Presentation Secrets Of Steve Jobs: How to Be Great in Front of Audience

(Ann) #1

162 DELIVER THE EXPERIENCE


product he discussed was a new version of iWork. Finally,
the third was a new MacBook seventeen-inch Pro notebook
computer.

 Dress up numbers. As his boss does, Schiller added meaning


to numbers. He told the audience that 3.4 million customers
visit an Apple store every week. To give his audience a relevant
perspective, Schiller said, “That’s one hundred Macworlds each
and every week.”

 Stage the presentation with props. Demonstrations play a


prominent role in every Steve Jobs presentation. Schiller also
used the technique smoothly and effectively. As Jobs likely
would have done had he given the presentation, Schiller sat
down at a computer on the stage and demonstrated several
new features that come standard in ’09 versions of iLife and
iWork. My favorite demo was the new Keynote ’09, which
comes closer than ever to letting everyday users create Jobs-
like slides without an expertise in graphic design.

 Share the stage. Schiller did not hog the spotlight. He shared


the stage with employees who had more experience in areas
that were relevant to the new products he introduced. For a
demo of iMovie ’09, a new version of the video-editing soft-
ware, Schiller deferred to an Apple engineer who actually
created the tool. When Schiller revealed the new seventeen-
inch MacBook Pro, he said the battery was the most innovative
feature of the notebook computer. To explain further, Schiller
showed a video that featured three Apple employees describ-
ing how they were able to build a battery that lasted eight
hours on a single charge without adding to the notebook’s
size, weight, or price.

 Create visual slides. There are very few words on a Steve Jobs


slide, and there were few on Schiller’s slides as well. The first
few slides had no words at all, simply photographs. Schiller
started by giving the audience a tour of some of the new Apple
stores that had opened around the world the past year. There
were no bullet points on Schiller’s slides. When Schiller did
present a list of features, he used the fewest words possible
and often paired the words with an image. You can view the
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