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074 - Present Like Steve Jobs

Welcome to another episode of the Feel Good English Podcast, the podcast that is helping you become more fluent in English and today will help you become more fluent in giving presentations.

Maybe you have to give a presentation in English; that can be quite intimidating. I recently read a book called The Presentation Secrets Of Steve Jobs. Now unless you are from planet Mars, and by the way how are you doing out there my listeners on planet Mars? I assume you have heard of Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple computers, iPhone, iPads all of that.

Well this book is based on the style and techniques Steve Jobs used a in his very effective presentations. If you have ever seen on YouTube or maybe you even saw them live when he would introduce a new product or a new update, it was always very intriguing, he knew how to give a good a presentation. And this book gives some specific tactics on how you can also give a very effective and entertaining presentation.

I am going to give you some of the lessons from Facebook today to remind you you can get transcripts to The Feel Good English Podcast, go to feelgoodenglish.com and learn how you can become a member.

Becoming a member gives you access to all of The Feel Good English Podcast episode transcripts which you can use to improve your English by a factor of a hundred; become one hundred times better with your English.

I am not promising that so without wasting anymore your time let’s get into the book, The Presentation Secrets Of Steve Jobs.

So it is very common either at work or in school eventually we will have to give a presentation. None of us want to give a boring slow presentation, right? We want to intrigue and entertain the audience.

To make your presentation successful you need to plan a storyline in your key message meticulously.; two things there, your storyline and your key message. So build a story around this product, what created this product?

Why is this idea, why is this information, why is this product here? Why are you talking about it?

Tell a story, bring your audience in and let them connect with your emotions and why you’re even here talking about this whenever possible.

The second part of that is a key message, so the key message. When Steve Jobs was going to unveil the iPhone he used a very specific headline and that headline was “Today Apple reinvents the phone.”

Now throughout the talk you are going to use the same message, so when people leave your presentation they will remember that key phrase specifically and be able to share it with other people.

Take the key phrase what you want other people to know, the one biggest piece of information you want them to know and make it to the center, the headline of your presentation and repeat it throughout your presentation.

Smart, right?

Now the next to listen lesson here is on how to avoid the unexpected, things that you’re not expecting to happen during a presentation. Maybe there are some technical issues and the other part is maybe people will ask you a question you aren’t prepared for.

So kind of obvious, if they are the technical issues have a backup plan. If you have a PowerPoint presentation and your computer doesn’t work, which happens too often, make sure you can give the presentation without PowerPoint.

Maybe it is even may a little better if you did because you won’t distract people with your boring slides. So have a backup plan, be ready to handle technical issues.

The second part of that is people might ask questions and you want to make sure that you are ready to answer their questions even if you don’t have all of the answers to their questions.

There is a method in his book called the bucket method. The bucket method is to prepare for questions that you won’t be caught off guard by.

You will use your bucket method to put different questions into categories.

Now these are the most common questions you might receive and each will have a response, kind of a set generic response that you can use if somebody asks a question related to that bucket. If they go deep and very specific and you don’t have an answer to that very specific question at least you will have an answer to the category of question it is and then they can find the information later.

So using key trigger words from questions you can put them into categories and answer them accordingly. So be prepared for all types of questions.

Do you know who does really well with these generic responses?

Politicians. Have you ever seen how they can answer just about any question quickly but often they are not even answering that question?

They have a nice generic response ready to go and they are professional public speakers. So don’t let the unexpected ruin your presentations be prepared for trouble.

Next strategy here is something that will help you get your audience’s attention, to get your audience’s full attention you need to tell them how you will solve their problem. What is their problem? Well whatever your product or idea or message that you are giving is the answer to a problem.

It shows them that they should about what you are talking about.

But first you’re going to talk about the problem, we could almost caused call this the villain, in the book they do call it the villain. The villain of the situation is what causes frustration. Maybe it is a product that is inferior, people don’t like, is causing problems. Get very detailed with what the villain, what the problem is that your audience might be having.

And then your product comes in and saves the day, it is to the hero.

Without jargon or buzz words, explain how your product solves the audience’s problem and is better than the evil villain. This should be the one main thing your audience will remember from your presentation. So make sure you repeat it at least twice how you are there to solve a problem that they might have.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, the music player, he talked about all the other inferior mp3 players and CD players out there that were big and expensive and bulky portable CD players. And then he talked about the iPod which was much better; he revealed the hero.

Now people could get their whole music libraries into their pockets. So make sure you do some research and look deep into how your product, your idea, your message is going to solve and improve the audience’s life.

Next tip here is the not overwhelm your audience, simplify your language, simplify your slides, your PowerPoint presentation, keep it easy to follow, keep it clean. Remember that you want people to pay attention to what you are saying you don’t want them to sit there trying to read what you have written; those are two separate things.

It would be hard to listen to you if you have a lot of things up there written down and it would be very distracting. There is actually research showing that if you watch a video online and you see the video of the person and the type and the text on the screen, you don’t then learn as much because you are trying to watch the person and follow the text. So keep it as simple as possible so people are focused on you and your spoken words.

Most presenters like cramming tons of information into a slide, trying to fill it up showing how much they know; but it actually kind of shows that you know less because you’re not able to talk about it unless it is written down.

