Learning Presentation Skills From Steve Jobs Speeches and Keynotes

Presentations are a great way to connect to your target audience. Presentations go far beyond words. They connect you with people mentally and emotionally. However, not all presentations have that capability. Only the exceptional ones can do that.

You know Steve Jobs? Of course, you do. He was the best storyteller the world have seen. The exceptional presenter, the most competitive communicator in the world stage

Unlike other CEOs, Jobs avoid using technical terms during the presentation, instead, he sticks with powerful but simple adjectives like “awesome”, “cool”, “great”, “incredible”, etc.

We covered effective communication skills in our previous blog, in this blog we are learning by looking closely at the presentation skills of Steve Jobs during the keynote speeches.

Presentation go far beyond words. They connect you with people mentally and emotionally

Jobs keynotes presentation is like a musical orchestra, paying attention to even the minutest of details. In his presentation, he doesn’t sell products, he sells dreams and promise of a better world.

What makes him a pro at presentation?

So how did he do it? How did he make it look effortless?

Let’s find out.

Presentation- The Steve Jobs Style

Steve Jobs 2007 iPhone Launch Presentation is used as an example all over the world to teach exceptional presentation skills. His presentations were always a success because he knew exactly what audience need and he delivered it. Steve jobs presentation style consisted of following key ideas.

1. Concise Headings and Theme

Theme meant a lot to Jobs.He always started with a headline which can be easily remembered and is short and comprehensive. The headings were short enough to be posted on twitter. In iPhone 2007 launch, one heading was “Your life in your pocket”. This meant that iPhone has so many features that it almost covers all aspects of your social requirements. But instead of putting up never ending slides. He just put up “Your life in your pocket”.

2. Interesting stories

Jobs always did that. He knew how to interact with audience. He presented himself from audience point of view. He told stories that are commonly experienced by users regarding Apple’s products. Once he said in a presentation “I was sitting in this cafe using iPad and noticed this girl totally checking me out”. His slide consisted of just these few words. While he explained the story himself about Apple’s products getting you girls and absolutely had everyone laughing.

3. His style Was Fewer Words

No matter how long the topic was. Jobs always managed to cover in fewer words.

“Music, calls and internet.” – introducing iPhone

“Thousand songs in your pocket.” – introducing iPod.

“Touch your music.” – introducing iPod touch.

“The world’s thinnest notebook.” – introducing MacBook Air.

He summed up the product in few minimal words and had the audience completely persuaded.

4. Give The Remember-able Statistics

He always had the numbers simplified. In his presentation when he wanted to tell the progress of iTunes, instead of saying that 25 billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes. He said that 15,000 songs are downloaded from iTunes every minute and that’s pretty huge and memorable.

5. Images

He had incredible images in his presentation. There wasn’t too much media. It was just focused on one or two images which were enough and represented the whole point.

6. Fewer Text

The Steve Jobs presentation didn’t had too much text. Every point contained minimum 1 and maximum 4 words.

7. Smiles

His whole presentation was kind of joy because he always continued smiling the whole time. Just have a look at the headshot photo of Steve Jobs.

8. Put on a show

Steve got an envelope from his team during presentation. He showed it to audience and pulled out a sleek Macintosh. The audience were engaged, interested and entertained.

How Jobs Gave Incredible Presentation?

That’s the kind of presentation you’d want to give. Don’t you wonder how someone can give such a presentation? Steve jobs was a pro at presentation. Following points will help you understand how he pulled off such an amazing presentation.

• Steve Jobs was passionate about Apple.
• He loved his brand and had total confidence in it.
• People who worked along him said that Jobs used to rehearse his presentation 200 times before presenting them.
• He used to be up all night with butterflies in his stomach, excited and nervous about his presentation.
• Steve Jobs presentation skills were result of constant effort and passion.

Quick tips to presentation skills

Presentation skills are developed with experience and practice but there are few tips which can help you polish your presentation skills.

1. Show Enthusiasm

It is very important aspect of presentation. Your presentation must reflect your passion. Enthusiastic presentations have the ability to reflect well on audience. When you are enthusiastic about your presentation, audience is likely to share that enthusiasm.

2. Follow Other Presenters

It is quite important to polish your own skills. You can judge better when you are in the audience. You’ll be able to identify the techniques used by others and learn new trends. You can identify what engages audience and what interests them.

3. Get Comfortable With Surroundings

It is quite important that you familiarize yourself with the surroundings. You can do that by arriving early. Get to know the environment so you don’t discover new things while presenting. You know where to step at what time. You would also know if there are any distractions like noisy road nearby so you can take additional measures.

4. Give Exceptional Start

For a successful presentation it is important that you give a rocking start. It’ll influence the audience to listen through the whole presentation. Never tell other people that this part is quite easy or you are going to skip this one. Just do it because you have to and let people listen through it.

5. Stress On Important Points

You can do all the required formatting but it is also important that you repeat and stress on important points by explaining. If you want audience to understand something it is important that you stress on it.

6. Plan Your Body Language Beforehand

It is highly dissatisfying if your body language and your words don’t get along. Therefore, plan beforehand and polish it via practice. Hand movements along with other gestures are quite important for effective presentation. People are more impressed when your body language communicates what you are communicating.

7. Interact With Audience

There is no specific way to do so. You can do it in multiple ways. You can do it via asking questions during or after presentation. You can simply arrange a meet and greet at start or end of a presentation. It gives you all the required confidence and you’ll be able to deliver it more effectively.

8. Use Little Humor

Humor is a great tool when presenting. Use little jokes when presenting as they enhance your confidence and engage more audience.

Final word

Never let go of confidence, enthusiasm and positive energy.

Was he always this good at presentations?, question people ask about oneself when getting ready for a presentation, pitch or a public appearance.

What made Steve Jobs best in not only presentation but anything else he did was the consistency and never settling on anything but perfect.

It’s been 32 years since the first best presentation of Steve Jobs in 1984, and after that what follows, people are still writing books and articles about it.

Since then each of his presentation is better than other. His skill became more mature over time. Hours and hours of practice made Jobs look polished, casual, and effortless.

Jobs and his team work on weeks on the presentation before the keynote. Steve often asked managers and employees and other team members their feedback and changed the presentation. He actually spent full two days before the presentation just to practice. That was what made him look cool and his presentations look effortless.