Steve Jobs (26 page)

USE “AMAZINGLY ZIPPY” WORDS
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decided that every facet of the company should have some

whimsy associated with it. He started with job titles. Cranium

employees are allowed to make up their own titles. For

example, Tait is not Cranium’s CEO. He is the Grand Poo-Bah.

No kidding. It’s on his business card.

You might think it’s silly, but I’ll tell you that when I first

walked into the company’s Seattle headquarters, I was hit with

a wave of fun, enthusiasm, and engagement the likes of which

I had never seen before and I have never seen since.

D IR EC TO R ’ S N OT E S

 Unclutter your copy. Eliminate redundant language,

buzzwords, and jargon. Edit, edit, and edit some more.

 Run your paragraphs through the UsingEnglish tool to

see just how “dense” it is.

 Have fun with words. It’s OK to express enthusiasm for

your product through superlatives or descriptive adjec-

tives. Jobs thought the buttons on the Macintosh screen

looked so good that you would want to “lick” them.

That’s confidence.

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SCENNEE 1

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Share the Stage

Don’t be encumbered by history. Go out

and create something wonderful.

ROBERT NOYCE, INTEL COFOUNDER

At Macworld on January 10, 2006, Jobs announced

that the new iMac would be the first Apple computer

with an Intel processor inside. Earlier the previous

year, Jobs had announced that the “brain transplant”

would begin in June 2006. On January 10, he told the audience

that he wanted to give everyone an update on the schedule. As

he began, dry-ice-created smoke wafted upward in the middle

of the stage. A man walked out wearing the famous bunny suit

worn in Intel’s ultrasterile microprocessor manufacturing plants.

The man was carrying a wafer, one of the thin, round slices of

silicon from which chips are made. He walked over to Jobs and

shook hands. As the lights came up, it became obvious that the

person in the bunny suit was none other than Intel CEO Paul

Otellini.

“Steve, I wanted to report that Intel is ready,” Otellini said as

he handed Jobs the wafer. “Apple is ready, too,” said Jobs. “We

started a partnership less than a year ago to make this happen,”

Jobs told the audience. “Our teams have worked hard together

to make this happen in record time. It’s been incredible to see

how our engineers have bonded and how well this has gone.
”1

Otellini credited the Apple team in return. The two men talked

about the achievement, they shook hands again, and Otellini

left the stage. Jobs then turned to the audience and revealed

the surprise: Apple would be rolling out the first Mac with Intel

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DELIVER THE EXPERIENCE

processors, not in June as originally announced, but
today
. See Figure 11.1.

Few companies are more closely associated with their found-

ers than Apple is with Jobs. Regardless, Jobs himself is more

than happy to share the spotlight with employees and partners

onstage. A Jobs presentation is rarely a one-man play. He features

supporting characters who perform key roles in the narrative.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates was one of the most unexpected

partners to share the stage with Jobs. In 1997, at the Macworld

Expo in Boston, Jobs, who had recently returned to Apple as

interim CEO, told the audience that in order to restore Apple to

health, some relationships had to be revisited. He announced

that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer would be the default browser

on the Macintosh and that Microsoft would make a strategic

investment of $150 million in the company. On that note, he

introduced a “special guest,” live via satellite. When Bill Gates

appeared, you could hear some cheering, along with a lot of

boos. Gates spoke for a few minutes and graciously expressed his

admiration for what Apple had accomplished.

Figure 11.1 Steve Jobs sharing the stage with Intel CEO Paul Otellini.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

SHARE THE STAGE
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Jobs returned to the stage and, knowing that many people

would be unhappy, sounded like a stern father as he admon-

ished the audience to embrace the relationship. “If we want to

move forward and see Apple happy and prospering, we have to

let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose,”

Jobs said. “If we screw up, it’s not somebody else’s fault; it’s our

fault . . . If we want Microsoft Office on the Mac, we’d better

treat the company that puts it out with a little bit of gratitude.
”2

Great actors are often said to be “giving”; they help other

actors in the scene give better performances. When Jobs intro-

duces another person onstage—an employee, a partner, or a

former nemesis such as Gates—he’s the most giving of perform-

ers. Everyone needs to shine for the good of the show.

