Books have the power to change people for the better. For those who read more than others, there is a chance that at some point they will experience a fundamental change in their life because of a book that they read. My business partner, Nancy Price, back in 2011 gave me a book for Christmas that changed my career.
The book was the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. What I learned from reading that book changed the way I view business as an entrepreneur forever. I remember taking that book on my annual ski trip following Christmas to Lake Tahoe. I skied during the day, then I walked from the gondola and sat by the fireplace in the lobby of my quaint little hotel and read that biography. I, like many others, wanted to learn from the story of a guy that changed the world through his products. I was captivated by the book. It was a true story that read like a great novel.
The events of Steve Jobs’ career were truly inspiring to me. The most influential parts of the book, though, were the stories of Jobs’ maniacal and unwavering command of perfection for product software and hardware design. To me he was to the iPhone the same way Bear Bryant was to college football, or the way Tiger Woods is to golf.
Its all about the product! Customers want a great product, period.
Here are a few noteworthy quotes from Steve Jobs:
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
"Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
"I'm convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
"I want to put a ding in the universe."
"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me.”
Of course, we all know now that his company, Apple, became the most valuable corporation in history as a result of his leadership. The first consideration for any business owner should always be the equity value of the enterprise. What is your company worth? This value number will be heavily weighted by the uniqueness and quality of the product that you sell.
In the case of HOTWORX, the product that we sell is THE WORKOUT. I recently scanned several of our franchise locations across the United States to get an understanding of why our customers would leave a five star rating. I read hundreds of reviews. What I discovered is very encouraging to me as a CEO. The things that were most important to our members were, quality of the workout, staff friendliness, convenience and studio experience, and cleanliness. What was interesting, even though our price is very reasonable for what we offer, was that price was one of the least stated reasons for their satisfaction with our product. CX (customer experience) is more important than price.
But by far, the number one reason customers gave 5 star ratings to HOTWORX was for the quality of the workouts, with reviews including the words intensity, motivation and queuing from the virtual instructors, 24/7 availability, and variety for cross-training all mentioned as important.
Modern customers, like those who buy Apple want great products with quality of experience. For HOTWORX, quality of the workouts will always reign supreme.
