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The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

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"As soon as you move one step up from the bottom, your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken and written word." Peter Drucker

"Steve Jobs is the most captivating communicator on the world stage," says the author in his opening sentence. The book is divided into three sections: 1)Create the story. 2)Deliver the experience. 3)Refine and rehearse. The material lacks direct input from Jobs, is overly fawning vs. Jobs, and is somewhat repetitive. Nonetheless, given the importance of the topic and the value of the material, the book is well worth reading. The following summarizes some of its suggestions for planning and preparing a presentation.

1)What is the one big idea you want to leave with your audience? It should be short, memorable, and in subject-verb-object sequence.

2)Identify why you're excited about this company/product/feature, etc.

3)Write out the three messages you want the audience to receive, and develop metaphors and analogies in support.

4)Include a demonstration if your product topic lends itself to such. (Eg. pull the product out of your pocket if it is 'pocket-sized.'

5)Invite partners and customers to participate.

6)Include video clips if helpful, but limit to three minutes or less.

7)Answer the "Why should I care?" that's in the audience's mind. Have a passion for creating a better future.

8)Having an enemy (eg. IBM, Microsoft) helps visualize 'the problem' you're solving.

9)Simplify your presentation (and products).

10)Make numbers meaningful - eg. "Stores 1,000 songs," not "5 GB memory."

11)Don't use 'bullet-point' style visuals; instead, use short phrases that accompany your talk, or pictures.

12)Practice, practice, practice - and ask for feedback.

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs is a book that a speechwriter can love. Gallo quotes from sources such as Nancy Duarte's slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations and Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. He even has a sidebar on JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen's influence on Barack Obama titled, "What the World's Greatest Speechwriters Know."

The message of this book is that Jobs' extraordinary impact is based on his authenticity and his passion for his company's people and products. Most presenters can't claim to be the CEO of an archetypically cool Silicon Valley company.

Neither can they get away with wearing faded jeans, sneakers and a turtleneck onstage. But simply everyone with a product or service that improves people's lives has a story to tell. Gallo's book explains in detail how Jobs presents his story so that his passion shines through and ignites the audience. It's Gallo's claim that anyone can learn how to deliver an "insanely great" presentations.

The "secrets" that make Jobs so effective onstage include the usual stage tips taught by presentation coaches: Make eye contact with the audience, use vocal variety and know the power of a well-timed pause. But the majority of the book analyzes the structure, rather than the delivery techniques, of major keynotes Jobs has given at Macworld and elsewhere over the years. This makes the book of inestimable value for anyone who needs to understand the nuts and bolts of writing a speech.

Performance piece

When Steve Jobs takes to the stage he often tells dramatic stories, so it's appropriate that the book itself is structured as a three-act play. Act 1 tells how to create the story, Act 2 tells how to deliver it, and Act 3 stresses the importance of rehearsal. Gallo adds "Director's Notes" that summarize each chapter (or scene), and he introduces a cast of supporting characters.

Organizing the book in this way also reinforces the importance of telling a story in three parts; of delivering a speech with three messages. In fact, Gallo concedes, the chapter on the effectiveness of breaking a speech into three "could easily have become the longest in the book."

Speechwriters' playbook

The book is a playbook for writing a great speech. Jobs and his team start scripting a speech long before firing up PowerPoint or, in their case, Keynote software. They settle on an attention-grabbing headline ("The world's thinnest notebook"); then they decide on the three key messages; develop analogies and metaphors; and scope out demonstrations, video clips and cameo guest appearances.

Next they develop the "plot" of the speech, setting up an antagonist (Microsoft or IBM in the early days), dressing up numbers and including plenty of "amazingly zippy" words. Finally, they script a memorable "holy smokes" moment that people will talk about long after the event ends. The slides they eventually create are heavy on images and light on text and bullet points.

Live action video

A book alone will go only so far. If you've never actually seen Jobs present in person, then you haven't experienced the "reality-distortion field" his charisma and eloquence creates in the auditorium. Gallo has this covered.

The book's end notes provide URLs for some of the 47,000 [...] video clips showcasing Jobs and clearly demonstrating the techniques discussed. Viewing the videos compensates for the poor-quality monochrome photos of Jobs onstage-the one disappointment in the book.

