Steve Jobs recent departure from Apple makes me sad.

I wrote my first loyalty book on a MacIntosh computer in the early 90’s. I still remember the thrill of cutting and pasting text and peering at it in, what at the time, was considered an amply-sized window! I told friends that, thanks to the Mac my writing method was to dump text in a chapter file and slowly start to weave the information into a coherent chapter. I likened it to watching my grandmother make biscuits as a child. First she’d pour in all the ingredients, mix them together, knead the bread, roll it out and then cut the dough into biscuits.

I remember writing my first chapter (actually Chapter 3) by “kneading the information” and being amazed and surprised by the unexpected topic connections that emerged. The computer’s ability to let me “text dump” made it happen!

Today, I realize Steve Jobs and his programmers were my book writing “wing men” and I’ll always be grateful.

Steve Job’s Back Story

Born in San Francisco in February 1995 to two unmarried graduate students, Steve was put up for adoption within a week of his birth. He was adopted by a blue-collar couple, Paul and Clara Jobs, and the three of them soon moved to Mountain View, California, a rural town full of fruit orchards. The town didn’t stay rural very long – Silicon Valley was born.

As a kid, Steven Paul Jobs was considered by many as a borderline delinquent. “I would have absolutely ended up in jail,” says Jobs, if it wasn’t for two things: My fourth grade teacher who bribed him with candy and money and a down-the street neighbor who got me hooked on the wonders of electronics by giving him Heathkits (hobbyist electronic kits). These kits taught Jobs about the inner workings of products. He discovered that such things as TV’s were not mysteries, but were the results of human creation.

College was a condition of Job’s adoption but he dropped out of Reed College in Oregon after the first semester. He soon returned to California and briefly took a job at Atari to save money for trip to India. Upon his return, he began hanging out with electronics whiz Steve Wozniak who loved to build personal computers but had little interest selling them. Job had other ideas and the two founded Apple on a shoe-string. Jobs sold his Volkswagon microbus Wozniak sold his calculator.

Catching the wave of the early PC revolution, Apple took off like a missile . Says Job, “I was worth over a million dollars when I was 23….and over a hundred million when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.”

Here’s just a few of Job’s contrarian leadership “rules” that help transform Apple prospects into unshakeable loyalists.

What Not To Do

Says John Sculley, Apple’s CEO from 1983 to 1993, “What makes Steve’s methodology different from everybody else’s is that he always believed that the most important decisions you make are not the things that you do, but the things you decide not to do.”

Simple Drives Different

For Steve, product difference is never the goal. In fact, the first iPod had the hardware for FM radio and voice recording, but these features were not implemented because they complicated the device. In Steve’s mind, it was very easy to create a different thing. What was hard was making the product a simple thing. And this striving for simplicity ultimately became the Ipod’s key difference.

Products as Gravitational Force

Says Jobs, “Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.” Citing Steve Ballmer (the company’s chief salesman) who took over from Bill Gates (the programmer), Jobs explained that people who built the company in the first place—the product-oriented staffers—tend to be replaced in importance with a sales focus. Says Jobs, “Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason…..But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.” Apple lost its product-oriented focus in the 80’s when Jobs left Apple, but he restated the product culture in the nick of time, when he returned.

“I want to put a ding in the universe,” says Steve Jobs. His passion, drive for excellence, innovation vision and more make him a stunning example of a Loyalty Maker.

At your next staff meeting, use the above rules as a jump-start on how your firm can think more like Steve. No telling what loyalty-making ideas may come to mind.

Last week I travelled to Arkansas to “talk loyalty”  with 350 tourism professionals attending the Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism. Most of my audience either owned or managed tourist destinations, lodging, dining or some combination. “Find your firm’s  signature story” was one of the loyalty strategies I shared. Customers learn through your story and come to care about your business because of it.

Jim’s Story

Take resort owner,  Jim Gaston.  This 69 year old can talk Facebook marketing strategies with the best of us.  But Jim’s signature story began more than 50 years ago when his father Al bought 20 acres of White River frontage including six small cottages and six boats.  In 1962, Jim (then in his 20′s), took over the operation. “I didn’t have a clue how to grow the business, so I had to learn,” says Jim.  And grow it he did!

Today, Gaston White River Resort covers over 400 acres with two miles of river frontage and houses  79 “cottages” ( including a two-story with ten private bedrooms) and a fleet of 70 boats with a massive state-of-the -art dock to hold them.  A restaurant, three  nature trails, a fly fishing school, swimming p0ol, tennis court, airstrip and conference lodge complete this one-of-a-kind resort.

Says Jim, “People still visit us who were guests of  Gaston’s back in 1958. Many of them were children then and now visit us with their children.”

Jim’s secret sauce? “It’s a host of  little things that bring people back,” says Jim. For example, if we notice a guest has a flat tire, we get their cars keys and fix it. There are no scared cows in this business.”  Wise words from the man who just this month was named Arkansas 2011 Executive of the Year.

Loyalty Lesson

What’s your firm’s signature story?  It can separate you from your competition while building  a pathway to the hearts of your prospects and customers.  Bottomline, it helps your buyers care about your cause.

Gather your team and brainstorm on your signature story.  Whether you sell healthcare or hamburgers, you have a compelling story to tell.

