Why those Steve Jobs Presentation Skills still rule the Pitch Room

Why those Steve Jobs Presentation Skills still rule the Pitch Room Why those Steve Jobs Presentation Skills still rule the Pitch Room Image Source: iStockWATCHING  archive YouTube clips of the late Steve Jobs pitching products scarcely does justice to the effectiveness of his style. The  iconic  Steve Jobs presentation skills  were  a mainline to the very purpose of  the product, whether it was the Apple Mac, the iPhone or the iPad.“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”Naturally, being a great pitch person is no substitute for having a solidly conceived, well-run and planned business.  However, if you have a potentially game-changing product or service that you can’t deliver, then you have problems.That’s why Steve Jobs was such a master of the presentation game. His style seemed to be an expression of the elegant Apple brandingâ€"simple, unfussed, relatable.Jobs once famously remarked that “it takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions”.Think of the tagline in Apple’s 1977 marketing brochure: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.A Steve Job presentation  in particular, and the Steve Jobs presentation skills in generalâ€"retain the vital  feel and flavour of something written to huge  length, and then ruthlessly stripped back to the bare bones of what mattered. For Jobs, simplicity was everything, particularly in design.One underlying and subtle signature motif of Jobs’s presentations was the rule of three. And in this spirit, here are AGENT’s three reasons  why, even after his death, the iconic  Steve Jobs presentation skills continue to cast a long shadow over anyone  who stands up to make a pitch for  a new product or idea.Check Price   (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 1. He  Wanted  to Change the WorldSteve Jobs  once famously remarked:  â€œFor the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”He had  a simple conviction, but his ambition was boundlessâ€"the product that you design can change the world. That is, to say the least, inspirational and infectious.Jobs’s  carefully conceived and meticulously prepared presentations each  had a subtle underlying narrative structure in which  Apple provided  the most elegant and simple solution to  something about the world that was needlessly complicated.2. Simple Presentations for Simple SolutionsJobs  almost never leaned on numbers. He would use data  only to illustrate something relatable. When he was launching the iPod, for instance, he referred to the  gigabytes capacity, but was more frequently  positioning the idea of a product that was so cool that “your whole music library fits in your pocket”.Steve Jobs was a master of manipulation, subtly unleashing a battery of metaphors, rhetoric and commonplace figures of speech.In his  2007 Apple Keynote presen tation for the iPhone in 2007, he often uses words that are engaging and relatable, such as “cool”, “neat”, “magic” and “beautiful”, to describe the product.  You shouldnt  be afraid to follow his example, although remember  that every word of this particular presentation was uttered without so much as an “um”, or an “er” or those other phrases that betray someone who is winging it.  Practice.Jobs’s  insistence on simplicity also extended through to his slides. He rejected bullet points outright, in favour of bold, one-line per slide statements. Often, he used high-resolution photographs with only the most minimal textual accompaniment.And as we’ve seen above in relation to the launch of the iPod, the key slides were often one wordâ€"the name of the product in that elegant Apple Garamond typefaceâ€"on a black background.Complex data slides were rare. Why? Probably due to concern about  information overload. When confronted with a text-heavy slide, audienc es will tend to read ahead, and not listen to you. And also, if they are reading and listening to the same information, they also remember far fewer things than if they’d received it either in one form (written data) or another (aurally).  The presenter is, in many ways, attempting to engage the audience’s hearts and emotions. That’s why it’s important to keep the slides as simple as possible. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); 3.  The Big RevealReturning  to the original iPod launch, towards the end of that pitch,  Jobs  created suspense  by showing a succession of slide pictures, without text description, of various angles of the device.What is the payoff for suspense? The final slide. “Boom!” he says, “That’s iPod… and I happen to have one right in my pocket, as a matter of fact. There it is… right there.”Another key and textbook Jobs ‘Big Reveal’ moment occurred at his presentation for the MacBook Air in 2008.Check Price  No  element of any Steve Jobs pitch  was left to chance.  He  obsessively rehearsed for presentations. It has  been said that his every word during these keynotes was meticulously scripted and rehearsed.It is said that chance favours only the prepared mind. And looking back on Jobs in action, you’d better believe it.Pitching is essential. You cant wing it, and  we’re reminded time and again of Jobs’  famous dictum about simplicityâ€"it is hard work. It’s a lesson not just for the pitching room, but for every aspect of your business. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Infographic The Life of Apple Founder Steve JobsInfographic: Funders and FoundersDownload this infographic.Embed This infographic On Your Site!Image Width%pximg src=http://www.agent.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Steve-Jobs-infographic.jpg alt=Why those Steve Jobs Presentation Skills still rule the Pitch Room - An Infographic from Agent width=100% class=infographic_embedder /p class=infographic_attrEmbedde d from a href=https://www.agent.media/lead/3-reasons-steve-jobs-owned-pitching-room/ target=_blankAgent/a/pimg src=http://www.agent.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Steve-Jobs-infographic.jpg alt=Why those Steve Jobs Presentation Skills still rule the Pitch Room - An Infographic from Agent width=100% class=infographic_embedder /p class=infographic_attrEmbedded from a href=https://www.agent.media/lead/3-reasons-steve-jobs-owned-pitching-room/ target=_blankAgent/a/p