A Rockin’ Presentation: Microsoft Exec Brings Passion To The Surface
Microsoft’s new Surface tablet has been met with some mixed, but generally favorable reviews. The New York Times product reviewer, David Pogue, calls the operating system “smooth, beautiful, and fun to use.” A blogger for the technology Web site, The Verge, said...
Apple Execs Use Clever Statistics to Make iPad Mini a Big Deal
If I told you that the Apple iPad Mini was 7.2mm thin, would you be excited about it? Probably not. What if I told you that it was as thin as a pencil? The product suddenly becomes more interesting, doesn’t it? Apple spokespeople have all mastered a communications...
Richard Branson’s 5 Elements of a Perfect Pitch
When billionaire entrepreneur and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson had the idea of launching Virgin Atlantic, he pitched it to his fellow directors who had no previous experience in the airline business. He delivered the idea simply, concisely, and effectively....
Richard Branson: If It Can’t Fit On The Back Of An Envelope, It’s Rubbish (the Interview)
Richard Branson doesn’t care for PowerPoint. He prefers eye contact and conversation. Branson doesn’t have patience for long, confusing presentations. He prefers short and simple pitches, even if they’re written on a beer mat. Branson also disdains sterile conference...
Why Ben Affleck Should Be Your Wardrobe Consultant
When director/actor Ben Affleck promoted his new movie, Argo, on shows like Bill O’Reilly and Jimmy Kimmel Live, he wore sharp-looking suits and ties. When he appeared at more casual events he still wore suits and high-quality dress shirts, but he lost the tie....
Saleswoman Seeks Better Boss: Will Accept 50% Pay Cut
My wife’s friend, “Susan,” is frustrated with her CEO and is looking for a sales position at another company. Susan makes well into the six figures, but she is willing to leave her job and take a 50 percent cut in salary to work for a more inspiring leader. Susan’s...
Small Biz Owner Earns Millions By Adopting Steve Jobs Presentation Style
Two days after Steve Jobs died I appeared on ABC’s 20/20 to discuss the seven lessons I believe he taught all business leaders and entrepreneurs. Number seven was “master the message.” You can have great ideas but if you can’t deliver those ideas persuasively, it...
11 Presentation Lessons You Can Still Learn From Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs is still the word’s greatest corporate storyteller. I’ve seen plenty of talented speakers in the past year and I've written about many of them in this column but I have yet to find someone as good as Steve Jobs. This is why I have spent so many years...
3 Techniques That Made Romney Look More Prepared Than Obama
Who was better prepared for the first 2012 presidential debate? If you monitored Twitter like I did, the overwhelming opinion favored Republican Mitt Romney. I tried to do as subjective a search as possible and tracked the keyword “prepared” along with the hashtag...
What Arnold Schwarzenegger Taught Me About Building a Successful Career
It’s difficult to have a conversation about Arnold Schwarzenegger without talking about “the secret.” In his new book, Total Recall, Schwarzenegger reveals details about his affair and the child he kept secret from his wife, Maria Shriver. Since I strongly believe...
Ryder Cup Captain: ‘Believing Was The Most Important Thing.’
Like many golf fans, I was shocked at how the United States Ryder Cup team let a big lead slip away, allowing the European team to retain the title. The European golf stars were well behind the U.S team on Saturday night but they received a healthy dose of inspiration...
The Five Steps Apple Store Salespeople Take To Sell You An iPhone 5
Apple sold five million units of the iPhone 5 in its first weekend. No doubt most of those customers were eager to buy the new phone and didn't need a lot of convincing. But now the real salesmanship begins and Apple Store specialists (salespeople) will educate...
3 Traps to Kill Your Team’s Creativity
This week I had the opportunity to deliver a keynote presentation to a group of new car dealers in British Columbia. The conference was held at a unique resort called Sparkling Hill. Although it had spectacular views of the Okanagan valley from every room, I was...
Why Apple Uses 67 Characters To Describe The iPhone 5
How would you describe the iPhone 5 in one sentence? I’ve been monitoring Twitter for one week since the new phone was first introduced. Thousands of tweets use the same adjectives, almost as if one person had written it. The posts say the iPhone 5 is “thinner and...
