Steve Jobs (10 page)

In

The Second Coming of Steve Jobs
, Alan Deutschman, who,

as mentioned earlier, was pulled into Jobs’s reality distortion

field, describes a meeting between Jobs and
Newsweek
’s Katie

Hafner, the first outsider to see the new “Think Different” ads.

According to Deutschman, Hafner arrived at Apple’s headquar-

ters on a Friday morning and waited a long time for Jobs to show

up. “Finally he emerged. His chin was covered by stubble. He

was exhausted from having stayed up all night editing footage

for the ‘Think Different’ television spot. The creative directors

at Chiat/Day would send him video clips over a satellite connec-

tion, and he would say yes or no. Now the montage was finally

complete. Steve sat with Katie and they watched the commercial.

Steve was crying. ‘That’s what I love about him,’ Katie recalls. ‘It

wasn’t trumped up. Steve was genuinely moved by that stupid

ad.’ ”
23

Those ads touched Jobs deeply because they reflected every-

thing that pushed Jobs to innovate, excel, and succeed. He saw

himself in the faces of those famous people who advanced the

human race and changed the world.

As a journalist, I learned that everyone has a story to tell. I

realize we are not all creating computers that will change the

way people live, work, play, and learn. Notwithstanding, the

fact is that most of us are selling a product or working on a proj-

ect that has some benefit to the lives of our customers. Whether

you work in agriculture, automobiles, technology, finance, or

any number of other industries, you have a magnificent story

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

about. ‘Once you do, share that enthusiasm with your listeners.

People want to be moved and inspired, and they want to believe

in something. Make them believe in you.

“There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love,” Steve Jobs

once said: “ ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it

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CREATE THE STORY

has been.’ We’ve always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very,

very beginning. And we always will.
”24

D IR EC TO R ’ S N OT E S

 Dig deep to identify your true passion. Ask yourself,

“What am I really selling?” Here’s a hint: it’s not the

widget, but what the widget can do to improve the lives

of your customers. What you’re selling is the dream of a

better life. Once you identify your true passion, share it

with gusto.

 Develop a personal “passion statement.” In one sen-

tence, tell your prospects why you are genuinely excited

about working with them. Your passion statement will

be remembered long after your company’s mission

statement is forgotten.

 If you want to be an inspiring speaker but you are not

doing what you love, consider a change. After interview-

ing thousands of successful leaders, I can tell you that,

while it’s possible to be financially successful in a job

you hate, you will never be considered an inspiring com-

municator. Passion—a messianic zeal to make the world

a better place—makes all the difference.

SCE

SCENNEE 4

4

Create Twitter-Like

Headlines

Today Apple reinvents the phone!

STEVE JOBS, MACWORLD 2007

“Welcome to Macworld 2008. There is something

clearly in the air today.
”1
With that opening line, Steve Jobs set the theme for what would

ultimately be the big announcement of his

keynote presentation—the introduction of an ultrathin note-

book computer. No other portable computer could compare to

this three-pound, 0.16-inch-thin “dreambook,” as some observ-

ers called it. Steve Jobs knew that everyone would be searching

for just the right words to describe it, so he did it for them:

“MacBook Air. The world’s thinnest notebook.”

The MacBook Air is Apple’s ultrathin notebook computer.

The best way to describe it is as, well, the world’s thinnest note-

book. Search for “world’s thinnest notebook” on Google, and the

search engine will return about thirty thousand citations, most

of which were written after the announcement. Jobs takes the

guesswork out of a new product by creating a one-line descrip-

tion or headline that best reflects the product. The headlines

work so well that the media will often run with them word for

word. You see, reporters (and your audience) are looking for a

category in which to place your product and a way of describing

the product in one sentence. Take the work out of it and write

the headline yourself.

39

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CREATE THE STORY

140 Characters or Less

Jobs creates headlines that are specific, are memorable, and, best

of all, can fit in a Twitter post. Twitter is a fast-growing social

networking site that could best be described as your life between

e-mail and blogs. Millions of users “tweet” about the daily hap-

penings in their lives and can choose to follow the happenings

of others. Twitter is changing the nature of business communi-

cation in a fundamental way—it forces people to write concisely.

The maximum post—or tweet—is 140 characters. Characters

include letters, spaces, and punctuation. For example, Jobs’s

description of the MacBook Air takes thirty characters, includ-

ing the period: “The world’s thinnest notebook.”

Jobs has a one-line description for nearly every product, and

it is carefully created in the planning stage well before the pre-

sentation, press releases, and marketing material are finished.

Most important, the headline is consistent. On January 15,

2008, the day of the MacBook Air announcement, the headline

was repeated in every channel of communication: presentations,

website, interviews, advertisements, billboards, and posters.

In Table 4.1, you see how Apple and Jobs consistently deliv-

ered the vision behind MacBook Air.

Most presenters cannot describe their company, product,

or service in one sentence. Understandably, it becomes nearly

Setting the Stage for the Marketing Blitz

The minute Jobs delivers a headline onstage, the Apple

publicity and marketing teams kick into full gear. Posters are

dropped down inside the Macworld Expo, billboards go up,

the front page of the Apple website reveals the product and

headline, and ads reflect the headline in newspapers and mag-

azines, as well as on television and radio. Whether it’s “1,000

songs in your pocket” or “The world’s thinnest notebook,” the

headline is repeated consistently in all of Apple’s marketing

channels.

CREATE TWIT TERLIKE HEADLINES
41

TABLE 4.1
JOBS’S CONSISTENT HEADLINES FOR MACBOOK AIR

HEADLINE

SOURCE

”What is MacBook Air? In a

Keynote presentation

sentence, it’s the world’s thinnest

notebook.
”2

“The world’s thinnest notebook.
”3

Words on Jobs’s slide

“This is the MacBook Air. It’s the

Promoting the new notebook in a

thinnest notebook in the world.
”4

CNBC interview immediately after

his keynote presentation

“We decided to build the world’s

A second reference to MacBook Air

thinnest notebook.
”5

in the same CNBC interview

“MacBook Air. The world’s thinnest

Tagline that accompanied the

notebook.”

full-screen photograph of the new

product on Apple’s home page

“Apple Introduces MacBook Air—

Apple press release

The World’s Thinnest Notebook.
”6

“We’ve built the world’s thinnest

Steve Jobs quote in the Apple press

notebook.
”7

release

impossible to create consistent messaging without a prepared

headline developed early in the planning stage. The rest of the

presentation should be built around it.

Today Apple Reinvents the Phone

On January 9, 2007,
PC World
ran an article that announced

Apple would “Reinvent the Phone” with a new device that com-

bined three products: a mobile phone, an iPod, and an Internet

communicator. That product, of course, was the iPhone. The

iPhone did, indeed, revolutionize the industry and was rec-

ognized by
Time
magazine as the invention of the year. (Just

two years after its release, by the end of 2008, the iPhone had

grabbed 13 percent of the smartphone market.) The editors at
PC

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CREATE THE STORY

World
did not create the headline themselves. Apple provided it in its press release, and Steve Jobs reinforced it in his keynote

presentation at Macworld. Apple’s headline was specific, memo-

rable, and consistent: “Apple Reinvents the Phone.”

During the keynote presentation in which Jobs unveiled the

iPhone, he used the phrase “reinvent the phone” five times.

After walking the audience through the phone’s features,

he hammered it home once again: “I think when you have a

chance to get your hands on it, you’ll agree, we have reinvented

the phone.
”8

Jobs does not wait for the media to create a headline. He

writes it himself and repeats it several times in his presenta-

tion. Jobs delivers the headline before explaining the details

of the product. He then describes the product, typically with a