The Apple Store experience for your advisory business.

I recently treated myself to an ipad. But what I find myself thinking a lot about is just how nice my buying experience was with it. Add to that, the fact that half the businesses we work with have, at one point or another, asked us to make them the Apple of their industry. A daunting request. But we know what they are asking for when they say it. They want to be a leader, to be different, to be about more than just exchange of services for renumeration, but mostly I think they want to be liked and successful.

So, let’s see if I can share just how an advisory service business could apply “the Apple way,” if it wanted to.

1. Let the customer freely experience the product without obligation.

At the Apple store, I could click around on the ipad as long as I wanted, compare side-by-side the ipad 2 and new ipad, ask Siri questions on an iphone, and look at my site or facebook page on a 26″ Cinema iMac. I could explore on my own or ask questions of any of the helpers around me, all without odd looks or any feeling whatsoever that I shouldn’t be doing it, or even that the focus of my presence should be buying something. The feeling was “come in, enjoy, period. ” I couldn’t help notice the contrast I felt from the Sleep Number store I had popped into in the mall on the way to the Apple store. At the Sleep Number store, I was nearly accosted by a sales person, asked for my contact information and subjected to an inquisition of question about my needs. The contrast was palpable.

2. Show that you care about the details.

The Apple store is very attentive to detail. You, too, should be attentive to detail in your website. It serves as your storefront. Take the time and effort to hone your content and images so they are of the best quality you can manage and be as directly relevant and on-point as you can be. Your ability to be relevant to your audience is determined by whether or not you define it widely or narrowly. If you have a narrowly defined audience, it’s much easier to speak specifically and with more relevance. If you have a broadly defined audience, it’s hard to create resonance because what you write has to be too general to really hit any chords.

3. Be passionate, personal and energetic in your blog posts.

Apple encourages individuality in the way their employees interact with customers. Employees are encouraged to be themselves and not clones of one another. You too can share your passion in your site and encourage your employees to do so as well. Blog posts are perfect for that.

4. Communicate a sense of being busy and maintain a respectful distance.

When I walked into the Sleep Number store, I was the only customer and that made the salesperson seem desperate to me. At the Apple store, there were lots of people and lots of Apple employees. Someone was available every minute to answer my questions, but I didn’t feel breathed on. It was a balance between availability and keeping a respectful distance. Salespeople so often forget about respectful distance. To create this sense in your website, be generous with your content but not demanding in what they have to do to access it. Give it freely, offer opportunities for feedback, but don’t hit them over the head with demands to fill out forms, subscribe or commit to anything. The more you come at them to take their information, the more reluctant they will be to give it. It’s human nature — the more you lean forward, the more they’ll lean back. The more you lean back, the more likely they are to lean forward.

— Chris Quinn, principal and brand strategist

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