The Builder and The Seller

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak: Two types of leaders

At the forefront of successful companies, you can expect to find two types of leaders, the builder and the seller, but you have those rare cases where both these skills are found in one person which makes them a joy to watch.

What set Apple apart from other computer manufacturing companies from the onset was their leadership both Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were builders, they invested a lot of time making the actual product but that isn’t what connected the brand to the consumers, it’s the story behind Apple a story no one could tell better than the seller Steve Jobs, this story connected with their hipster audience and everyone stood behind Apple as the start-up with enough courage to take on faceless companies like IBM and another thing that really resonated with the audience is the fact that this product was first produced in Steve Jobs garage, this truly was the American dream, making something from nothing.

Both are of equal importance

A business that has a phenomenal product requires an incredible seller, the same level of enthusiasm put into creating a product has to be reflected when presenting it to the world, you need the consumer to feel how excited the product developers were when the product finally reached completion. It's crucial to ensure there is no disconnect between those who make the product and those who tell the story.

A leader who is able to articulate clearly what a business aims to achieve generally has the capabilities to share how each product can and will revolutionise the world, its good to identify these people early on and keep them as close to the product as possible so the story comes from them naturally, it’s a lot better to have a good seller that has great belief in the product than to have a remarkable seller who doesn’t believe it, the cracks show in the work and presentations.

The fascinating part is that without the builder it's impossible to sell and without the seller, the builder sits and hopes someone will spot their genius creation without them doing all that’s in their power to get the right attention, this goes on to say neither is more important than the other, you need both to operate efficiently.

Avoiding Imbalance

We’ve all seen the TV commercials that sell us homeware, we don’t need half the products but the salesperson is usually so good they have you contemplating if you need an egg cracker or not and the commercials usually have the same individual promoting way more than one product.

The problem here is it’s a sales-driven approach where the slightest improvement has to be presented as a world-changing innovation, this generally has consumers wide-eyed because of how its presented but shortly after using the product the consumer soon realises this is no different to the three other products they have bought through the TVC’s.

This approach is good for mega-companies that aren’t really affected by customer dissatisfaction but rather chase a number and they work tirelessly to get their sales figures up — this is because unlike a company that prides itself in creating and selling their only objective is to sell. You need both the seller and the builder to make something worthwhile