We Analyzed Steve Job’s Iphone Pitch. Here Are The 8 Pitch Lessons We Learned

Pitch Lessons From Steve Jobs.

We all know Steve Jobs for his famous ‘reveal’ pitches. Steve Jobs introduced many products with a pitch, including the ipod, iphone and ipad.

Every time when Steve Jobs pitched a new product, the crowd would leave the room excited.

There are a lot of pitching lessons you can learn from Steve Jobs.

Ofcourse it’s pretty easy to get people excited, when your company is capable of creating high tech devices, which are way ahead of their time. But it wasn’t just the product.

Don’t want to read everything? These are the 8 lessons.

#1 The first 30 seconds he only focuses on making you curious

#2 He builds credibility by referring to previous successes

#3 He creates goodwill by making the audience laugh

#4 He makes fun of the competition with supporting visuals

#5 He uses many power words such as ‘magic’ and ‘phenomenal’

#6 He always focuses on the benefits, never the features

#7 He thoroughly researches who he is talking to

#8 He thanks the audience in a humble way

How did Steve Jobs structure his pitch?

1. Opening (00:00)

2. Introducing the problem (3:30)

3. Introducing his solution (6:30)

4. Mentioning all the benefits (7:30)

5. End (1:17:00)

You can check how to structure a pitch your self here.

The opening (00:00)

#1 The first 30 seconds he only focuses on making you curious. 

‘This is a day I have been looking forward to for 2.5 years’

‘Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along, that changes everything’

‘You are fortunate if you can work on one of these products in your life. Apple has been fortunate introduce a few of these’

As you can see Steve Jobs comes with three statemens in a row. They all create the feeling that he is going to talk about something mind blowing.

By doing this, he gets everybody to pay full attention.

#2 He builds credibility by referring to previous successes

Although everybody is probably familiar with the successfull products Apple has introduced so far, Steve quickly refers to them.

By referring to previous successes, he creates credibility for the rest of his pitch.

#3 He creates goodwill by making the audience laugh

Although Steve might be known as a difficult and hard business man, he definitely knows how to use humor.

Throughout his pitch Steve continiously makes small jokes. The best example in this pitch is when he talks about how Apple is going to introduce 3 products: An Ipod, a phone and a new internet browser.

After talking about these products for 2 minutes, he confesses that they are actually all combined. So instead of introducing 3 seperated products, he now moves his pitch to one ‘super product’.

Another example is when he shows the picture of the ‘new’ iphone, which obiously isn’t the real iphone.

2. The problem (03:30)

#4 He makes fun of the competition with supporting visuals

First of all Steve talks about the current set of smart phones, he explains to the audience that they are limited in their capabilities.

Right after talking about the existing offer of smartphones, he shows an image which compares the Iphone to the others.

Now Steve explained how he thinks about the Iphone versus the competiton, he backs it up with an example.

Again, he uses an image which displays the current set of keyboards.

“It’s ridiculous to have one set of fixed keyboards, when every situation requires a different keyboard”

3. The solution (06:30)

Now Steve discussed why the other smartphones don’t work well, it’s time to show the solution.

#5 He uses many power words such as ‘magic’ and ‘phenomenal’

When Steve introduces the Iphone, he uses a lot of power words. Here’s a list of words Steve used:

• Magic
• Invented
• Phenomenal
• Accurate
• Super smart

You can learn more about power words here.

4. The Benefits (07:30)

#6 He always focuses on the benefits, never the features

A mistake many pitchers or public speakers make, is that they focus too much on the features of a product.

People don’t want to hear which software enables them to make phone calls. People want to hear that they can call their friends, at the other side of the world, with just 2 finger taps.

5. End (1:17:00)

After introducing the Iphone and discussing al it’s functionalities, it’s time for Steve to finish the pitch.

Usually the end of a pitch consists of a call to action. If this was a pitch to solely potential customers, a good call to action would be:

‘If you want to experience the smartphone of the 21st century, get yourself an Iphone’

However, this is not how Steve ended his pitch. Since he knew he wasn’t talking solely to customers, he finished it differently. Researching your audience is lesson number 7.

#7 He thoroughly researches who he is talking to

Since Steve is aware of the potential impact of his speech, he knows that many people will be seeing this pitch. Therefore, his target group does not only consist out of potential customers, but also potentials partners, investors and other stakeholders.

When you’re talking to just one target group, it’s easy to set your call to action.

In this case, Steve decided to end with an inspirational quote. This way he leaves everybody with a positive feeling.

“There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been. We have always tried to do that at Apple. And we always will.”

#8 He thanks the audience in a humble way

At the end of his pitch, Steve ends with the simple words:

‘Thank you very much’.

Simply by thanking your audience, you accomplish two things:

1. You create sympathy with your audience

2. Your audience knows you are done and that it’s time to applaud.

Conclusion

Steve was a master in structuring and executing his pitch. Although it’s pretty easy when you are the CEO of an impressive company, Steve did a great job in grabbing the attention from the beginning all the way to the end.

These 8 lessons from Steve’s pitch can be used for your own pitch as well. If you want to check the full video of Steve’s pitch, click here. Credits to Applebub/N2TechGeeks for uploading this video.