--- title: How Steve Jobs Got His Employees to Believe in Apple description: And why it's important to be transparent with your team canonical: https://time.com/4068347/steve-jobs-apple-employee-strategy/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-14T15:05:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:40:42.482Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How Steve Jobs Got His Employees to Believe in Apple og:description: And why it's important to be transparent with your team og:url: https://time.com/4068347/steve-jobs-apple-employee-strategy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaaa3e6c82d757e91/6987788fe53ababc6f4d6e27/iphone-social-apps-facebook-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock photos Social Apps iPhone Facebook og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Steve Jobs Got His Employees to Believe in Apple twitter:description: And why it's important to be transparent with your team twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaaa3e6c82d757e91/6987788fe53ababc6f4d6e27/iphone-social-apps-facebook-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Steve Jobs Got His Employees to Believe in Apple > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Jonathan Brill / Quora](https://time.com/author/quora/) ## Jonathan Brill / Quora Oct 14, 2015 3:05 PM UTC  Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME by [Jonathan Brill / Quora](https://time.com/author/quora/) ## Jonathan Brill / Quora Oct 14, 2015 3:05 PM UTC [_Answer_](https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-my-employees-to-market-our-company-through-their-personal-social-media/answer/Jonathan-Brill)_by_[_Jonathan Brill_](https://www.quora.com/Jonathan-Brill)_, sales and marketing executive_ _,_ _on_ [_Quora_](http://www.quora.com/)_._ **To get employees to spread the word about your company and product they have to buy into it.** If they feel obligated to pitch or share and they’re not bought in, they will sound inauthentic and lame. The effect will be that people will intuitively feel, wow, if the employees don’t sound excited about this, who possibly could be? For some companies with a really exciting mission or beautiful products, this might seem easy. But that’s never the case, not completely anyway. If you encounter a company whose employees are zealots you should assume that the company has done what you will have to do: market effectively to their employees. **When Steve Jobs assumed control of Apple in 1997 he went on a lengthy and deliberate campaign to re-market Apple to it’s employees.** From [John Lilly](http://lilly.tumblr.com/post/11230723028/steve-jobs), an Apple employee at the time: --- > “” --- There are lots of ways to market to your employees and there are really good reasons to do so. But one thing that doesn’t work so well is the kind of gimmicky bulls— you see in social media ad campaigns. After all, the audience inside the company is far less swayed by gloss. These people are making it. They work with the CEO and the decision makers on a day to day basis. If they’re not bought in, it won’t matter how cool or viral your YouTube ads are. This should not be hard to do. After all, you’re already paying them, they’ve chosen to work for you, and if your product is one they can use hopefully they’re using it. Some non-trivial percentage of them are actually making it and if it’s not a total tragedy they should be reasonably proud of their efforts. Some others are probably responsible for selling or marketing it, in which case at the very least they should be interested in highlighting the material and pitch they came up with. There are a number of things employees can get behind: how great the company is to work for, how great the products are to use, how noble the mission is, etc. Ideally, every employee is bought into all of it. But that’s not necessary. Different people are motivated by different things. But if most of your employees aren’t bought in on any of it, it may be that your company and/or product isn’t good; or just as likely that you need to be more thoughtful and committed to explaining it. **One necessary element for marketing to employees and making them zealots is transparency.** I believe this is true for marketing both inside and outside of companies, but whereas I think gimmicky fakery can work to an extent on potential customers, I think transparency is the _only_ real option internally. Coming into the internet age, the canonical introduction to transparency as a new age method of communicating internally and externally was popularized by the [The Cluetrain Manifesto](http://www.cluetrain.com/). One of my personal favorites, it includes gems like: --- > “” --- **The formula behind that Jobs speech to employees in 1997, and the basic dialogue between all good leaders and their employees everywhere, is the same.** 1. Tell them how you feel 2. Tell them why you feel that way 3. Lay out a plan of action that a) they can play a part in, and b) is not overly complex or obviously stupid If you’re a person who has a track record of getting things done, doing these three things will _move_ people. Once bought in, you won’t be able to stop them from pitching your products and your company to everybody they care about. They’ll be passionate about you, why you’re doing what you’re doing, and their part in your plan to do it. _This question originally appeared on_ [_Quora: How do I get my employees to market our company through their personal social media?_](https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-get-my-employees-to-market-our-company-through-their-personal-social-media) _More from Quora:_ * [What are some tips to best utilize the first 90 days of any new job?](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-tips-to-best-utilize-the-first-90-days-of-any-new-job) * [How can I be more charismatic?](https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-more-charismatic) * [How quickly can I make $100k in Silicon Valley without an engineering background?](https://www.quora.com/How-quickly-can-I-make-100k-in-Silicon-Valley-without-an-engineering-background) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4068347/steve-jobs-apple-employee-strategy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4068347/steve-jobs-apple-employee-strategy/"},"headline":"How Steve Jobs Got His Employees to Believe in Apple","datePublished":"2015-10-14T15:05:22.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:40:42.482Z","description":"And why it's important to be transparent with your team","url":"https://time.com/4068347/steve-jobs-apple-employee-strategy/","keywords":["Advertising","Social Media","marketing","Careers & Workplace","Management","Startups","career"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaaa3e6c82d757e91/6987788fe53ababc6f4d6e27/iphone-social-apps-facebook-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jonathan Brill / Quora"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaaa3e6c82d757e91/6987788fe53ababc6f4d6e27/iphone-social-apps-facebook-3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TIME.com stock photos Social Apps iPhone Facebook","caption":"TIME.com stock photos Social Apps iPhone Facebook","creditText":"Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/advertising/","name":"Advertising"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4068347/steve-jobs-apple-employee-strategy/","name":"How Steve Jobs Got His Employees to Believe in Apple"}}]}] ```