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PUBLIC SPEAKING

A Steve Jobs Presentation Hack to Mesmerize Your

Audience 5 ways to give people a moment to remember.
BY CARMINE GALLO, KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND AUTHOR, 'FIVE STARS: THE COMMUNICATION SECRETS
TO GET FROM GOOD TO GREAT'
@CARMINEGALLO

Steve Jobs. Getty Images

On my first day of journalism school, instructors taught me to find

the "wow" in a story: the surprise that makes people pay attention.

I remembered that tip years later when I wrote The Presentation Secrets of Steve

Jobs. The Apple co-founder intentionally designed a wow moment in every

major product launch, many of which were products he used like props in a

magic show.

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In 2001, Jobs could have simply introduced the first iPod by showing photos of

the gadget. Instead, Jobs reached into the small pocket of his jeans, took out

an iPod, and said, "It's like carrying 1,000 songs in your pocket."

Steve Jobs intuitively understood something that you can use to mesmerize

your audience. The key is to give them something to remember. Whether

you're delivering a presentation virtually or in person, your listeners will not

recall every word you say. They'll remember moments.

Great communicators intentionally design memorable moments by using

some of the following tactics.

1. Tell stories.

Humans are wired to pay attention to stories, so tell more of them. Personal

stories are among the most impactful. There's a reason why Steve Jobs's 2005

commencement address at Stanford University is considered so iconic that

CNN asked me to analyze it.

Jobs told three personal stories from his life. Many people remember Jobs's

story about taking a calligraphy course in college, despite not knowing what

he'd use it for. Years later, Jobs applied what he had learned to build the

Macintosh, the computer that revolutionized desktop publishing with fancy

fonts. 

Share personal stories that are relevant to the theme of your presentation. 

2. Offer surprising statistics.

Many science journalists who cover complex topics like climate change are

trained to put data into context to catch the readers' attention.

For example, scientists announced in August that greenhouse gas

emissions hit their highest level ever. But writers know that a reader's eyes

will glaze over without a startling statistic that puts the event into context. So

writers picked up on one number: The concentration of gas in the atmosphere

that causes climate change is the highest it's been in 800,000 years.  

Find one number that grabs your audience's attention.

3. Create analogies.

Our brains are wired for story and for metaphor. We compare unfamiliar

things to things that we know.

Billionaire Warren Buffett is an expert at using analogies to make complex

financial topics easy to understand. One of Buffett's most famous quotes is

about how he picks winning companies: "I look for economic castles protected
by unbreachable moats."

A well-chosen analogy speaks volumes. 

4. Plan surprise reveals.

Sometimes a wow moment is as easy as packaging content creatively to reveal

a surprise.

In 2007, Steve Jobs announced that Apple was introducing "three new

products": a new iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator. He repeated

the list several times. Finally, he said, "Aren't you getting it? These are not

three devices. This is one device and we call it the iPhone."

Your message doesn't have to change; just change the way you express it. 

5. Show photos, images, and videos.

We remember pictures and images better than we remember words. In the

neuroscience of persuasion, this phenomenon is called the "picture

superiority effect." Use it to your advantage.

For example, in my presentations, I incorporate a lot of video in the form of

short clips from an interview I've conducted with a famous entrepreneur or

CEO. When I play the video, I can tell that everyone's eyes are glued to the

screen. You will lose your audience's attention if your presentation slides look

too much alike. Break it up with photos or videos.

Above all, people do not pay attention to boring things. Give your

audience something to remember, like a story or a surprise they didn't expect. 

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JAN 11, 2022

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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