Put Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs into Practice with Toastmasters

What makes Carmine Gallo's Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs great compared to other books on presenting is that here you can see all the tricks you have to master shown on an example of a single performer. The message: "Look, if Steve Jobs could do it, why not you?"

Reading about presentations and giving them are two different things. In this post, I'll show you why Toastmasters are a great place to practice every single trick (except for one) from the Steve Jobs repertoire.

All Blockquotes

are quotes from the book Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. The headings in this post are identical with titles of the chapters in the book. If you don't have it yet - I recommend you reading it!

Scene 1: Plan in Analog

This means: Don't fire-up your PowerPoint before you have a clear idea of what you want to say! Speaking in Toastmasters will nudge you even a bit further. You will go analog only. From preparation to delivery of the presentation. At least for the first couple of months.

It's the story, not the slides, that will capture the imagination of your audience.

There is no better way to understand that slides are just a tool, not the presentation itself - than learning to present without slides. In Toastmasters, this is what we do. And so will you.

Scene 2: Answer the One Question That Matters Most

When I am in the audience and someone goes to take the stage, I always ask myself: "Why should I listen to that girl? What does she have to say that I should pay attention to? Am I wasting my time here, maybe I could be reading a book instead?" Everyone in the audience ask themselves similar questions. Chances are that even you do - when you're not the one presenting, but the one listening. So when you are presenting - you'd better have a good answer.

Nobody has time to listen to a pitch or presentation that holds no benefit.

The advantage in Toastmasters is that after the presentation, there is a full room of people whom I can ask: "Was my speech useful to you? How exactly?" When I ask this question, sometimes they (Toastmasters) tell me that they liked my speech (you know, Toastmasters are nice). But if they can't recall anything how it could be beneficial for them - this is my feedback. It means I failed. Next time, I need to improve.

Scene 3: Develop a Messianic Sense of Purpose

Nancy Duarte wrote something along the lines that "There is no point in giving a presentation unless you want to change the world (at least a little)". People in Toastmasters are hungry to learn. You know, having to overcome one's fear of public speaking, that's quite good barrier of entry. Only the hungriest stay. Whenever I have a presentation scheduled, I see it as an opportunity to share a nugget of knowledge with them. Find - and share with them - a secret I recently found, that will make them a little better.

Dig deep to identify that which you are most passionate about.

Making lives of my friends better - yes, that's something I can get passionate about. Once you join Toastmasters, you will find out what that feels like. The problem is in our professional lives we are often asked to give presentations on topics that we do not exactly care about. In Toastmasters - the choice of the topic is up to you. Therefore - you pick one that truly matters to you. You will get a chance to try what it feels like to speak with passion - and you will be able to bring that experience back to presenting in your professional life.

Scene 4: Create Twitter-Like Headlines

Most presenters cannot describe their company, product, or service in one sentence. No wonder. They are rarely asked to do so. Whenever I have a speech scheduled in Toastmasters, I have to come up with the title. Constant practice.

Moreover - in Toastmasters we are asked to evaluate presentations of others. We have to be able to summarize a seven minute speech of someone else. In one sentence? Yes, that's the ideal.

Jobs does not wait for the media to create a headline. He writes it himself and repeats it several times in his presentation.

The Twitter-Like Headline of Steve Jobs' Macworld 2008 presentation:

"The world's thinnest notebook"

The Twitter-Like Headline for my new workshop: Dump the Facts, Show Us the Hero: Storytelling in Business Communication. Haha, okay, not as cool as Steve Jobs yet, but I guess you get the idea!

Scene 5: Draw a Road Map

You can practice this whenever you speak, but one role in a Toastmasters meeting is particularly suitable for it: Speech Evaluator. Speech Evaluator gives public feedback to a speaker who spoke earlier that day. The objective of the evaluator is to give the speaker hints to improve their presentation. In a clear, encouraging and engaging manner. The challenge in that is that the evaluator has limited time (three minutes) and therefore cannot analyze the speech in its entirety. He has to select the most important points. For that, the evaluator needs to have his feedback in clear structure. To improve the audience's comprehension: The best the evaluator can do is to outline the structure at the very beginning, before diving into the details.

"Today we are introducing three revolutionary products." - Steve Jobs, revealing the iPhone

Compare with:

"In your next speech, I want you to improve the structure, eye contact and ending."

Roadmap is useful for every kind presentation. But giving immediate feedback in public is a great way to practice it on the spot.

Scene 6: Introduce the Antagonist

"The most advanced phones are called 'smartphones,' so they say. They typically combine a phone plus e-mail plus a baby internet. The problem is they are not so smart and they are not so easy to use. they're really complicated. What we want to do is make a leapfrog product that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been." - Steve Jobs in the 2007 MacWorld Keynote

Even though it's been more than 10 years since Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone, his words make it clear even today, what the problem in the mobile market was back then.

