No, not by the company that makes iPhone. Apple Investment Company runs a  investment service in Australia. It’s not easy writing this since I’ve always believed that if you don’t have anything good to say about someone, then don’t say anything at all. Apple Investment Company did have some positives but unfortunately, the overwhelming negatives made the experience regrettable. This page is dedicated to sharing my experiences with the hope that it may persuade you to not use them so that you too will save your money. I need to be very careful with what I say here. I am not a licensed financial service provider so I can only comment on the facts of my dealings with them.

If you’ve had a poor experience with them, please comment.

More updates coming this week.

2. Earning a degree helps, but isn’t necessary. Without a degree, it’s more important to show you have the skills with demos. It also means an employer can use the lack of degree as an excuse to pay you less. A tafe course or short course will help with legitimacy as an alternative

3. Get a professional email address for applications. warez32, bigdog, ladiesman69 is kind of dodgy sounding. I know it’s fun, but I don’t know you yet, and I use everything I can to try to judge you quickly.

4. Make your CV easily accessibly. I don’t have Microsoft office. Don’t save as docx. Host your CV somewhere without ads. Google Docs would be a good choice.

5. Get some real paid experiance. It doesn’t matter where from. Get an odesk account and apply for jobs on there http://freelanceswitch.com/finding/how-to-win-any-job-on-elance-odesk-or-gurucom/

6. Contribute to an opensource project or even start an opensource project of your own. Obviously include this in your demo portfolio and CV.

7. Teach yourself about SEO and mention this in your CV and demos. This is very important to companies now. You may find you really enjoying it. If you do, choose a niche to try to rank a keyword for as a demonstration.

Design competitions are Fun
Usually, I prefer training and keeping in house employees. I make exceptions when it comes to design. The only way you can review 100’s of creative ideas from many talented designers, within a number of days and for zero cost, is by hosting a design competition.

Make me want to lick the screen
Remember how Steve Jobs once said that his new O.S. made him want to lick the screen? (I didn’t care. I’m a PC.) That’s how I want to feel when I review the submissions for my design competitions on 99Designs. I use 4 tips to help do this.

1. Motivate the top designers

You want the very best designers to enter your competitions. A large prize helps, but you also need to motivate them. If there is a chance there may be future work for the designer. Say so. They like this. If the winning design will receive good exposure on a popular website or signage, say so. Good Designers know this is impressive for their portfolio.

Case Study: New website design for CarHire.com.au
The Competition: http://99designs.com/contests/20132
Competitors: 164
Prize: $600

2. Leave lots of feed back

The competitors need to know if they’re on the right track. Give feedback at least once a day.

Case Study: Design a logo for CaptainCompare
The Competition: http://99designs.com/contests/25547
Competitors: 28
Prize: $295
This competition didn’t actually receive many entries. Luckily with lots of feedback, it was rescued and a decent logo won the prize. As mentioned in Tip#1 the designer received extra work to design a super hero

3. Mention three Logo design rules

If the competition is for a logo, copy and paste these three rules in to your competition specifications. Makes a big difference.

ONE. must look good big and small
TWO. must work good in greyscale
THREE. keep it simple. No photos in the logo.

Case Study: Logo for RoadTripMania.com
The Competition: http://99designs.com/contests/28055
Competitors: 361
Prize: $460

4. How do you want to feel when you see it?

Sing to yourself the M.J. song “The way you make me Feel” as you write down some words describe how you want to feel when you see the logo. eg. Fun, Safe, Dominating, Friendly, Happy, Trustworthy.
This makes it WAY easier for designers to know what you’re looking for.

Case Study: Krow
Prize: $450
Entries: 102
I used words like “fun, happy, talkative”. There was no winner in this contest since the project was put on hold. Therefore, I did not have to pay the $450 prize.

These rules have helped me run design competitions on http://99designs.com that are fun with results that have exceeded my wildest expectations.

If you’re about to run a design competition, tell me about it so I can mention it here and tweet about it.

Here is a private message that I wrote for the VroomVroomVroom staff magazine today.

Every time you exceed a customers expectations, you make VroomVroomVroom more money. This means we can give out more staff bonuses and buy more cool stuff for the office! So how do you exceed customer expectations? Well, you’re a smart person. We wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t. You’ll need to be able to think of ways to exceed customer expectations on the spot. Some examples might be:

• randomly sending a car rental customer a gift in the mail without warning
• meeting them at the airport and lending them your babyseat that you don’t use anymore
• compensating them when the car rental companies don’t represent themselves as well as they should
• program some code to tweet the customer with the cheapest price of the car rental search they just did
• ask if they have anything interesting planned for the weekend. When they answer, don’t change the subject. Continue the conversation.
• ask them what their favourite thing to do in their city is. Then ask them if you can quote them and their answer to add to our website.

You need to answer a question. How can you exceed your customers expectations?

CARTOON FRAME OF COMPETITION COMING TO TOWN
One day, competition arrived from a large neighboring town and Dink and Swish were worried about losing business. They needed to act quickly.

CARTOON FRAME OF HAPPY SWISH WITH CASH
Swish decided to advertise at the local pub where his warrior customers  hang out. He paid 10 gold coins to advertise on the pubs notice board. His advertising paid off! For 10 gold coins of advertising, he made 15 gold coins in return! 5 goats profit!

CARTOON FRAME OF DINK HELPING WARRIORS
Meanwhile, Dink took a different approach. He decided to help the warriors at the pub with their swords and sword fighting techniques.

CARTOON FRAME OF NEW ADVERTISERS AND HAPPY PUB
Before long, the new competition in town noticed the advertisements and decided to advertise their swords at the pub too. The pub was loving it! They soon ran out of advertising space so the costs went up and up and up and Swish was now only breaking even on his advertising.

CARTOON FRAME OF WARRIORS TELLING WAR STORIES USING DINKS SWORDS
Meanwhile, Dink still wasn’t spending anything on advertising, yet everyone knew him or at least knew someone who knew of him. Even warriors visiting from out of town heard about the war stories that were fought using Dinks swords. As Swish watch Dink complain to the bar management about advertising costs, he smiled, knowing that people talking about his swords and being passionate about using his swords was the greatest source of long term sales he could ever have.