I worked at two Apple retail stores over the course of ~3 years. I did sales, worked at the Genius Bar, repaired machines and performed data transfers in the back, and delivered a shit-ton of One-to-One sessions. Though I generally enjoyed myself and remain good friends with many of my former co-workers, I never want to work there again, so here's some supplementary material they evidently don't want me to provide you with.
First, the top comment in this thread is…how to put this delicately…presumptuous, moronic, and generally unbecoming of the quality of discussion I expect on HN.
No. The ~$3M dollars that apple spends on advertising daily are what put Jordan Golson in the position of seeing $750,000 worth of purchases be made in front of his cash register within 3 months of his working there.
Um, cash register? Have you been in an Apple store recently? Where exactly was the cash register again? I must have missed it. And where did the customer procure the computer to place in front of Jordan at the nonexistent register? Oh wait, they're all in the back, a sales exercise would already have to be in progress for a boxed computer to make it out to the front of house in the first place.
Yes, Apple spends a lot on marketing, and they're damn good at it. The same might be said about BMW; Could their salespeople be replaced with mannequins without negatively impacting sales? How about Louis Vuitton? That shit sells itself, right?
The vast majority of customers who buy a computer in an Apple Store are buying their first Mac. In fact, the majority of them have never so much as entered an Apple Store prior to that visit. Perhaps they've had friends recommend a Mac in the past, perhaps they've even made up their mind before they walk in the door, but the average Apple Retail customer is far from a frothing-at-the-mouth fanboy. If I had to select a single word to describe first-time Apple customers (to reiterate, the majority of Apple Retail customers are first-timers—I'll return to this) it would be skeptical. A knowledgeable, approachable sales team is an absolute necessity in that context. (I can think of a dozen instances when a jilted potential buyer wrote an email to a manager complaining that they walked in, had no idea what to do, weren't approached, and bailed—at which point a meeting was called and everyone had to double down on the Warm Welcome.)
The best salespeople at Apple would be the best salespeople wherever they worked. And if they worked somewhere else, they wouldn't have to contend with a sales floor full of people who are not, and are never going to be customers. Think about that for a second. I can't think of another retail chain where every machine on the floor is an internet-connected, totally functional computer. At an Apple Store, they are. Many of them are even loaded up with pro apps, and you're welcome to play as long as you like. Before I worked at Apple, I had no idea how many homeless people had email accounts. I had no idea how interested teenagers were in taking 500 iSight photos of themselves in public. Shit, we had one dude (easily the coolest transient I've ever met) who just came in and danced to YouTube videos. One time he tried to convince me that Michael Jackson composed all the music in Sonic the Hedgehog (which actually turned out to be half-true, in reverse).
Somewhere in all that mess, Apple's sales team identifies the sometimes timid, frequently baffled first-time customer, answers questions, addresses their concerns, and ultimately sells them what is by all accounts an expensive ass computer.
Let's take a step back. Although Apple aren't the volume kings of retail computer sales, they do move a lot of units. Any idea what percentage of revenues are generated inside an Apple Retail Store? Last I heard (it's been over a year since I was on Apple's payroll) that number was less than 15%. There have been rumors for years that Apple operates the Retail stores at a loss as—you guessed it—a marketing expense. How does that figure into your theory?
Now that I have that off my chest, some other points:
-The only people I knew at Apple who made real money had been there from the beginning. Which is to say, they were in high ranking positions that didn't have a direct path to management (basically Genius and Creative) and got in early enough to receive stock options in lieu of bonuses when Apple wasn't doing so hot pre-iPod/Macbook/iPhone/iPad. The sole exception: "Store Leaders," Apple's term for the head manager of a retail store, a gig that frequently entails a six figure salary. Assistant managers are paid significantly less.
-The article is spot-on as far as poaching managers from other firms, though I encountered just as many former Starbucks managers as I did former Gap managers. The only managers I knew who had been promoted up the ranks at Apple were lifers (i.e. in some cases had been employed by Apple from the day the first retail stores opened), and most of them were stuck in Asst. Manager roles while Store Leaders were generally recruited externally. One of my managers had previously managed a MAC Cosmetics store. (Hah! Punny.)
-As you might expect, technical knowledge was rare among managers, in my experience. If you ever have an interaction with a Genius, and they mention that they need to confer with a manager and put on a sour face, they're not faking it. Almost every Genius I've ever met held their managers in absolute contempt.
-Apple doesn't hire for technical knowledge, except in the few roles where it's absolutely required (Again, Genius and Creative, and even some of the Creatives are kind of dopey.) They hire a personality type/range, with the expectation that they'll be able to train employees on technical details as required. If you've ever been to an Apple Store, and are a big enough nerd to be reading HN, you should probably have assumed this point already. If you were bitching in this thread about how Apple Employees aren't knowledgeable enough because you expected them to know even a fraction of what you know, perhaps you're not as perceptive as you think you are.
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