Marc Benioff Wows His Audience By Leaving The Stage
If you want to learn how to command the attention of an audience, take a lesson from Marc Benioff’s keynote at DreamForce 2012. During his Wednesday keynote to kick off the conference in San Francisco, the salesforce.com CEO rarely stayed on the stage. Instead he...
5 Reasons Why J.C. Penney’s Ron Johnson Will Reinvent Retail…Again
J.C. Penney CEO, Ron Johnson, has seen the movie before and he loves the way it ends. You know which movie we’re talking about—the one about the underdog who nobody believes in. In 2001, the protagonist was played by the Apple Store with Ron Johnson as its director....
The iPhone 5 Show: Why Apple Switched Speakers Every 10 Minutes
Apple CEO Tim Cook was the first to appear on stage for the launch of the new iPhone on Wednesday, September 12, but he was far from the only person to speak. Eleven other individuals—Apple executives, partners, and developers—shared the stage in person or on video....
PowerPoint: The Extreme Makeover Edition (Before and After Slides)
Don’t blame PowerPoint for a boring presentation. The problem with today’s typical business presentation is NOT PowerPoint. The storyteller is the problem, the presenter who creates wordy, text-heavy slides and uses dull, convoluted jargon and buzzwords. In a previous...
Jeff Bezos And The End of PowerPoint As We Know It
The next time you deliver a PowerPoint presentation that matters—a product launch, investor pitch, new client meeting— take a cue from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and ditch the bullet points. When Bezos unveiled the all-new new Kindle Fire HD this week, his presentation...
7 Sure-Fire Ways Great Leaders Inspire People To Follow Them
Twenty-five years ago Santa Clara University Professors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner wrote The Leadership Challenge, a primer on how to make extraordinary things happen in organizations by helping leaders perform their personal best. Two million copies have been sold...
My Dinner With Neil Armstrong
I had one of those ‘pinch-me’ moments thanks to a friend who invited me to dinner with Neil Armstrong who passed away at the age of 82. For three hours I sat across from Armstrong as he regaled us with stories of the first moon landing. Remember, Armstrong was one of...
Why Best Buy Was Smart To Hire a Hospitality Executive
When was the last time you shopped at Best Buy for the experience? If you’re like me you go to Best Buy for the selection of consumer electronics devices and reasonably low prices. The experience is the last thing on my mind. In fact, a trip to the giant electronics...
7 Courageous Ways Apple Became America’s Most Valuable Company
This week Apple became America’s most valuable company—ever. Remarkably, Apple is worth more than Microsoft and Google combined. As the author of several books on Steve Jobs as well as the Apple retail store, I’m often asked about applying Apple’s techniques to...
How The Father of Flash Followed His Passion and Changed Your Life
If you use a digital camera to capture, share, and enjoy your life’s most cherished memories, then you should thank SanDisk co-founder Eli Harari. Do you listen to music on an MP3 player? Store digital files to a USB drive? Take videos with your smartphone and upload...
Paul Ryan: The ‘Soft’ Skill That Makes Him Hard to Ignore
Paul Ryan shares the same skill that propelled Barack Obama to the White House: public speaking. Whether you love Paul Ryan’s ideas or hate them, there’s no question one skill makes him hard to ignore—he’s an exceptional communicator. As a leader in any field you can...
Kobe Bryant, Kevin Systrom, And The Science of Creativity
If you want to unleash your creative potential, spend less time in the office and more time pursuing your passion even if your interest has nothing to do with your job. That’s the conclusion reached by neuroscientists, champions, and successful entrepreneurs. Although...
5 Reasons Why Optimists Make Better Leaders
Intel co-founder Robert Noyce once said that optimism is “an essential ingredient of innovation. How else can the individual welcome change over security, adventure over staying in safe places?” Noyce and his partners started Intel in 1968, a year when the U.S economy...
7 Sure-Fire Ways Apple Store Converts Browsers Into Buyers
Thanks to exceptional customer service, Apple Retail continues to be one of the most profitable stores on the planet. Apple’s 373 retail stores generated just over $4 billion in revenue for its fiscal third quarter ending June 30, 2012, a 17 percent increase over the...
