It’s Our Business

Project: It’s Our Business

Company: Apple Inc. (retail level)

Scope: Apple Retail, Lincoln Park

Format: Posters/flyers

Project Length: ongoing

Project Retired?: No

My Contributions: posters/flyers

Programs Used: Pages

When I transitioned back to working in a retail environment, I was looking for opportunities to keep my instructional design skills sharp. After picking up on some of the new store initiatives from our store meetings, I partnered with one of our store Leads to talk about getting the team more comfortable with making business connections.

In Apple Retail, each store has an Apple Business team as part of Apple@Work. The Business team is there to work with business customers to help them get the most out of our products and services to support their team.

We’ve helped businesses as small as a two-person photography business to a multi-level corporation get set up with Apple products to help their company. But it can be nerve-wracking trying to suggest a business intro to a potential business customer. They hardly have the time to stop to come into our store, and often they don’t; sending their assistant in their stead. It’s the intimidation of getting someone so fast-paced to slow down and listen to a pitch for something they didn’t plan for, and even for the more extroverted team members, that can be a challenge.

I positioned starting an in-store initiative titled, “It’s Our Business.” I made a few mock posters featuring some familiar faces: my fellow employees. These were employees that I knew had side businesses, or were just comfortable with me creating a theoretical business for them to be apart of. My thought process was that it’s much less intimidating to pitch to a familiar face, and that so often we only think of a stuffy guy in fancy suit when it comes to business. In my time at Apple, I’d say I’ve found that every third person I worked with had some sort of job or business separate from Apple. That really got me thinking that anyone can be a business customer, so it doesn’t hurt to position the business team perks to well… anyone.

I also wanted to make sure these felt really accessible to all types of team members - from introvert to extrovert, working the sales floor or handling back-of-house operations - to cement that one-team mindset. I also included coworkers from my old store because I wanted an excuse to unite the Chicago stores in our market a bit better. And lastly, I had to use Memoji because it’s just so trademark Apple and so cute!

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