Page 28 - The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo

PLAN IN ANALOG 9

Jobs pointed out that many people say iTunes is their favorite
application for Windows. “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to
someone in hell!” 7

DEMONSTRATIONS
Jobs shares the spotlight with employees, partners, and prod-
ucts. Demos make up a large part of his presentations. When
Jobs unveiled a new version of the OS X operating system, code-
named Leopard, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference
(commonly abbreviated WWDC, the annual conference is an
Apple event to showcase new software and technologies) in
June 2007, he said Leopard had three hundred new features. He
chose ten to discuss and demonstrate, including Time Machine
(automated backup), Boot Camp (runs Windows XP and Vista
on Mac), and Stacks (file organization). Instead of simply list-
ing the features on a slide and explaining them, he sat down
and showed the audience how they worked. He also chose the
features he wanted the press to highlight. Why leave it to the
media to decide which of three hundred new features were the
most compelling? He would tell them.
Does your product lend itself to a demonstration? If so, script
it into the presentation. Your audience wants to see, touch, and
experience your product or service. Bring it to life.
I worked with Goldman Sachs investors to prepare the CEO
of a Silicon Valley semiconductor start-up that was about to go
public. The company shrinks chips that create audio sound for
mobile computers. As we were planning the investor presenta-
tion, the CEO pulled out a chip the size of a fingernail and said,
“You wouldn’t believe the sound that this generates. Listen to
this.” He turned up the volume on his laptop and played music
that impressed those of us who were in the room. It was a no-
brainer to use the same demonstration (with a more dramatic
buildup) when the executive pitched the company to investors.
The IPO went on to become a huge success. An investor who
had underwritten the company later called me and said, “I don’t
know what you did, but the CEO was a hit.” I didn’t have the
heart to say that I stole the idea from the Steve Jobs playbook.