God, what a link bait worthy title. I’m both disgusted and impressed with myself at the same time. 🙂
Anyway, I realized something recently.
I’ve only done a few presentations— about half a dozen– since I’ve launched Breather. Some have been big (Google, Le Web, etc.) but others have been tiny.
But as I got offstage the other week at #Inbound13 in Boston, I realized that my style of presenting has changed significantly since Le Web this past June. And it changed because I deliberately wanted to present my company the way Steve Jobs would do it.
The Ideal Way To Do a Product Launch
Why would you want to present like Steve?
Well, as it turns out, if you want to present something you consider revolutionary, then that is exactly how you should be doing it. Why? Because Apple has a tendency to produce products that revolutionize their industries (at least in the public eye).
But here’s the thing. Presenting something that might be revolutionary, but isn’t yet is extremely difficult. You have to create, and fulfill, a sense of anticipation at the same time. In case you’re wondering, this is super fucking hard.
It’s hard because, right at that moment where you’re watching it, you don’t know for sure whether the iPod, iPad, etc. is revolutionary or not. It’s just a gadget.
But by presenting in just the right way, you are able to create that sense of anticipation.
Here, if you’re really interested, watch Steve present the iPod. As you watch it, think about what it is that the iPod became– but more importantly, look at how Steve had to present, that day, for you to assume that to be true.
Sidenote, you’ll also notice here that Jobs is kind of presenting to an audience of stockholders also. He’s saying Don’t worry, this thing I’m doing isn’t risky. It’s a sure thing. But what else is he doing that you should do?
1. Speak slowly
One thing that you’ll notice is that Steve doesn’t have a lot of talking he actually does. He has only a few points, and he goes deeply into them. That’s it.
If Steve is up there for an hour, he can literally present 3 things during that hour. He does it both by speaking slowly and by using the rest of the stuff, below.
2. Translate the technical
1000 songs? Who gives a damn? What I need to know is that 1000 songs is my whole library. I mean, I already know this, but Steve tells me anyway just in case.
He also tells me how fast Firewire is. An entire CD in 5-10 seconds. Man, that’s fast!
This is one trick I learned a long time ago, and I the first time I did an amazing presentation, it’s because of this one tip.
I had presented this super complicated wifi music box (called a HAL) at an event. Nobody cared about it, even though it was interesting, and I was really upset.
So me and my partner stayed up all night while other people were partying and figured it out.
What was amazing about this music box? Well, it connected people to new music.
So I spent 10 minutes onstage repeating the same thing.
We connect music to people. That’s all I ever said, in different ways.
At the end of the presentation, we got a standing ovation– and they bought a box. 🙂
3. Repeat over and over again
It’s amazing how many times Jobs says the same thing.
1000 songs in your pocket.
1000 songs in your pocket.
Did I mention 1000 songs in your pocket?
1000 FUCKING SONGS IN YOUR FUCKING POCKET.
4. Speak to the press (and to the bloggers)
The other thing that’s amazing is that our guy at Apple is basically spoon-feeding the press as he is speaking. He is saying what’s amazing about the iPod because it needs to be explained.
It needs to be explained because lots of stuff isn’t clear until you’ve thought about it a lot. But once you’ve thought about it, you’re like WOW! So he wants to get you to understand the wow.
By doing that, Jobs actually magnifies his presentation. I guarantee you he has 3 talking points he wants the press to mention, and he drills down on them again and again. And again.
Did I mention 1000 songs in your pocket?
5. Compare it to everything else on the market
Steve is very good at telling us just how shitty all the other music player alternatives are.
$75 CD player holds one CD? 15 songs on a CD? That’s $5 per song. That’s the baseline. And then he tells us just how good it is compared to the baseline.
$5 is crazy! We do $0.25 a song. Lol.
In my presentation at Le Web, I do this over and over again. We found a gap in the market and we exploited it. Private space sucks, the only alternative is Starbucks. Starbucks for meetings, Starbucks for phone calls, Starbucks to relax. I said this again and again, to point out exactly what the deficiency was.
The side tip to this particular one is– only enter a market if you can DEMOLISH the competition on their offering. It’s natural.
6. Oh, and one more thing
Oh, I did say five, but I meant more… another thing, you need to actually be in awe of what you’ve created.
This one is actually hard. When I was presenting Breather, I knew that we were presenting something incredible– but it’s something that is only incredible in retrospect. Problem being that revolutionary, when just presented quickly, seems boring.
So, when you are presenting, you actually need to almost be like Wow, I really think this is incredible, and be incredibly happy and almost scared of what you are doing.
If you can do this, man does it ever work. You can hear it when Jobs does it– in his voice, in his tone, everywhere.
Oh, and side note, it helps if you are an egomaniac / in love with yourself too. 😉
7. Now, the final thing.
In everything Steve does, the reveal is at the end. The whole time, you are being told about this great thing, but you haven’t even seen it!
All of Apple’s reveals are at the end of the launch. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even care!
This also helps you focus on the product features, and until you’ve seen it, you are even more open to the suggestion that this product is spectacular.
Ok, now rate me.
Here is my Le Web presentation. Regardless of how you feel about my company, take a look and rate me on how well I did. Then, when you present your cool project, you’ll be able to do even better. 🙂
I studied 5 of Jobs’ presentation days before I did mine, and mimicked his style as much as I could. I think I did alright.
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