The late Steven Jobs was an emotional mixed bag for me. I hate Apple products with a Passion, yet I admire Steve Jobs for making inferior products so cool that people are willing to play a premium for them.
I grew up with PCs so yes I am going to be biased. Now it is worth noting when I was a teenager that the only reason to have a computer was because you played games. This homework rubbish on your computer was a thing of science fiction, as was the status symbol computer. You were a geek if you had one.
So needless to say when there were exactly 2 games worth playing on an Apple Macintosh they sucked. I had dozens of games in my PC and I will say that both the games on Mac also came out on PC.
Interestingly PC users are the most psychologically normal people. MIT studied it, why? I don’t know.
I did read a very telling explanation of how you can actually build a higher performance PC for about a third of the price you would pay for its Apple equivalent. And yes I am geek so I demand to get the best performance possible for my money. It’s also why I do well at Supercoach and at marketing ($4/lead on Facebook).
Tip of The Hat: Steve Jobs
However, I am not the Apple market, as Steve Jobs and his successor Tim Cook have done is proven that there are people willing to pay a premium to be part of a very ‘select club.’ That size of that club has expanded exponentially over the last decade or so. So it’s not as select as it once was.
The power of Apple to me is the fact they have used price strategy tied to exclusivity to build the second largest technology company in the world.
The higher prices have allowed more money to be invested into advertising. They have built exclusive high-end retail stores which I believe are extremely profitable per square foot.
Everything in their business is classy and high end – supporting their exclusivity and pricing.
All of this has turned their customers into raving fans. Nobody is going to camp out for the latest Google tablet or Samsung mobile phone the way they do for iPhones and iPads.
The Lenovo computer I am writing this article on was mail ordered, arriving in a brown box. I don’t brag about owning it. I am not part of the club…
As a business owner I would rather own Apple than Lenovo. You should too. Rabid fans that will pay premium prices and endure extreme discomfort in order to get to pay them. They are far more valuable customers than I will ever be. I would rather build a business to please them. You should be finding those people in your market and build your business to service them.