Page 124 - The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo

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Dress Up
Your Numbers

We have sold four million iPhones to date. If you
divide four million by two hundred days, that’s
twenty thousand iPhones every day on average.
STEVE JOBS

n October 23, 2001, Apple launched a digital music
player that would revolutionize the entire music
industry—the iPod. At $399, however, it was an
Oexpensive gadget. The iPod stored songs on a five-
gigabyte drive, but the number itself—5 GB—meant very little to
the average music lover. In his keynote presentation, Jobs made
that number more meaningful by saying that 5 GB provided
enough storage for one thousand songs. While that sounds more
impressive, it still did not provide a compelling value, since com-
petitors were offering devices containing more storage at a lower
price. But wait, Jobs assured his audience, there’s more. Jobs said
the new iPod weighed 6.5 ounces and was so small that it could
“fit in your pocket.” When Jobs pulled one out of his own pocket,
it immediately clicked with the audience. The iPod’s slogan said
it all: “1,000 songs in your pocket.” 1
Rarely do numbers resonate with people until those num-
bers are placed in a context that people can understand, and
the best way to help them understand is to make those numbers
relevant to something with which they are already familiar. Five
gigabytes may mean nothing to you, but one thousand songs

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