–that act makes a powerful statement about what you can afford and what's important to you. Instead of a bigger house, it's a house that's built from scratch by craftsmen. Instead of a bigger steak, it's a handmade dish of local poached vegetables…
All marketers tell a story. The "this is the best price and value" story is just one of those available, and in fact, it's rarely the most effective for the audience you may be trying to reach.
It's absurd to look at a three year old toddler and say, "this kid can't read or do math or even string together a coherent paragraph. He's a dolt and he's never going to amount to anything." No, we don't say that because we know we can teach and motivate and cajole the typical kid to be able to do all of these things.
Why is it okay, then, to look at a teenager and say, "this kid will never be a leader, never run a significant organization, never save a life, never inspire or create…"
Just because it's difficult to grade doesn't mean it shouldn't be taught.
Never mind a teenager. I think it's wrong to say that about someone who's fifty.
Isn't it absurd to focus so much energy on 'practical' skills that prep someone for a life of following instructions but relentlessly avoid the difficult work necessary to push someone to reinvent themselves into becoming someone who makes a difference?
And isn't it even worse to write off a person or an organization merely because of what they are instead of what they might become?
April 5, 2010
The best thing to say to an artist of any kind might be, "someday, people will think what you did is really important."
If it's popular with everyone right away, it might not be art, it might just be good marketing. But if it earns attention and respect over time, if it wins over the skeptical, then you've really created something.
April 4, 2010
The chances of a high school student eventually becoming first violin for the Boston Philharmonic: one in a million.
The chances of a high school student eventually playing basketball in the NBA? About the same.
In fact, the chances of someone growing up and getting a job precisely like yours, whatever it is, are similarly slim. (Head of development at an ad agency, director of admissions for a great college… you get the idea). Every good gig is a long shot, but in the end, a lot of talented people get good gigs. The odds of being happy and productive and well compensated aren't one in a million at all, because there are many good gigs down the road. The odds are only slim if you pick precisely one job.
Here's the lesson: the ardent or insane pursuit of a particular goal is a good idea if the steps you take along the way also prep you for other outcomes, each almost as good (or better). If pushing through the Dip and bending the market to your will and shipping on time and doing important and scary work are all things you need to develop along the way, then it doesn't really matter so much if you don't make the goal you set out to reach.
On the other hand, if you live a life of privation and spend serious time and money on a dead end path with only one outcome, you've described a path likely to leave you broken and bitter. Does spending your teenage years (and your twenties) in a room
practicing the violin teach you anything about being a violin teacher
or a concert promoter or some other job associated with music? If your happiness depends on your draft pick or a single audition, that's giving way too much power to someone else.
April 3, 2010
Digital interactions are highly leveraged and widespread, but there's nothing like face to face time to hammer home an idea. To that end I'm noodling with the idea of doing a series of day-long talks and seminars around the US this year (probably every three weeks). I often am hired to do private talks for groups, but it occurs to me that it might be more efficient and open to organize my own public talks as well.
Rather than just dreaming up the entire plan, I thought I'd ask for your feedback, connections, and suggestions, as well as see if anyone wants to help out. No promises, none at all, but if you have something to add to this, let me know. As always, thanks.
April 2, 2010
The math is magical: you can pile up lots of failures and still keep rolling, but you only need one juicy success to build a career.
The killer is the category called 'neither'. If you spend your days avoiding failure by doing not much worth criticizing, you'll never have a shot at success. Avoiding the thing that's easy to survive keeps you from encountering the very thing you're after.
And yet we market and work and connect and create as if just one failure might be the end of us.
Before you make any more decisions you need to answer that question.
A rational decision is based on testing and data and an understanding of the mechanics underneath the system you're working on. The more you know, the better you decide.
An irrational decision is based on gut instincts, conviction and faith.
No one is rational all the time. In fact, somewhere along the way we made 'irrational' into a bad word, but it shouldn't be.
There are card counters in Las Vegas who are rational about blackjack. And they make a decent living. The more they play, the better they will do. In the same casino, there are craps players who blow on the dice, wiggle their hips and wear lucky shoes. Inevitably, if they play long enough, they will be broke.
If you're running Adwords on Google, I hope you're making rational decisions based on clickthrough and conversion.
On the other hand, were you rational when you fell in love? Did you do the math? Medical analysis?
What about the last time you fell for an April Fools joke?
The very nature of faith is that you don't (and shouldn't be) rational about it. In fact, you're entitled to be aghast when anyone confronts you with proof. Proof and rationality aren't the point.
Same with fine art. If your taste in paintings or music or wine is based on some sort of rational analysis or Zagats-type survey, I feel quite badly for you. Deeper and more detailed information is not better information when you're making irrational decisions. If you need to hate on Copernicus in order to have more faith, something is seriously wrong.
When Chris Blackwell introduced reggae to the rest of the world (Bob Marley!), it was irrational. That moment in time was the best time to be working with Bonnie Raitt or Jackson Browne, not some unknown spleef-smoking guys from a tiny island in the Caribbean. No amount of rational analysis would have led an investor to back Chris.
Irrational passion is the key change agent of our economy. Faith and beauty and a desire to change things can't be easily quantified, and we can't live without them.
Steve Jobs is irrational about product design. As a result, focus groups make no sense. Who cares what other people think? He has faith in his gut. Your website: is it rationally designed? Should it be? What about the process you use to create new products or ads? Or the way you pick the focus of your startup? There's room for both rational and irrational decision making, and I think we do best when we choose our path in advance instead of pretending to do one when we're actually doing the other. The worst thing we can do is force one when we actually need the other.
April 1, 2010
If you read a book that tries to change you for the better and it fails or doesn't resonate, then it's a self-help book.
If you read a book that actually succeeds in changing you for the better, then the label changes from self-help book to great book.
We don't like books that fail, because they waste our time, they offend us, they speak a different language or they make us feel out of sorts. Self-help books are a bane.
On the other hand, a book that resonates with us, whether it's Catcher in the Rye, The War of Art or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance earns a place of trust and we revere it and tell others.
A store clerk who tries to sell you something and fails is a high-pressure salesperson.
If she succeeds in selling you something, she's helpful.
The difference between the two categories isn't one of intent. They're all ultimately trying for the same thing. The difference is in success. So, go ahead and denigrate self-help books and salespeople and the rest. Just be clear with yourself that what you're unhappy with are the ones that fail.
By the way, the only real help is self-help. Anything else is just designed to get you to the point where you can help yourself.
March 31, 2010
