It's getting colder and colder outside, so it's tempting to curl up by the fireplace with a good book. One such book could be Shop Different, which discusses the creation of a retail chain. Apple Store. Steve Jobs hired Ron Johnson in 2000 to create Apple Store. In a year when the world's largest retailers feared that brick-and-mortar stores would be overrun by the internet and that everything would be sold only online. The task was far from easy, but Johnson took it on, and when he left 11 years later, Applol, it was Apple Store the most profitable retail chain in the world. All this at a time when the demise of brick-and-mortar retail was predicted worldwide at the expense of the Internet. In the book Shop Different, Ron Johnson describes how he gained Jobs' trust and how together they created a vision for a store that would succeed by doing something completely different from other stores. They didn't want to succeed by selling, but by serving customers. Ron convinced Jobs that this would make people come to the stores Apple Store for the experience and on that occasion, they will spend money there.
Ron theorized that a philosophy of service should be based on something as intangible as love. In his book, he describes a perspective on how it came to be Apple Store and how he and Jobs gradually built something that most people thought was impossible. Also of interest is the section in which Johnson describes his vision of a future where retailers win through relationships, service, and experiences, and describes what leads to success. Shop Different* is not your average business book. It is a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most significant retail successes of our time, a guide for anyone trying to lead a business in an era of technological change, and in the age of artificial intelligence, a profound reminder of what it means to be human.
