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May 29, 2004
Quixtar and Apple
By QBlog in
I love Apple. I'm not a pure Mac geek but I really enjoy Apple's products. The computers. The OS. The peripherals. The little things Apple does to make their products and services a little bit better than the competition. My PowerBook is two and half years old but it still works like the day I bought it.
However, I'm extremely critical of Apple. Their mistakes are numerous and when they happen, I'm one of the first to express my disappointment. Their .Mac service is a waste. They took a free email service and bundled it with .Mac, a fee service. This was stupid for many reasons that I've expressed elsewhere. The iPod Mini, while a huge hit, is simply overpriced. The market has proved me wrong I guess but I refuse $249 for something that's only slightly smaller than its $299 big brother and has less than one third the storage capacity.
Oh, and let's not forget the devious fiend that unleashed the infamous hockey puck mouse that frustrated happy hands everywhere. I'd love to meet the jerk who approved THAT design and summarily beat him with his own shoe. The list of Apple screw-ups is quite lengthy, they're a company and companies make mistakes. I won't even say that Apple is any better than Microsoft, I'll just say that for the most part, they are smarter.
And this relates to Quixtar how?
So, what the hell does any of this have to do with Quixtar? Well, a lot of folks in Quixtar take my criticisms of the business as some sort of personal attack. They're wrong of course but for some reason many IBOs believe that my asking questions, sharing my perceptions and pointing out mistakes means I hate the business that they love. Why do they feel this way? I don't really know. For some reason many Quixtar IBOs take things VERY seriously. Instead of laughing and admitting that the Quixtar Web site is poorly designed some IBOs get huffy, indignant and try to defend the site and say it's wonderful and that I'm a fool for disagreeing. The Apple freaks at least have a sense of humor (check out CARS to see what I mean) when their beloved products are slammed.
Anyway, just a note to you Quixtar IBOs out there who regularly get offended and irate when others criticize your beloved Quixtar — lighten up for goodness sake! I make mistakes. Apple makes mistakes. Quixtar makes mistakes. We all make mistakes. No big deal. The tragedy comes from not being able to be honest about those mistakes and learn from them. Right?
Ok, these were just some of my thoughts on a Saturday night. I'm off to bed. G'night.
Comments
Great Qblog ... remember that people in cults often lose their sense of humour.
I did ... thankfully I have it back now.
Have you read any of Steven Hassan's books?
Poe :)
As a long time Macintosh nut (first learned on the Mac Plus in 1985), the story of Apple has forever frustrated me. You have a company which had a major advantage over its competition (We had true GUI when Microsoft could only cobble together a cover page) and we did nothing but expect people to convert. Needless to say, the company went from 15 percent of the market in 1989 to 1.5 percent of the market today.
It's one of the reasons why I distrust evangelism as a sales tool. If you have to depend on a cadre of true believers to sell your stuff, you're in deep trouble.
Just like Quixtar, in fact.
Interestingly, Apple was *almost* a partner store when Quixtar launched 9/1/99! However, at the last minute, it seems, something was changed (presumably on Apple's end) and it could no longer be done the way Quixtar wanted, so they dropped it. I guess they haven't found enough interest to try again, now that Apple has a more proper affiliate program set up. (The original deal would have been with a local Michigan Apple dealer that had contracted with Quixtar. I don't know whether Apple, Inc. didn't like them going through a dealer, or what the problem was.)
It's a shame, because I think (particularly if the AQMOs could be kept away) that the Apple fans would be a natural type of "network" for the business to spread through; they bring a lot of energy and very "natural" brand marketing to the party. I have wondered why they don't ever even test it, by, say, adding some reasonably priced refurbished eMacs or iBooks to "Hot Deals" or something along that line.
Then again, I understand that Amazon was also *almost* a partner too, but Quixtar wanted Amazon to non-compete. That is, they wanted Amazon to not offer any item in their "Quixtar Partner Store" that competed with Q offerings in catalogs. (I think Q doesn't care about partner vs. partner competition, but doesn't want partner vs. Q.) (AFAIK, this would not affect the normal amazon.com site, just the special site IBOs would be linked to and would receive PV/BV on.) I think Quixtar could have done better to just bite the bullet and link to the regular Amazon site, competition or no. Even if it did hurt the other side of the business a little, the truly worthwhile Q products would survive, and I can only imagine the publicity of being associated with Amazon, particularly in a way that would have allowed anyone that shops at Amzn to get rewarded for doing so.
(Let me state that this is not an offer to solicit any type of wholesale or retail business, nor an offer to sponsor, and I don't speak for Quixtar. These are just my own thoughts.)
Last time I checked, McDonalds would not let a franchisee open a Burger King either. Same principle applies. You can operate another business outside of Quixtar as long as it does not compete with products and services offered throuigh Quixtar.
Actually, Arby's franchisees own Great Wraps and other fast food franchises, so it depends on the company if they allow franchisees to own competing stores...
Very well said!
Posted by: Brian | May 30, 2004 2:11 AM