Learning from his mistakes

To counteract any feelings of inadequacy you might have after watching Jobs deliver a flawless keynote, do a quick search on YouTube for "Apple Bloopers" and you'll see that, even for Steve Jobs, things don't always go well onstage. Demos fail, screens freeze, and he stumbles over words. But as with any masterful presenter, Jobs remains calm.

Even if the speeches you write or deliver are not destined for "insane" greatness, they'll be much, much, better for having read Carmine Gallo's insanely great book.

If you haven't read Presentation Zen, slide:ology and/or Brain Rules, then maybe you will find some interesting bits in this book. I can't complain about the messages in this book - everyone needs to learn how to be a better presenter. But like many business books, the twelve rules here could have been done in a long article instead of a short book. Then at least the author could have embedded video. There's a lot of fluff or irrelevant content (pictures of Jobs, tables of talk transcripts) that do little but pad the book. I'm a big Apple fan, but large parts of this book reads more like a Jobs love-fest than a presentation how-to.

Steve has a luxury most don't: he controls everything about his presentations and has the resources to present in the manner he finds will best get his message across. The vast majority of us do not have those luxuries. While there are a lot of great rules in the book, unless you are presenting something that is highly visual and have the artistic resources to procure vivid imagery, a lot of the particulars of the keynote's will be irrelevant.

There are simply better books on this topic elsewhere.

Too bad I bought the Kindle version. I love writing in margins and highlighting in yellow.

I'm not just reading this book; I'm devouring it. I'm condensing it to use in my work, especially my writing, but also in my presentations. In fact, I'm going to use this stuff in debates at the conference table during a meeting and blow away the people who torment me. They're doomed to humiliation. Toast, I tell you.

The content:

Create stories. Intro the villain. Talk in threes.

Send in the hero to solve the problem and banish the villain. Above all, always remember (and don't ever forget) people don't care about you, your product, your needs . . . as much as they care about themselves. So don't bore them about you, your mission, your data.

So. Give people personal reasons to read your writing, to listen to your presentation, to buy your product. Let them know why they should care. Make them fear to be left out of your influence. Remember, it's all about them.

All this, and I'm only a third way through the book. Forget about Steven Jobs and computers and PowerPoint. This book transcends all those things to get to the elegant simplicity in how to reach out and recruit people to your side. Already, I've hit upon the secret to why writing works, why it sells and why no writing book I know of has ever attacked the problem from Carmine Gallo's POV. So I'm writing about it (elsewhere). It's not about the writer, not about the written or spoken product, even. It's about the reader, the listener, the customer, the you you should care about recruiting.

More than care, I love, love, love the useful insights of this book. I got a book of my own out of this book that's so powerful because it takes its own advice.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Be passionate.

PS: I'm not Carmine's uncle or anything. I don't know him, can't vouch for him (to borrow a line from Fargo). Not a shill here, just a guy who hasn't run across a book this useful in a long time.

In the past few years, I've found myself in situations where I have to (oh my) stand up and (uh-oh) say something to a group of strangers. I'm confident about a lot of things, but when it comes to presentations and talking to a crowd, my skill could be fit on a dime. On the thin edge. (How nervous was I? I once stood up to talk and fainted dead away. Really passed out, flat on the floor. Now THAT was a bad moment.) So, once I decided that it was time to get better at this, it made sense to learn presentation skills from someone whose "get the point across" ability has inspired fandom and business success; I picked up Carmine Gallo's book at the library.

For, no matter what you think of Apple or Steve Jobs, he is probably one of the best presenters of our generation. I've attended a few of his Macworld keynotes; I personally know what it feels like to be wrapped around his little finger. In fact, I'd argue that if you DON'T like Jobs or Apple, you should make a point of reading this book. If Apple has succeeded only through this guy's ability to convince people to buy the (in your view) wrong/over-priced products, then it behooves you to learn how he does it... because just think what you could do if you had the RIGHT product/message to communicate along with these presentation skills.

I looked forward to this book for the advice it might impart for how to improve my "make better slides" and "stand up in front of people" skills, but I got something more: a wonderful, put-it-to-use treatise about good leadership, and passion, and what it takes to make people want to listen to you. Because, obviously, if they aren't listening, they aren't following you or the strategy you propose.

