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How to present like Steve Jobs

It’s been 3 years since Steve Jobs lost his battle against cancer, but the charismatic Apple co-founder is still lauded as the world’s greatest corporate storyteller. His keynote presentations have become the stuff of legends, and continue to attract thousands of views on YouTube.

 

How to present like Steve Jobs

Want to transform your presentation from boring to brilliant?

 

Here are 8 tips you can learn from Steve Jobs’ presentation style:

 

1. What’s your message?

Audiences left a Steve Jobs presentation knowing exactly why a product was built and how it solved their problems. Jobs did this by creating a message with a higher purpose. Instead of saying, “We have built an easier-to-use MP3 player, he captured the audience’s imagination with a powerful theme: with the iPod, Apple put “1000 songs in your pocket”.

 

2. Every story needs a tagline.

When Jobs presented the iPhone in 2007, he gave the audience a Twitter-friendly headline. “Apple reinvents the phone” became fodder for editors and bloggers across the world.

 

3. Draw a road map.

Introduce what you’ll be addressing in your presentation in such a way as to build anticipation. The iPhone launch began with Jobs announcing that he would be introducing 3 revolutionary new products, and then revealed that these 3 products were all rolled into one – the iPhone. Boom. Instant anticipation.

 

4. Stick to the Rule of Three.

Jobs broke every segment into 3 parts, and his product demos into 3 features. Narrow your message to its core and build your presentation around the 3 pivotal ways your product solves your customers’ problems.

 

5. Introduce the villain.

Jobs was brilliant at telling the audience what problems they were facing with current technology. In your presentation, create empathy by spelling out how your audience’s problems impact their lives in a negative way.

 

6. Reveal the conquering hero.

Now that you’ve established a problem to overcome, introduce the solution – your hero. While the hero needn’t have to slay the competitor, it must improve your audience’s lives in some way.

 

7. Keep it simple, stupid.

Convert your data and numbers into a tangible language. When Jobs launched the iPod, he didn’t introduce it with engineering specs. Instead, he pulled the device out of his pocket and told the audience that it holds “their entire music collection”.

 

8. Practice makes perfect.

It also makes your presentation look effortless. Prior to launching a new product, Jobs spent weeks rehearsing on stage. He knew every detail of every demo and every font on every slide. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. And then toss the script.