MBA919 Lessons Learned From Apple’s Airpods

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Again. That's 100mba.net in today's episode you will learn lessons Learned from Apple's AirPods. In my opinion, Apple's wireless headphones the AirPods are the best product that has come out of Apple since the first iPhone. But it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows for Apple. With this product they've had a lot of challenges and I want to share with you some of those challenges and the lessons I've learned through those challenges that they experienced, but also lessons you can learn through their triumphs and through the product itself. I have a pair of AirPods and it's probably one of my favorite purchases of 2017. I listen to a lot of books, I listen to a lot of podcasts, I love music and I get a lot of use out of it. And I've been a serious heavy user of this product. So I'm going to tell you some things that you probably don't know about it, but more importantly, how you can apply their success and their ideas that they've applied to this product to. To your own business, your own product, your own services. How can you apply a little Apple magic to what you're building? Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Apple's AirPods was first announced in their keynote major event they do in September, back in 2016. Now, they announced this when they also announced the iPhone 7. Now, if you remember, they also announced that, hey, there will be no more headphone jack. And people were like, hey, don't worry about it, because we have a wireless solution coming out, which is the AirPods. And in September, they said it was gonna be available in October. Now, a couple notes in the keynote, when they're explaining the AirPods and they're showing their demo video, people were like, oh, cool. Wireless headphones. And they didn't fully grasp how awesome this product is. In fact, I didn't fully understand them until I actually used them, had a pair of my own, and now it's like, how do I ever go back to normal headphones? Now, this is not some sort of commercial for Apple here, right? You know, Apple has some great products, but they also have made some mistakes. And the purpose of today's episode is explore some of these challenges, mistakes they've made so we can learn from them, apply them to our own business and also learn from their successes so we can do the same thing in our business as well. So they say it's coming out in October, October rolls around and the AirPods are not available. People are up in arms and they're hating on social media, they're hating on the Internet. Hey, what's going on here? Where are the Apple AirPods you promised us that are going to be available? And Apple could not release it. It wasn't ready yet. November rolls around, Black Friday, Christmas, and it's still not ready. Now everybody's getting into the game of complaining and saying, oh, Apple, this is a huge mistake. You lost out on sales for Black Friday and Christmas and the holidays. Finally it does get released in mid January of 2017. Now, this delay was probably one of the biggest recent delays for Apple when it comes to releasing a product. And they did explain themselves. They did say, hey, this is really, really high end technology. There's actually, you know, a lot of working parts going on in the hardware of these wireless headphones. They actually have a computer chip called the W1 chip. I mean, the headphones know when they're in your ears and when they're not in your ears. When you have one in your ear and one not, they have a special case where you put them in the case and they charge. They had to make sure, you know, they took care of the wireless range and you know, if there's interference in the radio waves that you know, that nothing gets affected. There's so many potentials for issues, they wanted to make sure they're all ironed out. Now the lesson to be learned here is that sometimes delaying is better than launching a product that is horrible. Not sometimes, all the time. Even though it's painful to delay, Apple took a lot of heat, took a lot of criticism from major publications that normally praise them. Now what does this mean? It doesn't mean that, you know, Apple should never announce when they're going to release something because hey, if there's delays, they don't want any disappointment. It just means that sometimes this is going to happen and delaying is better than having a bad product. Now in my experience in business, sometimes I had to delay the release of a feature or a whole new update to like our software, Webinar Ninja or webinar software. And the best thing to do is to communicate with your users and say, hey, we would love to release this right now, but we can't, it's not ready yet. We will release it as soon as possible and we'll keep you updated. Transparency and communication is key and Apple did that as much as possible. This doesn't mean you can delay your releases or your launches or your products every time you want to. Now you should stick to your deadlines most of the time or all but some exceptions of the time, right? And for the most part, Apple's great at that. They've announced iPhones and they ship them out on time and all that stuff. Now Apple is releasing a whole new product with these airpods. There's no other generation of airpods. This is generation one. This is like when they released the first iPhone, for example. Now, Apple did something really smart. They made a way for you to make sure that if there were issues, they can fix it remotely. So because there's a computer chip in these AirPods, there is actual firmware, there's software that can solve some problems and they can give you a update to Update that software. There's something I learned later on. Incredible. But if you can do this in some way with your business, with your software, with your products, that's great. Whether you're selling a course and you can, you know, update the course or add new, updated information, or whether you're selling a physical product that you can update via a new accessory or something that they can buy or they can upgrade to. What are some ways you can improve your product after it's launched and you can make it convenient for your customers. The other thing that I want to pass on to you is that Apple, when they released this product, they knew, because it's all new now. They're not the first wireless headphones. There were wireless headphones before. But the reason why AirPods are so different or innovative is that each AirPod, each actual earpiece is separate and there is no connection. There's no wire between them, there's no hardware between them. Like traditional big, you know, DJ kind of earphones that have the bridge over your head. They're lightweight, they're small, they're intuitive, all that kind of stuff. So there's all this new technology they're putting into it, and they know that this is going to be hard to explain why they're so great at it. And they've said that they made a short marketing campaign, a small commercial. They aired it in some major publications. They stated that they knew that it would take people to start using them in order for it to start marketing itself and what they call viral growth. And in fact, I bought AirPods because my buddy, Jordan Harbinger bought them. And he said, these things are amazing. And I know Jordan very well. He listens to podcasts, listens to audiobooks, like I do, and you couldn't stop raving about it. Then I heard from somebody else who said, hey, you gotta try these airpods, they're amazing. So Apple knew this would happen once people started using it, and it would promote itself. So if you have a great product that's innovative, that people love, that they're gonna rave about, that's the best marketing possible. Word of mouth is incredibly powerful. I will take a recommendation from a friend of mine that knows me well over any review online or any kind of marketing campaign. So if you can create a great experience for your customer with your product or your service, that's really going to help you get more customers. Another thing that you can learn from this whole experience is that these AirPods, they're not cheap. They're $160, quite expensive for some simple earphones, especially when you compare them to the wired Apple earphones that just plug right into your iPhone, they're $30. So somebody might say, well, that's $30 is $160. Is it that much different? Well, obviously the answer is yes in Apple's case. Apple knows that we love our phones, and we on our phones all the time, whether we're listening to music or playing games or watching videos on Facebook or YouTube. And earphones are used all the time because most people don't want to use their speakers and disturb other people. So they got into a product that they know people use, but they're obviously delivering it in a different way. They're not wired. But the point I'm trying to make here is that Apple didn't become the most profitable business in the world without having high profit margins. There's a lot of technology and there's a lot of hardware and software that goes into this product, but they make a huge margin on that 160. And they know how to price their products. Where people are willing to pay, they go to the maximum level. You can say the same thing about the latest iPhone, the iPhone X. It's $1,000. Are people willing to pay that much money for a phone? Yes. And that is something that you learn through experience, through time, through selling product after product after product and product for decades. They understand how price sensitive their customers are. They also have built a culture of expensive products and expensive buyers, meaning that people that buy Apple products, they're not looking for a deal. Apple products are never on sale. They're looking for the best product, and they're willing to pay for it. So they built that culture, and it's built in. So they price their product well above that they need to because they want to make sure they cover all their margins as well as attract the right buyer. So if you think your product may be a little bit on the cheaper side, maybe you need to up prices. Maybe your business is struggling because your prices are not high enough. Just getting by and just making ends meet, raising your prices is one of the fastest ways to get over that hump. Sometimes an insignificant rise in prices is not that much. It's not going to make a huge difference to the customer, but it's going to make a huge difference to you as a business at scale. But the point here is, is that Apple knows it's worth it. If you have a great product that people love, that people rave about, they're going to pay for it. And being a little expensive puts it a little bit out of reach for people and it makes them want it more. So don't be afraid to price your products for what they're worth.