Absolutely, the book delivers on its promise: There is PLENTY of information to help you learn how to improve your presentations, from identifying "the one question that matters most" to using slides as the supporting background to your pitch rather than as the "read off the slide" body of the message. The major Aha! moment for many presenters, I think, is that Steve Jobs never uses bullets. Ever. The book made me realize just how often people try to shove the kitchen sink onto a slide rather than underscore "the point I'll be making as I speak aloud;" instead, Gallo points out, Jobs communicates three things, and doesn't try to identify every product feature. (This also applies to beginners' efforts at writing articles or other essays, though that's not a point Gallo stresses.)

Nearly every presenter's task is examined. Gallo has an entire chapter explaining how to dress up your numbers by using analogies and by putting them into context, for instance. He shows how to control how others perceive your announcement or message by creating Twitter-like headlines. The book is chock-full of examples (not all from Jobs' presentations, so you can see how other accomplished presenters succeed with the same methods) and each chapter summarizes the key messages to take away. Gallo analyzes Jobs' presentations (largely Macworld keynotes; he invites you to follow along on YouTube), showing both Steve's words and Steve's slides. The book is immensely readable. Even better, I figured out what my presentation weakness is, and now I know how to overcome it.

It'd be worth reading this book just for that... but to my happy surprise, Gallo doesn't look only at Jobs-on-stage for his advice on "how to be insanely great in front of any audience." For example, he spends quite a bit of time discussing how Jobs has -- and imparts -- a messianic sense of purpose. Jobs' presentations don't aim to tell you about a product with new features; he communicates to the audience that by buying into his message, they are changing the world. People want to make a difference in the world, Gallo points out, and Jobs helps people believe they're doing that. "Ask yourself, 'What am I really selling?'" Gallo writes. "Here's a hint: It's not the widget, but what the widget can do to improve the lives of your customers. What you're selling is the dream of a better life. Once you identify your true passion, share it with gusto."

This is a really great book. It goes well beyond "how to give a presentation." I think it ought to be required reading for anyone whose job includes getting other people to agree to your strategy and ideas. And doesn't that mean anyone in business?

Length:: 3:45 Mins

When this book came out, it seemed as if everyone was trying to cash in on anything and everything Apple -- knitted iPod holders, custom-designed Macbook sleeves, and of course an orchard-full of books with "i-Something" "Mac," or "Jobs" in their title.

So when Carmine Gallo's "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience" came out, I instantly dismissed it as another glib attempt to turn a quick buck off of the prevailing Mac-mania.

... But I kept hearing from trusted sources, "you have to read this book." As I began to give more presentations professionally, my hunger to know what was current in the literature on public speaking intensified. Finally, seeing a few promotional videos for the book by Gallo himself, who is a communications coach and skilled presenter in his own right, convinced me to make an impulse Kindle buy.

Watch the video for my full impressions, but the quick take is this: Every executive, manager, or anyone else who gives presentations needs to read this. It's tragic how many productive hours are wasted with presentations that fail to inspire, motivate and get results.

Gallo's book provides the antidote for presentations that are boring or confusing, by offering smart tips and examples on how to prepare, refine and deliver your presentation. I like that he fires broadsides at some of the stodgy, stubborn, stiff and formal techniques that I still see some speech coaches advocating -- yuck! Speeches and presentations should be fun or at least engaging for our audiences, not preachy. This book shows you how to make them so.

Here's who I think will want to read this book: you do presentations and are a big fan of Steve Jobs. If that's you, then just get the book.

Now if that's not you, it's probably the "big Steve Jobs fan" part and that's what gives me very mixed feelings about this book. The author is, apparently, a huge Steve Jobs fan, which is okay, but if Steve has any presentation `secrets' they're not in this book. I could find no information in the book that indicated that Steve had anything to do with the book, except lend his name to the title. Instead what this book contains is a good analysis of Steve's presentation style and what he does that makes Steve an extraordinary example of how to do specific kinds of presentations very, very successfully.

There's nothing wrong with that approach to the topic, but if you have read Scott Berkun's book (Confessions of a Public Speaker), then you don't need this one because Scott's book is better. Scott claims no `secrets,' but his book has a lot of practical advice and lots of little surprising tidbits you can use in any kind of presentation, not just the product introduction, marketing pitch or keynote speech. Gallo's focus is on those presentation types because that's mostly what Steve does. That means Gallo's book has much less to offer to all the rest of us who do conference-room presentations and, especially, technical presentations.

