Can Your Presentations Be as Good as Those of Steve Jobs?

Have you watched some of Steve Jobs’s presentations? Can your presentations be as good? I’d like to specifically suggest that you watch and learn from Steve Jobs because there’s a lot we can all learn from most of these magnificent performances.

Here are some things that I take away:

He opens by asking the audience to question.

Note that I didn’t say he opens by asking a question, because it’s not about the question itself — it’s about getting the audience in the mindset of questioning.

He opens with a series of questions designed to open the audience up to the idea they are about to hear. The questions are the vehicle, but the real purpose is to guide the audience into the talk and move them from the broad and conceptual to the very specific.

“How do you explain when things don’t go as we assume?” he asks, “Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions? For example: Why is Apple so innovative? … Why is it that they seem to have something different?”

In an indirect way, he’s laying out what he’s going to cover, but perhaps more importantly, he’s creating a gradual on-ramp for the listener. 

He wastes no time and immediately sucks you into his speeches. How you ask? By arousing your curiosity with a story.  

He immediately provides a clear problem statement.

He introduces a clear and simple inflection point.

No one likes a happy ending quite much as a good plot twist. The inflection point in speeches is the point at which the journey turns in on itself. The tone changes, the focus shifts, and, typically, there’s one line on which it all hinges.

For Sinek, this point happens at the conclusion of all of his opening questions with a simple statement: “There is something else at play here.”

Then, very deliberately, he pauses, takes a breath, and lets that sink in for a moment: “About three and a half years ago, I made a discovery,” he confesses to the audience. “And this discovery profoundly changed my view on how I thought the world worked, and it even profoundly changed the way in which I operate in it.”

Know when your inflection point is coming. Give it space and emphasize when you deliver it. Use it as a milestone in your speech.

He’s smart with pauses

Many people will advise that you talk slowly when giving a speech, but as Olivia Mitchell smartly points out in this post on public speaking, speed of pace isn’t as important as carefully placed breaks.

Mitchell references Gary Vaynerchuk, who speaks rapidly as a natural state. If you slow down Vaynerchuk, he’ll sound unnatural. Instead, she advises “chunking,” a term she credits to her partner Tony Burnes.

Quite simply, chunking is forcing yourself to break your speech up into chunks of words, making pauses a necessary step before moving onto the next chunk. Sinek similarly is smart with pauses. He knows the talk well enough to isolate the critical pivots and points.

Before you give a speech, build in pauses and performance moments. Keep these moments few and far between for impact, though. Also, underline the lines your audience should be tweeting from their seats and make sure you build your emphasis around the house.

He personalizes his story all the way through the speech. Sure, there’s all the heart-wrenching stuff, but I loved how he discussed his engagement and caps off this story with great use of humor and double entendre.

His pictures and graphics are highly effective and emotive. For example, she uses a stunning picture of a kid when she discusses obesity computer use.  He uses very little text.

He uses vanity in a variety of ways: “incredibly smart.” 

Shows raw emotions and unveils a piece of your soul.

Capitalize on alliteration.

Flaunt a conference rule against pitching for money and then immediately beg for forgiveness. How can you not like a person who can do this?

Exhibits excellent coordination with the person who is advancing her slides.

Be brilliant and buff. The presence exudes power and confidence without a trace of arrogance, fear, or

Animate and emphasize points with powerful hand movements while walking around the stage.

Speaks rapidly—bordering on too rapidly, but be articulate at all times. And slow cadence for the most important points.

Ends with an insanely great call-to-action: “Please don’t waste me.”