Capture  it.

Then start sharing it with the world!

Already Have A Signature Story?  Please tell us!

There I am… along with a few other lucky folks getting a rare, behind-the-scenes tour of the famous Dorchester Hotel in London. (I’m in town to present at the European Conference on Customer Management and my fellow speaker and a long-time Dorchester advisor, Christopher Daffy, graciously arranged this amazing opportunity. Thanks Chris! ) While in London, I’m staying at the conference hotel – the Royal Lancaster, a few blocks away – but one of my pals on the hotel tour, customer experience expert and author, Lew Carbone, is a guest at the Dorchester.

Our guide has just toured us through the Dorchester’s impressive culinary facilities including the staff dining area. As Lew and I leave this area, a staff message board catches my eye. “Lew,” I call out with amazement, “There’s your picture and bio!” Lew stops dead in his tracks, stares wide-eyed at the message board and with a big, knowing smile, replies, “So that’s why all the staff here seem to know me!”

Loyalty Lesson: What untapped tools can help your staff deliver exceptional customer experiences? What readily available customer information, shared with front-liners, can mean the difference? Make this a brainstorm topic at your next staff meeting. And get ready for some ‘ah-ha’ ideas to surface!

“Know whose new coffee drinks beat the heck out of Starbucks? … Good ole McDonalds!” she said. “That’s good news. I can’t afford Starbucks anymore!” said another. “Well, I never liked Starbucks coffee anyway. Too strong,” replied another.

This was the start-up conversation in a cancer center’s tiny waiting room as a handfull of patients, all strangers, awaited radiation treatment. While the group conversation started with McDonalds coffee, it soon progressed to other topics of shared interests. I had tagged along with my best girlfriend who is battling blood cancer, and this unlikely setting gave me yet another lesson in the ubiquitous power of word-of-mouth. But it also reminded me that our tendency to give and receive information is “hard wired” into our DNA.

Human beings have an innate hunger for information and are designed to be ‘infovores’ reports Dr. Irving Biderman, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, whose studies on brain activity suggest humans experience real pleasure in acquiring (and sharing) information. This waiting room’s powerful transition from weighty, depressive silence to energized discussion was a testament to infovore behavior! For nearly an hour (the radiation unit was running way behind) we talked, we learned, we shared. The pleasure grew and the time flew. When the long-delayed technician finally came calling, a blanket of good cheer seemed to follow each patient out the door as her name was called. And although the cancer center did not directly orchestrate this ‘event’, the center sure benefitted. No doubt, we all felt better (or, at least, no worse) about that hospital after our “infovore fix.” And that’s despite the fact we had almost an hour wait!

Loyalty Lesson: Want to enhance your customer’s experience and deepen engagement with your brand? Get your customers interacting! For example, savvy firms are establishing online customer communities that enable customers to help other customers. Advises Microsoft’s general manager of community support services, Sean O’Driscoll, “How do you get users to want to stay at your site and engage with others? The only way is peer-to-peer discussion, in their own voices, rather than the company’s voice.”

I spent the summers of my college years on the coast of South Carolina as a waitress. I learned a variety of skills including how to balance and carry out five steak platters on my arm, how to gracefully dive under a table to retrieve a baked potato when it rolls onto a customer’s shoe, and how to pacify a table of anxious, hungry diners who have already waited 30 minutes for their meal when I’ve just been advised by the kitchen that their order ticket is missing.

Sure, there were some hair-raising times, but for the most part, I loved every minute I spent waiting tables. Why? Because it was a fast-paced, customer-intensive job that provided instant gratification (by way of tips and smiling faces) when the customer experience was well delivered. Perhaps my biggest education was learning the art of the “customer dance” – recognizing when to lead the customer and when to follow. Over time, I learned to pick up subtle signals that helped clarify the customer experience I needed to deliver. Were they there to eat and run? Did they want to linger over coffee and dessert? Were small kids at the table in need of a fun distraction? I watched for the customer clues and then tailored my services accordingly.

Ace Hardware has taken the delicate dance of “lead and follow” to a whole new level with its addition of “customer quarterback” positions in its 4,600 U.S. stores. This technique was born out of the $3.8 billion hardware cooperative’s year-long initiative of analyzing ways to best serve customers, during busy stores times, without adding extra staffers. When store traffic is heavy at the Cape Coral, Florida store, for example, customer coordinator, Linda Gillard, gears up to “call the play.” She talks to incoming shoppers, analyzes their body language and then alerts store staff on how to best serve them: Mission shopper with no time for small talk? Browser? Shopper gearing up for a big project? Gillard makes the assessment and then, using an earpiece, radios ahead to staff so they are ready in the aisle to help, when the customer arrives. Gillard knows the danger of too much contact too early and is quick to warn the team, “Browser entering Housewares. No immediate assistance needed. Give them at least 5 to 10 minutes before you approach.”

Loyalty Lesson: Customers come to us with a mindset shaped by a host of factors. We must learn to read their clues and then sculpt our service delivery accordingly. Often times, this will invove a number of staff members. That’s why systems, such as the one Ace Hardware mobilized, provide important pathways for helping frontliners “lead” and “follow” in the all-important customer dance.

Now, about that baked potato that landed on my customer’s shoe…