That said, Gallo's book is well researched and well written. He pulls in material from Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte and Dr. Medina (Brain Rules) among others. He provides an entertaining and interesting analysis of the factors that make Steve successful. Unfortunately, some of those factors are investing weeks in the preparation and using a many-person staff. Great advice, but my presentation is due three days from now and the staff is me.

If you read Gallo's book you will learn a lot about how Steve Jobs does it and you'll learn some useful things that apply to every presenter and every presentation. But most of us will learn far more that we can apply by reading others, especially Garr's first book and Berkun's book.

Bottom line: on the plus side it's well written and entertaining, but there are better books out there if you are looking for pragmatic help doing the kinds of presentations most of us do.

Today's business environment is so cluttered with messages, pitches, copy-cats, and general information overload that many new and fresh ideas sit in obscurity. The need for individuals to communicate and influence others is more critical in an age of sound bytes and 24/7 headlines.

Presenting your ideas with purpose and meaning is at the heart of Carmine Gallo's book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How To Be Insanely Great In Front of Any Audience. Modeling off Steve Jobs (the icon), Gallo successfully deconstructs the formula for making any presentation a winner. Whether you're objective is to pitch a product or service, or advance your career, the simple elements described in the book can be applied by anyone at any level.

Gallo teaches you how to rise up through the noise. For example, he outlines the back-end processes such as planning with paper and pencil to craft your story. It's not about the beautiful PowerPoint slidedeck - it's about convincing people why they should care about you. Without that (mixed in with strong dose of personal passion) you go nowhere. In the workplace success goes to the evangelist who creates the roadmap that gets everyone's buy-in. This is true of leaders as well as individual contributors.

Gallo goes on to layout how to present information in digestible chunks suggesting the use of headlines and Twitter length messages to create key points that stick. In other words, if you build the experience they will come. Seems simple enough, but many of us trip over ourselves trying to get the task part of our pitch down and overlook the heart of the message. People gravitate to you when you can solve a problem and create a change and that's what Steve Jobs does and so can you.

My review copy of this book is riddled with highlighter and post-its. Every chapter has a plethora of gold knowledge nuggets that I will be practicing every chance I get. True to Gallo's style, the book is formatted with chapter end summaries (Director Notes) and an easy to follow flow and format. If you ever wanted to know how Steve Job captivates crowds, but more importantly, how to harness his techniques for your own success, read this book immediately!

I have been associated with Apple for eight years and have attended many of Steve Job's presentations. This man is a masterful presenter who knows how to lead his audience from dissatisfaction or satisfaction to genuine excitement. The analysis provided by the author captures the essence and specifics of Job's speaking brilliance.

Over the weekend I read through The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience. While not all of it was completely applicable to pastors (as Jobs didn't have to do a presentation or sermon once a week), there was a lot of nuggets in there for any leader or communicator.

The author, Carmine Gallo shared 18 things that Jobs did in his presentations that every communicator needs to do. Here are a few that jumped out to me personally as applicable for pastors.

Plan in analog. Before starting to write a sermon or presentation, know where it will go. Don't start with pictures, slides, graphics, notes or handouts. Research, plan, know the goal and then write it.

Answer the question that matters most. According to Gallo, when people listen to a presentation they have one question, "Why should I care?" While that is not the only question a pastor should answer in a sermon, I believe Gallo is right in that, if you don't answer this question it will be hard to keep their attention when you get to Jesus.

Create twitter-like headlines. This has been written about by Dave Ferguson in The Big Idea and Andy Stanley in Communicating for a Change. Have one main idea you are trying to get across, not 3 or 5 points. One thing, hammer it over and over.

Make it look effortless. Preaching is hard work, it is weighty. But, when you stand up to preach, you should be so prepared that it looks effortless. You should know your topic, be ready, confessed your sins to God, preach with a right heart that it just flows out of you.

Here are a few other things that jumped out:

-Jobs didn't sell products, he sold the dream of a better future.
-Jobs explained the why before the how.
-The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
-Your brain craves meaning before details.
-In a presentation, start with the big picture - the problem - before filling in the details (your solution).
-Always answer, "Why do you need this?"
-Ideas are more easily remembered when associated with a picture.