Australian graphic designer Greg Bridges found a few days ago an old three-ring binder that a cleaning he did in his studio turned out to be a interesting selling guide to Apple's early days. This manual titled "Apple Training Manual Is it a Machine or a Solution?"
Bridges is in possession of this 1980 training manual, a manual that was designed to help sellers outside the United States to sell their computers. This manual is full of techniques for selling the Apple II as a solution and not as a piece of hardware.
Bridges, who illustrates the covers of science fiction publishers, remembers little of how he came to possess that manual. Remember that someone from the Apple team asked him to design a brochure for a dealer training seminar and that they gave him the ideas manual at that time so he knew what it was about.
According to Bridges:
I find the manual fascinating… The pages are just a gem of Apple marketing knowledge. It is very complete and covers everything you can think of that could be advantageous for Apple in the market. It is interesting to see how they gave the distributors everything they needed to sell solutions, not just hardware.
During years, Apple struggled to find a successful retail strategy to sell your products. It relied on large stores that often put little effort into displaying and promoting products, forcing, in part, the company to create its own global chain of exclusive stores. Currently, Apple has 506 Apple Stores in 25 countries.
According to Bridges, Apple contacted him for his futuristic concepts of technology that he displayed in the illustrations of science fiction books. Besides for Apple, Bridges has also worked for Samsung, Sony, and Kingston.
This manual is composed of more than 250 35mm slides. The first page of the manual is a letter to the distributor signed by the then president of EurApple Andre Sousan. In it, Sousan refers to the manual as a workbook that provides seminar sales techniques that could help each distributor sell "48 additional systems in just 12 weeks."