Why I Paid $80 For a Cup of Coffee [Video]
You can learn a lot from a coffee shop, especially one like Funnel Mill, a popular location among the Hollywood elite. I love coffee shops—major chains like Starbucks and Peet’s— as well as smaller, unique, quirky places off the beaten path. I discovered one hundred...
How to Pitch Anything in 15 Seconds [video]
If you can’t tell me what you do in 15 seconds, I’m not buying, I’m not investing, and I’m not interested. Few technologies are as complicated to explain as 4G LTE. Last year I worked with a group of leaders for the division of a global, publicly traded company who...
Google’s Marissa Mayer: 3 Leadership Traits She’ll Bring to Yahoo.
I interviewed Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s new chief executive, several years ago for one of my books. My research for Fire Them Up led me to discover the qualities that all inspiring leaders share. Inspiration simply means to “elicit a fervent enthusiasm.” In other words,...
Three Surprising Questions Apple Store Asks About Every Job Candidate
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs demanded excellence from himself and others. He refused to sugarcoat his comments and he expected “fearless feedback” in return. Could you have gone toe-to-toe with Steve Jobs? If not, you probably won’t get hired at an Apple Store and...
Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career [The Interview]
Larry Smith is frustrated. He’s angry. He’s bewildered. The professor of economics at the University of Waterloo in Canada has spent his entire teaching career coaching students to find careers they love, but he still hears excuse after excuse for not following one’s...
3 Great Presentation Moments: Google, Gates, and Jobs
The most inspiring and memorable presentations are marked by one moment that leaves people in awe. I call it the “wow moment”—the one part of the presentation that brings it all together. It’s the moment when a person thinks, “I want to business with that company” or...
Disney, Microsoft, and Tesla Copy The Apple Store. So Should You.
On a recent trip to the San Francisco Disney Store a group of employees handed me a large key to open the store and to ‘unlock my imagination.’ This opening ceremony is now standard at all newly designed Disney stores and takes place when the doors open each day. The...
Steve Jobs’ Four Magic Words That Built Pixar
Steve Jobs didn’t sketch one character in Pixar’s new movie, Brave, but his handprint is on every frame. During an interview on Charlie Rose, John Lasseter, the chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation, told a short, insightful story about the late...
Ballmer Refines PowerPoint Style to Launch Microsoft Tablet
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used a refined PowerPoint technique in his presentation to introduce a new tablet called Surface. Many observers call it technically impressive because of a built in ‘kickstand’ so customers can prop it up to watch movies and a thin cover...
Homeless Man Turned Millionaire Offers The Best Advice I Ever Got
I spend 60 hours a week on my business but I don’t work for a minute. Work is hard. But what I do—writing, speaking, researching, learning, and sharing information— is pure joy. It’s what I was called to do. But often what we’re called to do and what we choose to do...
8 Presentation Techniques You Can Copy From Apple’s WWDC Keynote
Whether you use Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote to deliver presentations, there is plenty you can learn from the Apple presentation that kicked off this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2012 (WWDC). Several executives took to the stage to unveil new...
Why Today’s Grads Will Become Tomorrow’s Greatest Innovators
I enjoy meeting true innovators in any field. They are uncomfortable with the status quo and passionate about moving the world forward. Innovators also make for great interview subjects since their passion and enthusiasm is contagious. Any journalist will tell you—the...
NYC Restaurant King Danny Meyer: “Experience Trumps Food”
In a city with the finest restaurants in the world, a hamburger joint stands out among them: The Shake Shack. Customers will stand in line for an hour or more to taste some of the best burgers in town. Famed New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer owns Shake Shack and...
Pom Isn’t So Wonderful and Bain Isn’t So Bad
Update: Today POM launched an advertising campaign called You be the Judge," to "illuminate the facts" about the ruling. POM took out a full-page ad in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times to clarify what the administrative law judge said in his ruling about the...
The Apple Store Improves Its Secret Loyalty Weapon
“People don’t just want to buy personal computers anymore. They want to know what they can do with them and we’re going to show them exactly that.” With those words Steve Jobs launched the store that would revolutionize retail and introduce his products to millions of...
