10 Ways to Present Like Steve Jobs
Whether you’ve been to a live presentation, seen one on TV or just heard about them, Steve Jobs’ presentation skills are legendary. Yet the tricks he used don’t just make sense; they’re essential if you’re want to make a complex piece of technology (or a service) sexy, desirable and irresistible - like he did.
Here are top 10 tips you can use even if you don’t have sexy Apple technology, an Apple-sized budget or Apple’s stunning on and off stage wizardry.
Steve Jobs told stories, usually about how Apple technology would change the world. Like all good stories, his had a beginning, middle and end. More to the point, they had heroes and villains and lots of drama. Do you remember when he pulled the MacBook Air our of an envelope at Macworld?
2. Start with the narrative
Before you work up a slide or video presentation, work out how best to tell your story. Jobs spent a lot of time thinking, brainstorming, sketching and ‘white boarding’ the story outline. He spent years in the movie business, remember?
Once you’re sure of the best way to tell the story, you can start thinking about the supporting visuals.
Jobs used stunning visuals. He knew the story he wanted to tell, and used slides and props to support the story, not drive it. He didn’t give his audience time to get bored or distracted either. He mixed it up with video clips, demonstrations and other speakers. He added drama.
‘iPod. One thousand songs in your pocket.’ Few of us have products like those Jobs held up to his audience, but we can still craft great headlines: ‘The 4 Words That Will Get Your Email Opened.’ ‘The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines.’ The last two are from
Brian Clark (www.copyblogger.com) who makes a living teaching others how to write.
Every good story has heroes and villains. For Jobs at first it was IBM then it was Microsoft. For you, it might be a persistent problem or influence that people in your market face, or an obstacle that has held back industry progress.
When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, his message was simple: it would get rid of all the irritating problems people had with their mobile phones.
6. Make features tangible
For every statement you make, put yourself in the shoes of your audience and ask: Why should they care? If all you do is talk about speeds, feeds and specs they won’t. You need to relate your features back to pains they feel.
So, what was so great about Apple’s new Time Capsule? ‘All your irreplaceable photos, videos and documents are automatically protected and easy to retrieve if they’re ever lost.’ Ever lost a precious photo? You know the pain.
A story has 3 structural elements: a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the middle is best made up of 3 main points. You may have 10 key points to make about your product, but don’t be tempted. Most people can only cope with 3 points at once, 4 at a stretch.
If you give them too many points, chances are they’ll tune out and won’t remember any. If you think of every application of marketing and selling, it’s always the same: rule of 3. It works.
8. Be passionate, sell dreams
Jobs did what he did with a messianic zeal. As head of Apple, he could have just talked about changing the world, but he actually did. He once said that his goal was not to die the richest man in the cemetery, but to go to bed at night thinking that he and his team had done something wonderful.
You can use similar ingredients in your presentations: passion, emotion and enthusiasm, to connect with your audience’s hearts, not just their eyes and ears.
A lot of presenters, especially of technologies, use lots of numbers and statistics. Problem is, they fade into blur. If you want to use numbers, they have to be memorable. That means using them in a context that makes them tangible for the audience.
For instance, you could talk about 10 terabytes of storage—or say it’s the capacity to hold the entire printed collection of the US Library of Congress. Which of these brings the scale of the number to life?
The rules that apply to great writing apply even more to presentations; you can’t speak with the same formality as you write, and you don’t want to be editing live on stage.
Eliminate clutter, use simple words and short sentences, use short Anglo-Saxon words (not convoluted Latin ones), and use words that create images. The audience sees and remembers far more than it just hears.
Of course, Steve jobs also mastered the other presentation skills of eye contact, body language, gestures, vocal variety, pauses and a lot more.
They’re the tools of the trade, and they make a good speech better, but won’t make a great speech on their own. Conversely, if you have good content, refine it to great content, and bring it to life with outstanding presentation skills, you’ll be more than impactful and unforgettable, you’ll be rare.
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