How Steve Jobs made Values the Secret to Apple’s Success

Marketing starts with your Values:

“Marketing is about values. It’s a complicated and noisy world, and we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us.”

— Steve Jobs, Co-Founder Apple

As founder and CEO of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs was also the company’s Chief Brand Evangelist. He was without doubt passionate about his products and he knew how to create enthusiasm in others for his products (and company!).

You don’t need to work in the marketing department to be a brand evangelist because these people are everywhere. They are true fans of what a company does and they want to share your company’s stories. Brand evangelism should start with founders and CEOs.

If you’re a founder and you’re not clear about who your company is or what you do, then, how can you expect your employees to know? We’ve all seen too many companies not understand ‘who they are’ and in-turn, their staff amd customers don’t have a clue either. More founders and CEOs need to be like Steve Jobs and also be their own Chief Brand Evangelist.

Defining Values, Mission and Vision:

Before we take a closer look at how Steve Jobs and Tim Cook communicated to the team at Apple, it is important to quickly define company values, mission and vision because these tools are building blocks that create your identity, otherwise known as your brand, for your business. These elements are important to attracting and keeping customers because if this identity is attractive to customers it can create value as part of your value proposition.

“Customers relate to brands and the values it stands for more than the tangible aspects of the product.”