Think of Steve Jobs he used very clean, almost Zzen like slides with only a single image or word displayed. And apply the same principle of simplicity to your language as well, speak simply, use plain English or plain language, whatever you are using.

But this helps too if you are learning English if you are not a native speaker, don’t try to sound very academic and smart by using big unintelligible academic words or industry jargon, keep it simple. People want to understand you and not to be impressed by your huge expansive vocabulary.

And the last part of this is use metaphors and rhetorical devices to evoke strong images. You see this a lot. Steve Jobs loved to compare new products to well known ones. For example he used the iPod shuffle is smaller and lighter than a pack of gum. He talked about the MacBook Air, how it would fit into a yellow manila envelope.

So you have seen this used a lot, try to compare what you are talking about with something that is very familiar to most of your audience. So don’t overwhelm your audience, simplify your slides, your presentation, don’t write too much and simplify your language, especially if you are using English.

And I have one more lesson from this book, very important on how you should look and speak during a presentation. And I will share this with you right after a quick message from today’s episode sponsor, Spoken.

So the last tip here is how you speak and look can be more important then what you say. Uh oh! Now is when we need to be able to perform.

According to some studies, non verbal cues and tones of voice are more important than the actual words spoken.

Steve Jobs had a lot of authority when he was on stage. Now I think the best way you can be confident doing a presentation is to prepare sufficiently, make sure you are prepared for that. This is obviously going to help you become confident.

Now you can also at act a little more energetic, a little more positive if you need to. If you feel that you are being too timid, too quiet, boring, step it up a notch and put more energy into what you are saying and if you’re thinking you’re doing it too much you’re probably doing it just right.

One way they talk about in the book is to film yourself giving a presentation so you can see how you move. So practice, practice at home, practice moving your body, practice looking confident, practice putting energy out into the audience because for some people it is hard, but exaggerate just a little bit if you need to.

So again, if you feel like you are falling short of your goal of being an entertaining presenter, try to really go overboard with your energy.

Chances are you will get it just right this way.

And the key message in the book is if you want to present as impressively as Steve Jobs, make your presentation as easy as possible for the audience to understand and remember.

Plan a storyline, bring a story into the presentation and also come up with a key message. Practice, be prepared and also be prepared for the unexpected technical issues, questions you weren’t expecting; you can prepare for those ahead of time.

Alright, the last one was make sure you’re speaking with a lot of energy and if you are quiet you’re going to have to act a little, try to be like somebody you would like to be when giving a presentation. And if you’re thinking that you are doing it too much, you’re exaggerating too much, you are going overboard, you are probably doing it just right.

And the biggest thing, make sure the audience knows how you are going to solve their problem, how you’re going to improve their life, their business, their day, whatever that may be.

I hope this can help you become a Steve Jobs like presenter. At the end of the episode I will talk about some of the vocabulary from today that you might have not understood.

Again, if you want transcripts to this episode go to feelgoodenglish.com.

Also if you want to check out Spoken, the app I talked about a few minutes ago, go to getspokenapp.com/feelgoodenglishtakebusinesslssonswithyou, and conquer that presentation using the right English.

And how about a little joke for you? I can almost guarantee you’re not going to get this joke, so go over to feelgoodenglish.com/presentation where I explain why the joke could be funny.

What did the shy pebble say? I wish I was a little boulder.

Hopefully you can find that funny once you figure out what it means.

Anyway have a great day, have a great week. Until the next episode, feel good.

“Intriguing”. Intriguing means to arouse one’s curiosity or interest. So something is intriguing means it is interesting it is fascinating to you.

Another expression “to be caught off guard by.” This is to surprise someone, especially in a way that makes that person feel confused or uncomfortable. You are at home, you just got out of the shower, you’re getting dressed, somebody knocks on the door wants to come in and they catch you off guard. They surprised you and you’re not really in the situation to see them right now.

“Jargon”. “J-A-R-G-O-N JARGONThese are words that particular groups or professions use that are difficult for other people to understand.. So let’s say you are in IT, you use a lot of words, technical words, words that you use in the industry that other people might not understand. That is called jargon. So when giving a presentation, you try to minimize the amount of jargon you use so everybody can understand you.

Another word, “bulky”. Bulky is to take up a lot of space, typically inconveniently. Let us say you bought a new sofa or a couch and it is very bulky, it is very big it takes up a lot of space in your living room and it is making the living room not so comfortable. That is bulky.

To “cram” or “cramming”, C-R-A-M is to completely fill something, to stuff it almost to the point of overflowing. So let us say you cram your suitcase before a big trip, you are cramming it means you are stuffing it as much as you can and you might not even be able to close it.

We also use to cram if you have a test the next day and you are doing a lot of studying and you have to study a month’s worth of material the night before the test. That is called cramming as well.

“To step it up a notch” is to increase your effort, to try harder. So it is getting busy, guys, this is the time we need to step it up a notch Last one, “go overboard” is to do something excessively. Talking about using energy and making sure that you are putting a lot of energy out into your presentation and if you have to, you can even do it excessively, you can go overboard. Because if you do that is probably the right amount.

See you in the next episode. Bye bye.