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To wrap up today's lesson, Apple's AirPods are pretty cool. They're not a necessity item. And you can get by with the earphones that you get when you you get a iPhone. Definitely a want product and not a need product. But if you do listen to audio content like this show, for example, you'll get a lot of use out of them. And that's what Apple is geared to people that understand the value of a great product because they're high end users or they use things quite frequently. My mother doesn't use her computer anymore because she uses her iPad all the time. Even though the iPad's a little more expensive than what she wanted to pay, she gets a lot of use out of it because it's such a useful product. So that's kind of the last takeaway I want to share with you when it comes to this topic. If you can get your customers to use your product more, they're going to value it more. They're going to feel like they got a deal. Has a lot to do with onboarding, has a lot to do with nurturing. So when somebody becomes a member of your community, becomes a buyer of your course, a buyer of your product or service, what experience do they have? Do you encourage them to use your product, show them how to use it, give them tutorials or even give them a call. And not only when they first become members. What about after they become well after, months after? If you can get them to use your product more, feel like, wow, the investment they made, it's going to lower your churn. It's going to lower your refund rate. It's going to make people rave about your products and market for you. All right, that wraps up today's lesson. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did leave us an iTunes rating and review, let us know. Don't forget, every Friday we give away a free ride, a free lifetime membership to one of our courses, one of our paid courses. This week we're giving away Easy Course, which is a $500 course on how to create your own online course in 30 days. And all you got to do is leave us an iTunes rating and review to enter our weekly random draw. It's our way to say thank you for showing us some love. That's it for me today, guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this Great businesses leave great lessons around them. I love to take a look at great successes and some challenges that these businesses have and see how I can learn from them, how I can apply them to my own business in the process. I'd like to share that with you so you can benefit as well. But keep your eye out for these lessons around you with businesses that you admire. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. It's a Q and A Wednesday episode where we answer your question directly. Tomorrow's question deals with how many people you should have in a group coaching program. If you sell group coaching, this is a great, great, great episode to listen to. I'll see you then. Take care.

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