50 CREATE THE STORY
Jobs draws a verbal road map for his audience, a preview of
coming attractions. Typically these road maps are outlined in
groups of three—a presentation might be broken into “three
acts,” a product description into “three features,” a demo into
“three parts.” Jobs’s love of threes can be traced back at least
as early as the original Macintosh introduction on January 24,- Appearing at the Flint Center, in Cupertino, California,
Jobs told the audience, “There have only been two milestone
products in our industry: the Apple II in 1977 and the IBM PC
in 1981. Today we are introducing the third industry milestone
product, the Macintosh. And it has turned out insanely great!”^2
Verbal guideposts serve as road maps, helping your listeners
follow the story. When coaching clients to appear in the media,
I always instruct them to create an easy-to-follow story by clearly
outlining three or, at the most, four main points before filling
in the details. When this technique is followed, reporters will
often take extensive notes. If the spokesperson misses a point,
reporters will ask, “Didn’t you say you had three points? I heard
only two.” A verbal road map of three things will help your lis-
teners keep their place. See Figure 5.1.
Figure 5.1 Jobs sticks to the rule of three in his presentations.
ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images