Why Apple didn’t stop at the iPod!

 Are you like me? You love sports, but hate commercials. This makes watching any live sport in the USA extremely difficult. However, after reading the book Building A Story Brand by Donald Miller I began to study the commercials to see which businesses do a great job of making me the “hero” in their story. Interestingly it is very few businesses, most of them just spend the time talking about how great they are.

One commercial caught my attention and it wasn’t because they “story branded” so well, but Mercedes Benz C-Class made a commercial about the pursuit of excellence.

(link to commercial at the bottom)

They start the commercial by showing the old C-Class and explaining that it was “ahead of its time”, suggesting that they had the best car on the market. The C-Class is still around today, but it is a completely different car.

Why would the best car on the market be different now? Because as Mercedes explain;

“To be the best, is to never, EVER stop making it better”

Mercedes Benz and the C-Class are in the constant pursuit of excellence, it is the same reason why Apple didn’t stop with the first iPod or iPhone, Nike didn’t stop with the first running shoe and why Google is constantly adding new features to be the best search engine in the world.

How are you applying this concept in your small business?  

So, you have a successful product or service. Guess what, better products and services are always coming. If you are not focused on the pursuit of excellence every day, you are going to be left behind, not only by your customers, but also by your team.

I get to interact with a lot of small business owners on a day to day basis and too often I hear them talking about tactics, fads and short-term solutions to try and get more customers, or to make more money. The way this short-term thinking resonates with me is imagining two athletes who want to get paid more;

One athlete asks “How can I get more sponsors?” By taking a short-term approach they will look for tactics such as; changing their hairstyle, finding a new relationship to get more media attention, coming up with crazy video ideas to go viral on social media.

Another athlete asks “How can I become the best?” To do this they may look for the best trainers in the world, they find the best recovery techniques to be able to train more than the competition, they spend as much time as possible improving their weaknesses.

Initially the first athlete might get more attention, they may go viral, but eventually they have to go out and perform and when they do the best athlete in the world will get the biggest sponsors.  

As a small business owner, I can understand this pressure, but when you look at the most successful businesses like Mercedes, Apple, Nike and Google they are constantly asking the question;

“How can I make this better for my customers?”

NOT “How do I make more money?”

Money is vital to a business, but when you chase money you will often miss excellence, whereas by chasing excellence, the money will often follow.

At OxFit & OxWork we are constantly working together to challenge the status quo, push boundaries and chase excellence.  

Come and join the team.

📧Email: “Excellence” to ant@oxwork.co

Here is the commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxgflhCA9rA