Do you make client presentations? “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” by Carmine Gallo should now become essential reading. Steve Jobs has elevated and mastered the art of Sales Presentations. Here are 5 of his secrets;
1. Introduce an antagonist- everybody loves to despise a villain and root for the good guy. Apple started in 1984 with IBM, since then it’s been those other guys. Who can be your antagonist? Perhaps the sterility of the computer or maybe the lack of really different choices CGI provides?
2. Make it easy for prospects to remember your benefits with Twitter-like headlines. Short, sweet and to the point. Apple introduces the MacBook Air and instead of saying it’s really light, has a 13.1 inch screen and has blah, blah, blah, they described it in one sentence, “The World’s Thinnest NoteBook”! Give your clients a unique benefit. United Airlines tagline used (maybe it still is) to be “Fly the Friendly Skies of United”. This implied that all other airlines were being swarmed by the Luftwaffe.
3. Sell dreams not products or services. Steve doesn’t sell the iPod. Steve sells the “transformative experience” of being able to have your music, the way you want it, when you want and where you want it. My goodness, he just showed me a better life. And all it costs me is $149.00. Wow.
4. Eliminate the clutter and focus on a Zen-like simplicity in your presentations. How many words and how many bullet points? Get rid of them. Now, how many pictures are there? Add more. Show visual images, drop the bullet points and speak your story. Nothing has changed since grade school. We all like looking at pictures better.
5. Never let them see you sweat or stumble. Practice makes perfect and makes your presentation look effortless. Practice relentlessly. Practice for a hundred hours.
We’re not selling a campaign, storyboard, layout, picture, video, film, copy, headlines, excel spreadsheets, web sites, SEO, or space. What creative people are really selling is confidence.
Mike Morawski
Chief Instigation Officer
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