Expert-Secrets full book

to revolutionize the music industry. Then he pointed out all the “improvement”
offers that promised to get us more of the same. You could buy a CD and get 10–
15 songs. You could buy an MP3 player and get about 150 songs, or use a heavy
hard drive that held about 1,000 songs. Each product improved the one before it,
gave people more songs on one device.
Jobs wanted to create a new opportunity where someone could bring their
entire music library—ALL their CDs and digital music—everywhere they went.
And he wanted people to carry it inside their pockets. That’s when he pulled the
first iPod out of his pocket, showed everyone the new opportunity he created,
and transformed the music industry forever.
He did it again when he made the announcement for the iPhone, and again
when he changed how computers would work forever with the iPad. This pattern
can be seen over and over again in business, religion, sports—anywhere there’s
real innovation in an industry.
In The True Believer, Eric Hoffer says, “The practical organization offers
opportunities for self-advancement…a mass movement…appeals not to those
intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be
rid of an unwanted self.”
Our goal is not to fix what’s not working. Our goal is to REPLACE what’s
not working with something better.
Most often, when people start thinking about the product or the service they
want to offer, they start by looking around at what is already out there, and then
they try to “build a better mousetrap”. When you do that, you are not offering
them a new opportunity, you are offering them what we call an “improvement”
offer.