A small fragment from the summary «The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs» (Carmine Gallo)

Show your audience that there is a problem and give them a solution.

During the planning phase of your presentation, always remember that it’s not about you. It’s about them. The listeners in your audience are asking themselves one question—“Why should I care?” Answering that one question right out of the gate will grab people’s attention and keep them engaged.

The very first thing to do is to create a villain and a hero.

In every classic story, the hero fights the villain. The same storytelling outline applies to world-class presentations. Steve Jobs establishes the foundation of a persuasive story by introducing his audience to an antagonist, an enemy, a problem in need of a solution.

That is why you need to show people a situation where they don’t have your product and it needs to be like a villain.

And then it’s time for you hero. It has to be a solution to a situation stated above. And it has to become the main thing people remember about this situation and about your presentation.

Look at Steve Jobs example. When introducing iPod he used this strategy as well. His villain was that people had a lot of options of listening to music on a move, but all of them were too expensive and inconvenient.

After picturing this image and making sure that the audience has it in their heads, he introduced the hero – iPod.

Nobody really cares about your product or Apple’s products or Microsoft’s or any other companies’, for that matter. What people care about is solving problems and making their lives a little better.

You can read the whole «iПрезентация. Уроки убеждения от лидера Apple Стива Джобса» (online)  here.