Whether he was introducing the latest iPad or delivering a keynote presentation, Steve Jobs electrified audiences with his incomparable style and showmanship. He didn’t just convey information in his presentations; he told a story, painted a picture, and shared a vision. He gave his audience a transformative experience that was unique, inspiring, and unforgettable.
Now you can do it too, by learning the specific techniques that made Jobs the most captivating communicator on the world stage. Using Jobs’s legendary presentations as a blueprint, communication-skills coach Carmine Gallo has mapped out a ready-to-use framework of presentation secrets to help you plan, deliver, and refine the best presentation of your life. You’ll learn how to:
• Create an inspiring brand story
• Answer the one question that matters most
• Paint a specific, memorable, and consistent vision
• Make numbers meaningful
• Deliver unforgettable moments
• Build visually engaging slides
• Master stage presence
• Make it look effortless
• Rehearse effectively
• Have fun
Every chapter provides tools and strategies for you to implement in your next presentation. Using actual presentations from Steve Jobs, Gallo helps you identify and adopt Jobs’s techniques to keep your audience on the edge of their seats, giving customers, clients, and coworkers alike an exciting experience.
With The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, you can take charge of any room, deliver your message concisely and clearly, convey the value of your products and services, and sell your ideas more persuasively than you ever imagined possible. Best of all, you’ll blow away the competition, turning prospects into clients and clients into evangelists for your brand.
Steve Jobs was a hard act to follow but once you start using his techniques in your own presentations, you’ll be hard to forget.
Corby Guenther (verified owner) –
How many iPods do you own?
I ordered the first Windows-compatible model on launch day. I had to wait until then because I didn’t have a working Mac at the time; now I have two of them. Since then, I’ve accumulated new iPods at the rate of roughly one a year. Some day soon I’ll be able to open a small museum featuring all of them and the three inch thick PowerBook that I used in grad school (it came with a whopping 32 Mb hard drive).
Am I a prodigal gadget geek? A spendthrift music maven. Nah. I blame the presentation skills of Steve Jobs.
Scott Ligon (verified owner) –
As a teacher and an author, I lecture frequently. I wanted to know more about presentation structures and web-based presentations in specific. Although “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” was not precisely relevant to my subject, it looked intriguing enough that I purchased it, in addition to a couple of books on “webinar” presentations. Of the three books I purchased, I found to my surprise that “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” was the most valuable by far. I already thought I was pretty good at making multimedia presentations, but the information in this book has really changed the way that I think about and approach lectures and presentations. I am speaking at Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art in June, and reading this book literally inspired me to scrap everything and start again and my audience will benefit from it.
Andrew Siegel, M.D. (verified owner) –
I have always admired the oratorical skills of Steve Jobs, particularly the brilliant Apple keynote speeches and his iconic commencement address at Stanford. I do
my fair share of public speaking and aspire to have the smooth style, brevity and enthusiasm that are intrinsic to the grand master. Carmine Gallo does an inspiring job in deconstructing the key elements of the Jobs’ oratorical techniques so as to understand how to deliver a phenomenal presentation. This book was an easy and interesting read and I found it to be of great utility and immediately integrated the tenets and secrets of Steve Job’s rhetorical skills and passionate style into my own public addresses, whether the audience be one person or an auditorium-full of people. In the following words, I will summarize the salient points made by Carmine Gallo.
Regarding the use of data during a presentation, make it specific, relevant, and contextual. Speak in simple, clear, and direct language. Unclutter and eliminate redundant language, buzzwords, and jargon. Edit, edit, and edit some more. Gallo references Kawasaki’s qualities of an outstanding demonstration: simple, short, sweet, swift and substantial.
Make an effort to stroke the dopamine receptors of your audience. After all, your customers are your sales force and the most potent evangelists for your cause.
Dopamine greatly aids memory and information processing and if you can get the brain to put a chemical “post-it” note on an idea, it will be more robustly processed and easily remembered. Powerful terms, when integrated them into your talks, will help release the dopamine, as will an emotionally charged delivery. SJ loved the following zippy words: amazing; incredible; gorgeous; insanely great; coolest; buckle up; put on your shoulder harness; lust object; stunning; miraculously engineered.
Presentation skills are fundamental. It is important to maintain good eye contact and positive body language: an open body without fidgeting or other distracting habits without looking back at slides or hiding behind the lectern. The delivery should vary the vocal volume, inflection, and cadence. Filler words should be avoided and pauses should be used in their place. Unleash your inner Zen by using very few words and plenty of compelling visuals. An energetic delivery is quintessential–passion in the voice, a bounce in the step, and a smile on the face are inspirational. Enthusiasm makes one likable. Share your passion for your, subject and your enthusiasm will be contagious.
One’s speaking style should be informal and casual. Never read slides or turn your back to the audience. Slides should be highly visual with one key idea only. Memorize the one key idea per slide. Practice the entire presentation without notes simply using slides as prompter. Spontaneity is the result of planned practice!
Steve Jobs consistently adheres to the rule of three: the human mind can only consume three points of information in short-term memory. Our brains crave meaning before detail, so deliver the big picture before filling in the details. If you can’t describe your product or service in 140 characters or less, go back to the drawing board. Every great book or movie has a hero and a villain. Consider a presentation in the same way–a theatrical event complete with a protagonist and antagonist. Jobs uses the rhetorical device of raising a question and providing the answer. Your audience is asking what’s in it for me? Don’t leave them guessing. The villain can be a competitor or in many cases a problem in need of a solution.
Most presenters have more information than they can easily convey in a short amount of time. Don’t try to squeeze in everything. Simplify communications. If you want to deliver a Jobs-worthy presentation, avoid content overload. The 10-minute rule simply states that your audience will lose attention after 10 minutes. At the 10-minute mark introduce a break in the action: a video, stories, another speaker, and a demo all can be effective. A prop is anything to take the attention away from the presentation and gives the audience a break from the slides. They appreciate the diversion.
In summary, Carmine Gallo’s book is a winner and will prove to be of great help in improving the communication skills of anybody doing a presentation. I only wish that the presenters at many of the medical lectures that I have attended had read this book!
Andrew Siegel, M.D.
AUTHOR OF: PROMISCUOUS EATING–UNDERSTANDING AND ENDING OUR SELF-DESTRUCTIVE RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD