by Carmine Gallo, the
communications coach for the world’s most admired brands. He is a
popular keynote speaker and author of several books, including the
international bestsellers The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. His new book, The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty is the first book to reveal the secrets behind the stunning success of the Apple Retail Store.
Whether you use Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple
Keynote to deliver presentations, there is plenty you can learn from
the Apple presentation that kicked off this week’s Worldwide Developers
Conference 2012 (WWDC). Several executives took to the stage to unveil
new MacBooks, the new version of the OS X operating system (Mountain
Lion), and iOS 6 for mobile devices. Each of the featured Apple speakers
are skilled presenters, but the first 30 minutes of the keynote offers
an MBA class in presentation skills. Here are eight techniques you can
adopt to improve your very next presentation.
Grab Attention
Your audience will give you about 90
seconds to grab their attention. If you’re boring right out of the
gate, your audience will tune out and it will be very difficult to
re-engage them. Apple always has something up its sleeve. At WWDC 2012
the audience expected to see Apple CEO Tim Cook open the keynote.
Instead they got Siri, the iPhone personal assistant. Siri warmed up the
crowd, literally, with jokes. A new and improved Siri was part of the
presentation so it made sense that Apple would choose to shine the
spotlight on it. Start strong or you risk losing your audience.
Avoid bullet points
There are no bullet points in
an Apple presentation. There are photos, images, and words, but no
bullet points. A slide filled with text and bullets is the least
effective way to deliver information. Here’s a trick, though. If you
want to show a list of items (such as features, benefits, technical
specs, etc), place an image on the left of the side and the list on the
right. Apple spokespeople do this frequently in every presentation. When
Tim Cook provided an outline of the conference, his slide displayed an
image of a WWDC badge on the left and a list of five items on the right.
If you need to list items, place them to the right of an image and
animate each item separately so they drop in to the slide one at a time.
Put numbers into context
Tim Cook and other Apple
speakers deliver statistics by putting the numbers into a context that’s
relevant to the audience. For example, Cook said there were 400 million
accounts on Apple’s App Store. More impressive, he said, “That makes it
the store with the largest number of credit cards anywhere on the
Internet.” This is a technique that Cook uses very effectively. In
presentations and interviews, Cook will rarely deliver a statistic
without adding one sentence that puts into perspective. Other
Apple executives do something similar. When vice president Phil Schiller
introduced the new MacBook Pro, he said it was just 0.71 inches.
Instead of letting the audience figure out how thin that is, Schiller
placed his finger alongside the computer and said, “It’s thinner than
my finger. Never has there been a notebook this thin, this light, and
this powerful for personal use.” Don’t just deliver statistics; put them
into context.
Keep number slides simple
Cook delivered a lot of
impressive statistics: 400 million accounts on the app store, 650,000
apps, 225,000 apps for the iPad, 30 billion apps downloaded, etc.
Whenever Cook mentioned a statistic, the number was the only text on the
slide. When Cook said that 30 billion apps had been downloaded from the
app store, his slide read: 30 Billion. Avoid the temptation to clutter
the slides with extraneous information. Also, think visually when
delivering statistics. Cook said that Apple had written $5 billion worth
of checks to developers. When he delivered the statistic, the slide
showed the image of a check made out to ‘developers,’ in the amount of
5,000,000,000.
Important numbers should stand on their own.
Share the stage
Cook does not dominate the
presentation. Instead he introduces several characters in the narrative.
In the first thirty minutes of the presentation the audience heard from
Cook, Phil Schiller, several app developers, and Apple designer Jony
Ive (Ive and the developers were shown in video clips). Several other
executives demonstrated new products later in the live presentation.
Would you watch a movie with one character? Of course not. Then why
would you expect an audience to enjoy a presentation with only one
person? If you can’t physically share the stage with another person from
your company, introduce them via video or encourage some audience
participation. A presentation shouldn’t be all about you.
Create headlines
Apple doesn’t wait for bloggers
to decide what the headline is. Apple creates and delivers the headline
for each of its products. It’s not hard to find the headline. Each new
Apple product and key features is summarized in one sentence and the
sentence is repeated in the live presentation and on the home page of
the Apple Web site. For example, when Phil Schiller introduced a new
MacBook Pro he told the audience that Apple engineers had “re-envisioned
the consumer notebook.” The Apple.com home page immediately reflected
the new message with the words, “Introducing MacBook Pro. It’s a whole new vision for the notebook.”
Don’t wait for someone else to position your product. Do it for them.
Deliver wow moments
Molecular biologist John Medina at the University of Washington
Medical School likes to say that the brain does not pay attention to
boring things. An Apple presentation is never boring. Instead of simply
demonstrating the new MacBook Pro, Phil Schiller built up to the moment
by showing a slide with a notebook computer draped under a black curtain
(it reminded me of 1984 when Steve Jobs built up the excitement for the
first Macintosh by pointing to table on the center of the stage with a
computer hidden in a black bag). “This is the most beautiful computer we’ve ever made,” Schiller said when he finally revealed the computer. Don’t be boring. A little drama never hurts.
Inspire your audience
Like his predecessor and
mentor, Steve Jobs, Cook doesn’t just sell products; he likes to inspire
his audience, too. After delivering several impressive statistics, Cook
said, “What we do together is much more important than any set of
numbers could ever reflect. Our goal has always been to do great work
and to make a difference in people’s lives. Nothing makes us happier
than to see hundreds of thousands of developers around the world using
our hardware and software to create and share their latest, greatest
ideas.” Cook then introduced a video showing examples of unique apps
making a difference in people’s lives (apps that help the blind explore
their world or school children in India learn anatomy). At the
conclusion of the presentation, Cook remarked, “We are so proud of these
products. Ultimately, it’s why people come to work at Apple, to create
products that empower people, to make a difference. The products we
make, combined with the apps you create, fundamentally change the
world.” A good presentation delivers information effectively. A great
presentation inspires.
Source: Forbes Online Magazine
kumaran nadaraja
No comments:
Post a Comment