The Brain Craves Variety

The brain doesn’t pay attention to boring things. Not that Jobs

is boring. Far from it. However, our brains crave variety. No one,

no matter how smooth and polished, can carry an audience for

long before his or her listeners start to glance at their watches.

Great speechwriters have known this for years. Speeches written

for John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama were

scripted to last no longer than twenty minutes. A Jobs keynote

presentation lasts much longer, of course, closer to 1.5 hours,

but Jobs keeps it interesting by incorporating demonstrations,

video clips, and—very important—guest speakers.

Know What You Don’t Know

In October 2008, Apple introduced new MacBook laptops crafted

from single blocks of aluminum. The design breakthrough

allowed Apple to build mobile computers that were lighter and

stronger than previous designs. “Let’s talk about notebooks. We

want to talk about some technologies and discoveries that we’ve

made that help us build notebooks in some new ways,” Jobs said.
3

However, instead of describing the new process himself, Jobs

introduced Jony Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of design.

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DELIVER THE EXPERIENCE

Ive walked onstage, Jobs took a seat, and Ive gave the audi-

ence a six-minute crash course on notebook design. He explained

how the new process allowed Apple to start with a 2.5-pound

slab of aluminum and carve it out until the final frame weighed

just one-quarter of a pound. The result was a stronger, thinner,

and lighter computer. Jobs retook the stage and concluded the

segment by thanking Ive and reaffirming the headline of the

segment: “A new way to build notebooks.” Jobs may have his

hands all over Apple, but he knows what he doesn’t know. Jobs

shares the spotlight with other actors, who add credibility and

excitement to the plot.

Your Best Sales Tool

When Apple launched an online movie-rental service, Jobs

announced the list of studios that would make films available

for online rentals via iTunes. The list included all the heavy-

weights—Touchstone, Sony, Universal, MGM, Walt Disney, and

others. Still, Apple faced skepticism. The company was launch-

ing a movie-rental service in a field with established competitors

such as Blockbuster and Netflix. Apple was betting that people

would want the choice of watching their movies on their com-

puters, iPods, iPhones, or wide-screen television sets via Apple

TV. Jobs added credibility to the initiative by sharing the stage

with one of Apple’s key partners.

“We have support from every major studio,” said Jobs.

“The first studio to sign up was Twentieth Century Fox. We’ve

developed a really great working relationship with Fox. It’s

my pleasure to introduce the chairman and CEO of Twentieth

Century Fox, Jim Gianopulos.”

An enthusiastic Gianopulos bounded onto the stage and

talked about what people want: great movies; easy access; conve-

nience; control over where, when, and how they watch movies;

and the ability to take the movie with them wherever they go.

“When Steve came to us with the idea, it was a no-brainer. It was

the most exciting, coolest thing we’ve ever heard,” Gianopulos

said. “Video rentals are not a new thing. But there was music

SHARE THE STAGE
131

and then iPod. There was the phone and then iPhone. Apple

does things in an intuitive, insightful, and innovative way. It

will be a transformative version of the rental model, and we’re

incredibly excited about it. We couldn’t be happier and prouder

of our partnership.
”4

Gianopulos had provided Jobs with a company’s best sales

tool—a customer’s endorsement. Best of all, the two men

appeared side by side. A reference is good. A customer or partner

physically sharing the stage is even better.

Number One Reason People Buy

Your customers are always mindful of budgets, but in tough eco-

nomic times they are even more so, casting a critical eye on every

last dollar. Prospects do not want to act as a beta group. Your

product must deliver what it promises—saving your customers

money, making them money, or providing the tools to make more

efficient use of the money they have. Testimonials and endorse-

ments are persuasive because, as discussed earlier, word of mouth

is the number one influencer of purchasing decisions.

Successful companies know that a pool of reputable and

satisfied customers is critical for sales success. In fact, some com-

panies even have specific employees whose job it is to gather

case studies and distribute them to their prospects. Most small

business owners do not have the resources to designate a “case

study” specialist, but they can easily adopt some of the tech-

niques used by the world’s most successful companies. One

proven strategy is to steal a page from the Apple playbook and

invite your customers to share the spotlight, either in person,

on video, or, at the very least, through quotes.

Don’t forget the media. Sharing the stage with publica-

tions that rave about your product will bolster your message.

Jobs has a love-hate relationship with the media, but for pre-

sentation purposes, there’s a lot of love in the room. In the