Rohit Bhargava weighs in on how Apple has accomplished so much, and what you can learn from it. Be sure to check out Rohit's BizBooks conversation here, on his book, Personality not Included.

At some point just about every marketer is bound to look at something that Apple is doing and wish they could have done it for their own brands. There are a few other brands that have this universal admiration from marketers. Coca-Cola is the other notable example that comes to mind. Yet there is a temptation I have noticed to simplify the success of Apple to two things: innovative products and great marketing. I would love to believe this as much as any other marketer, but there is a crucial missing third element that most people never talk about which I think is actually the most important reason Apple has been so successful. They do one thing that almost none of their competitors in any market can do ... they control distribution.

They have their own stores, their own sales people, and their own model for selling their products that cuts out any middleman or competitors completely. The fact that they control distribution offers many benefits:

1. Consistency of messaging - As opposed to other consumer electronics brands that must educate sales people who work for someone else, Apple can control their sales force and the messages that they learn to talk about. As a result, everyone tells the same story about their products.
2. Removes the competition at point of sale - A big issue for many of their competitors is that a customer may come into a store with one product in mind, but can often get steered toward another during the time they are in store. Often they will walk out not with the product they intended to buy, but something that was cheaper, recommended more heavily by the sales staff, or (most frustratingly) another product whose packaging simply was more appealing.
3. Makes upselling easier - When you walk into an Apple store, everything is Apple branded in some way (even the products manufactured by other companies). As a result, you are in the ultimate upselling situation, where you might pay $45 for a connector cable that would ordinarily cost $5 elsewhere. When you are captive in the store and already spending $499 on a big product, who really cares about another $45, right?
4. Retail environment reinforces the community - Apple fans are enthusiastic about the brand and products that they love. Because Apple has distribution focused on their stores, they can create events, features and resources that all reinforce this community. From the Genius Bars to special events hosted at Apple stores, this offers an invaluable marketing asset that few of their competitors can match.
5. Pricing is controlled - It is virtually impossible to find huge discounts on Apple products (particularly new ones). This is another effect of this controlled distribution, that if you are setting the places people buy your products, you can also centrally control the price. Not only does this allow for more consistency, it also gives you the ability to include pricing in your marketing materials and ads because you know its the same price everywhere.

Read the July 30 BizBooks conversation with Jill Lublin, the author most recently of Get Noticed...Get Referrals, here.

* Be yourself. Build on your assets and your uniqueness, because they are really what people want. Clients and customers want you--your special viewpoint or approach; your unique insights or touch--not a weak imitation of someone else. Don’t just be a copycat; find your own voice. Get noticed in your own way, in the manner most natural and comfortable to you. Examine the approaches that others have taken and then follow what feels natural for you. Trust yourself and your instincts.

* Work your business around your life, so that it fits in your life, supports your life, and reflects you. Too many people do the reverse: they work their lives around their businesses. It frequently doesn’t work.

* Think of your clients, customers, referral sources, vendors, and suppliers as your partners and friends ─ as people who want to help you. This means never forgetting that they’re people, not just business statistics, and that you cannot succeed without them.

* Master the art of listening, because when you listen, you truly learn. If you listen, people will want to share their knowledge with you, be with you, and help you. They will consider you their friend and go to great lengths to help you.

* Before you take on any project, make sure that you know exactly what the client or customer wants. Transcribe your understanding in writing to eliminate doubt. It’s hard to satisfy people when you don’t know what they want.

* Be generous. Make giving a central part of your life. Work hard and give your clients and customers more than they expect. Give people your time. Always show your appreciation, and thank and reward those who help. Praise others; and give them the credit and the spotlight.

* Surround yourself with the most interesting, active, and positive people. Hang around with experts, authorities, and people who are smarter and more accomplished than you. Find ways to meet them and be with them because they will open amazing new doors for you. They will support your efforts and add fullness and excitement to your life.

* Constantly strive for excellence and do everything in the best possible way. Build a reputation for continually doing outstanding work and everyone will want to be with and work with you. People who live for excellence will find you.

* Always ask: can I do it better, more interestingly, or more inventively? Challenge yourself to go beyond your prior accomplishments and always to surpass your best. Constantly look in new directions.

* Never compromise your integrity. Stand by your values, but don’t preach. Always be truthful, honest, fair, understanding, and humane. Deliver what you promised when you promised.

Follow these suggestions and you will be noticed. The best people will notice and appreciate you ─ and you will enjoy a wonderful life.

Why do most companies struggle just to meet last year’s revenue numbers? Why do more than 500,000 U.S. businesses fail each year? Growth is a universal and perennial problem. Yet as central as growth usually is, rising energy prices and generally poor conditions have made it more essential and more difficult in 2008 than ever before.

Take manufacturing giant Proctor & Gamble, whose head of global supply, Keith Harrison, told the Financial Times in June: “It’s the toughest operating environment, clearly, that I’ve ever been in.” FT defined P&G’s situation in this eye-popping way: “P&G has forecast that its material and energy costs will increase by $2 billion in the fiscal year starting July 1.” In other words: P&G must either generate $2 billion more in revenue or cut $2 billion in costs just to stay even with this single line-item expense. That’s a mind-bogglingly steep challenge.

The central problem, which faces every business in the world today, is that no company is competing locally or nationally any more. Instead, your business, no matter its size or type, is now competing for products, people, technology, services, delivery, and finance with the businesses, mouths, governments, and cartels of other developed nations as well as powerful emerging economies.

Moreover, this new state of affairs is not a short-term technical correction, but an unprecedented, permanent shift. In the same issue of the FT, Robert Hormats and Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs International underscored burgeoning global demand: “Since 2001, the US share of world GDP fell from 34% to 28%,” they wrote, while the sum of Brazil, Russia, India and China’s GDP rose from 8% to 16%.

In sum: historic overhead structures are just that - history. They have been invalidated by sustained and unprecedented global demand for every commodity - from oil to rice to paper, from skilled labor to capital, from delivery to technology.

To overcome this destruction of your overhead structure your business must start growing immediately and grow at a much higher rate than any time in history.

If business leaders want and need to grow, why aren’t more businesses growing? There are three simple reasons:

1. Self-delusion – “This is just a temporary revenue problem – we’ll bounce back next month – surely next year will be better.”
2. Procrastination – “I’m going to create a growth plan next month – well, it’ll have to be next year because I’m just too busy now.”
3. Lack of know-how – “Truth is, and I hate to admit it, I simply don’t know how to get started – I need an easy-to-use blueprint for growth.”

If you need an easy-to-use and quick-to-implement strategic growth process, you’ve come to the right place.

These four steps, when defined in brief, insightful plain language statements, will enable you to kick-start your business’s growth:

1. WHO is my Core Customer?
2. WHAT is my Uncommon Offering:
3. HOW can I differentiate my business, so more customers will buy from me – not my competitors?
4. OWN IT! How can I use my imagination vs. my money to make my Uncommon Offering well known to my Core Customers with little or no investment in infrastructure or advertising?

Want the longer version? To learn more about creating the Growth Discovery Process for your business, read my book cover-to-cover. Click here now to order THE INSIDE ADVANTAGE, The Strategy That Unlocks the Hidden Growth in Your Business. (McGraw-Hill, November, 2007).

The new challenges your company faces may be daunting, but they’re also surmountable. The key is to find your Inside Advantage, and start growing your business.