Dark Knight needed Joker to give him purpose. Your need a problem to give purpose to yourself and the rest of your presentation. Finding the right problem to solve and explaining it takes practice. Good news: People in Toastmasters have a lot of problems! Well, they are coming to improve their presentation skills. That's a wide range of skills to master. And most of them - chances are, including yourself - have a lot of gaps. These are great antagonists. One of many I found a few years ago: "I try to put 15 minutes of content into a 7-minute speaking slot. Then I logically end up having to speak at double speed." I followed with a presentation on how to make effective pauses.

There's enough of those gaps to solve for you - in fact, because new people keep coming every week, the possibilities are endless!

Scene 7: Reveal the Conquering Hero

Once Jobs introduces the antagonist of the moment (...), he introduces the hero, revealing the solution that will make your life easier and more enjoyable.

The logical next step after introducing the problem. The key aspect to practice is whether the "hero", or the solution you introduce in your presentation, really worked. Did your audience get it? Did they put your advice to practice? Since I see the people in my Toastmasters club week after week, I get feedback on which of my presentations made a difference and which did not.

You need to know whether the "Heroes" you create really kill the dragons, don't you? You need access to your audience after you shared with them a solution to their problem to see whether it worked.

Scene: 8 Channel their Inner Zen

"The brain is fundamentally a lazy piece of meat," Carmine Gallo quotes Dr. Gregory Berns

If your presentation is too complex, your audience will not understand. No matter whether you give it in the office or in Toastmasters. The advantage with giving it in Toastmasters is that you can ask each person in the room for feedback afterwards. Unlike the crowd in your office, Toastmasters are trained to give it to you.

Last week I gave a speech on how to do research. I asked my friend Pavel what he thought about it. "You know what? It was great, but when you introduced the second story, you completely lost me." Dammit! But hearing him say this, I realized what happened. I wrote the speech as if I would write a blog post - and skipped the step of simplifying it for the ear.

In the office, it is difficult to get feedback like this. Very few people dare to admit that they don't understand something. They are more likely to say that "Your presentation was great!" Even if they have no idea what you were talking about.

You need an audience that is not shy to tell you: "I don't get it!"

Scene 9: Dress Up Your Numbers

"Our business unit will achieve a profit of $120 million this year." Nice! But how much money is $120 million dollars anyway? It is what Excel said, but...

It is hard to imagine $120 million. Unless you work for the CFO office, of course.

But if we dress the numbers up, that's a different story! One of the ways to do this would be putting it as follows: "$120 million profits this year - this would allow our company pay an annual Toastmasters membership to every single citizen of Prague!" Hey, I know what you think, this Lukas guy is a bit Toastmasters geek, but this is what came to my mind. Prague has 1.3 million citizens - and paying a 90 dollars membership fee for the whole city, that is something more tangible.

If you prefer a Steve Jobs example:

"30 GB, that is enough memory for 7,500 songs, 25,000 photos or up to 75 hours of video."

I did not dress the numbers up in my corporate presentations for a very long time, simply because I thought that was "too unprofessional". Playing with dressing up the numbers in my Toastmaster presentations gave me the confidence to bring it back to the office. It can do the same thing for you. After all, your colleagues, managers and directors are humans too. Most probably at least.

Scene 10: Use Amazingly Zippy Words

How often do you think about the vocabulary you use in your presentation? How much time do you spend about using the "perfect" word? I have to admit: I almost never thought about this. And yet - a word can say more than a thousand pictures (if it is the right zippy word).

There is a simple way how Toastmasters can help you with this: One of the roles in the meeting is a "grammarian". This person introduces a Word of the Day that everyone should use in their presentations. (In fact I just used zippy as the word of the day last Monday). More importantly - the grammarian gives feedback on the use of language, both brilliant and terrible.

Learn to impress your grammarian and you will boost your ability to choose the right words for your audience. Want an example? Here is what Steve Jobs said about Apple's OS X operating system:

"We made the buttons on the screen look so good, you'll want to lick them.” - Steve Jobs about OS X Operating System

You want to try that out in Toastmasters before you bring it up in front of your boss!

Scene 11: Share the Stage

Steve Jobs did not give his keynotes all by himself. He often invited guests - partners and experts, to introduce specific products and features.

A Jobs presentation is rarely a one-man play. He features supporting characters who perform key roles in the narrative.

Bringing someone else on stage adds one layer of complexity - first of all, you don't have that other person completely under control. But having others enter your presentation also calls for experience beyond pure delivering presentations. You need to know how to introduce the next person, how to seamlessly hand the stage over to them - as well as take it back once they're done.

If you master this skill - you’ll be in control. If you lack - it - you risk getting into an awkward situation. If you want to practice it - just take the role of a “Toastmaster of the evening”, the Master of Ceremony in a Toastmasters meeting. Do this a few times and sharing the stage will be as casual as brushing your teeth.

Scene 12: Stage Your Presentation with Props

Another "trick" rarely seen in the business world. Understandably so. As if it were not intimidating enough to stand in front of an audience and speak to the slides. Why complicate our lives bringing additional props?

