No Presenter is Perfect, Not Even Steve Jobs

By Jon, on March 9th, 2010
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Steve_jobs I’ve written a post about being the perfect presenter before, but while reading “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” by Carmine Gallo, I read a great excerpt about Steve’s perfection, or rather lack thereof, that I wanted to share with you.  I edited some of it for brevity’s sake.


“No matter how much you prepare, something might, and probably will, go differently from how you had planned.  Notice that I didn’t say something will go ‘wrong.’  It goes wrong only when you call attention to the issue or you let it ruin the rest of your presentation. The difference between mediocre presenters and a true master such as Jobs is that when demonstrations do not turn out as planned, Jobs reacts with a cool confidence.”

Steve Jobs is widely considered to be one of, if not the, best presenters alive today.  Steve Jobs makes mistakes too.  Take a look:

Nobody prepares like Steve Jobs.  He practices for hours and hours and hours to make sure his presentations are perfect.  He’ll go through multiple full dress rehearsals of his Keynotes.  The key difference, aside from the fact that he prepares more than anyone out there, is that while Steve Jobs strives for perfection, he doesn’t expect it.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure he’s frustrated when something doesn’t go as planned.  But as Carmine said, Jobs doesn’t lose his cool nor does he draw any undue attention to the hiccup.  He just moves on.  That’s all you can do. 

I said it before and I’ll say it again – Nobody is perfect.  Not you, not me.  Not Steve Jobs either.  So when your presentation doesn’t go as planned, just try to continue having fun and move on.

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