If you asked me to try this for the first time in a high-stakes presentation, I would have said "No, thank you." But in a practice speech in a speaking club? Why not? There, I can even bring a portable bluetooth speaker cube and sing a Britney Spears song if you ask me (in fact, sometimes I do it). You can do the same (you don't have to sing Britney Spears). Once you get the confidence on the "practice grounds", it will be much easier to try it at work.

Scene 13: Reveal a "Holy Sh*t" Moment

Your listeners should not need to review notes, slides, or transcripts of the presentation to recall the one thing.

Ryan Holiday posted in 2015 an article with the title: Tell Me Who You Spend Time With, And I Will Tell You Who You Are.

One of the things that will happen to you when you join Toastmasters - among others a bunch of people who are geeks about presentations - that you will see a lot of presentations. Not just in the Toastmasters meetings. You will start watching International Speech Finals, you will start watching TED Talks not just for entertainment but also for inspiration... And as you will watch many, you will forget most. But there will be a few you will remember. For me, these are Tim Hartford's How frustration can get us more creative (and him playing the opening lines in Keith Jarret's Cologne concert), Dananjaya Hettiaracchi's use of rose (I don't want to spoil it for you if you have not seen it - if you haven’t, be sure to watch it here) or Jaro Kovac's attack on the president of Toastmasters International during a Humorous Speech contest.

The truth about adding a "Holy Sh*t" moment to your presentation is that it will not come out of the blue. You need to see a ton of such moments to get a feeling what works this way so that you can come with one of your own. When you join Toastmasters, you will be exposed to so many presentations, that you will get a big enough sample.

Scene 14: Master Stage Presence

There is never time to practice stage presence. That’s why most people suck at it. They are the masters of the monotone, able to put their audiences to sleep in a matter of minutes.

That’s a shame, because it does not take that much effort to significantly improve it. Toastmasters will give you space for that. With every speech, you will practice one new skill. Including all the aspects of stage presence. Vocal variety? Check. Eye contact? It’s there. Body language? You've got it.

Mastering stage presence is like learning a new dance. It is overwhelming in the beginning. It feels awkward - and looks awkward. There are so many things you need to pay attention to at the same time. Don’t get too nervous about it. In Toastmasters, you’ll take it step by step.

Scene 15: Make It Look Effortless

Jobs unveils Apple's latest products as if he were a particularly hip and plugged-in friend showing off inventions in your living room...

- Carmine Gallo quotes a BusinessWeek reporter. And adds that to Steve Jobs, performing at this level took tremendous amount of practice time.

As the 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking Darren LaCroix says it, in order to become great at speaking you need the following three things: "Stage time, stage time, stage time".

If there is one thing you will get plenty of in Toastmasters, it is stage time. Once you join the club, the Club Officers will keep asking you to deliver a speech, give an evaluation or host the meeting. This is how it works. All you will need to do will be to say: “Yes.”

Scene 16: Wear the Appropriate Costume

Okay, here is one that Toastmasters probably won't help you with (much). But as my grandma says: The exception confirms the rule.

Scene 17: Toss the Script

Steve Jobs appears conversational, but (...) being "conversational" requires a lot of practice.

Has it ever crossed your mind that you blank out during your presentation? It’s an idea from the realm of nightmares, right? Most people feel this way. That’s why most people heavily rely on their notes. In order to toss the script, you have to be confident with your content - but even more importantly, you have to have the confidence to speak off the cuff. You have to be so relaxed on the stage that even if something unexpected happens, you will be able to act on the spot and quickly adjust your presentation to the changed situation.

This is a skill that Toastmasters teach you in Table Topics. There, you go on stage, pick a question (for example: "What would be the first thing you would do if you got the job of your boss?") and after 30 seconds to think - you speak for 2 minutes.

For many people this is the scariest part of a Toastmasters meeting - but once you do it a couple of times, you realize that you don’t need the script - because whenever you forget, you’ll be able to improvise.

Scene 18: Have Fun

Most business communicators lose sight of the fact that their audiences want to be informed and entertained.

It can be difficult to get fun into your presenting at work. Especially when you're not confident with your content or your delivery.

And yet - it's the fun element that every audience hopes for. In Toastmasters, you'll get an opportunity to focus on the "Fun" part of your presentations. Projects focused on humor and entertainment, as well as humorous speaking contests will give you a flavor of what it feels like to make your audience laugh. It is addictive.

Moreover - once you really get comfortable on the stage - you will get more relaxed. You will stop being so all damn serious about it (when you speak every week, giving a presentation becomes a “no big deal” activity) and having fun will become a natural part of the process.

Maybe the last one is the biggest secret of them all. With Toastmasters, giving presentations will become fun for you. When you'll be having fun, you will want to do more of it. When you will be doing more of it - you will become better at it. And as you will be becoming better at it - you will be having even more fun.

If you have just finished reading a book - or a blog post about presenting - and you are thinking: "Wow, this is such an exciting idea, I wonder what it feels like doing this!" - don't hesitate. Doing it beats reading about it every time. Find a club near you and give it a try.

This post was originally published at lukasliebich.com (link). In case you'd like to read more posts like this, have a look at the Top Posts!