The Leadership Secrets of Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took walks with Steve Jobs near Jobs’ Palo Alto home, absorbing everything the great Apple visionary had to say. Some of it stuck. A recent New York Times article pointed out that Zuckerberg started taking walks himself with potential...
Apple Store’s Secret Sauce: 5 Steps of Service
People do the craziest things in an Apple Store. They record themselves dancing and post their videos to YouTube. Some have proposed marriage in Apple Stores. Comedian Mark Malkoff brought a goat into an Apple Store and produced a video on the other stuff he tries to...
Share the Stage to Win Over Your Audience
People love to see a performer share the stage with someone in the audience or, better yet, with someone they know personally. I recently went to a Bruce Springsteen concert where, much to the audiences' delight, he brought up two people to help him with a song (once...
Alan Mulally, Optimism, and the Power of Vision
I was surprised to receive a personal phone call from Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, in 2009. He simply wanted to compliment me on an article that I had written about the power of optimism. I thanked him and asked how things were going at Ford. Mulally impressed me with his...
How the Ritz-Carlton Inspired the Apple Store
One of the questions Apple Store hiring managers ask themselves while sizing up a potential job candidate is, “Can the individual offer Ritz-Carlton level service with the right training?” The Ritz-Carlton is the gold standard of customer service so it would make...
Enrich Lives: Reinvent Your Business The Apple Way
Enriching lives. These two words tell you everything you need to know about The Apple Retail Store and why it’s become the most profitable retailer in America. “Enriching lives” are the first two words on the wallet-sized Apple Retail credo card all employees are...
Why Apple Store Employees Won’t “Sell” You an iPad
If you walk into an Apple Store to buy a new iPad, you will be greeted by friendly, passionate sales associates (specialists) who are eager to help you. But don’t expect them to “sell” you anything. After spending the last eight months researching a new book on the...
Media Skills: 5 Ways Tim Cook Tackled the Tough Question
Apple CEO Tim Cook responded recent criticisms over Apple suppliers’ working conditions in China by making a forceful response in comments at the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference. Cook’s answer to a difficult question offers a good example for CEOs...
Presentation Skills: Bring Statistics to Life
I recently returned from Mexico where I worked with executives of one of the country’s largest brands, helping them to shape and craft a corporate story to share with customers and stakeholders. During one of our conversations, one of the leaders turned to me to...
What Neil Armstrong and Ron Johnson Taught Me About Leadership
February 1, 2011, marks Ron Johnson’s moon shot. The former head of the Apple Retail Store intends to transform J.C. Penney into America’s favorite store. If anyone has the vision to radically re-think the retail environment into something extraordinary, it’s Johnson....
3 Things Carnival Must Do Now to Manage the Costa Crisis
Shares of Carnival are dropping significantly after the cruise company’s worst accident—the Costa Concordia running aground off the coast of Italy (Carnival is the holding company for Costa Cruises). We know that eleven people are dead and more than twenty are still...
Former Apple Retail Exec Reinvents the Car Buying Experience
The all-electric Tesla Model S is turning heads at the Detroit Auto Show this week. If you want to learn more about the car you might consider heading to the mall. That’s right, Tesla stores are being built where consumers live part of their lives—at the shopping...
Joel Osteen: 7 Keys to Successful Public Speaking
As the second subject for Oprah's Next Chapter on OWN, she chose mega-church pastor, Joel Osteen. Few people give weekly talks or “presentations” to as many people as Osteen. His Lakewood Church in Houston attracts 16,000 for each sermon on Sundays. He reaches...
70 Percent Of Your Employees Hate Their Jobs
The good news for the labor market—more people are voluntarily leaving their jobs than they did a year ago. The bad news for corporate managers—more people are voluntarily leaving their jobs. Once you start seeing this trend, you know that employees are discouraged,...
No Joke: A Comedian Conquers Fear of Public Speaking
Comedian Dan Nainan’s dad is from India and his mom is from Japan. Once Nainan introduces his ethnic background, he launches into one joke after another as well as impersonations of politicians and athletes. He usually brings down the house. Nainan has performed...
Lessons we can all learn from Steve Jobs
Carmine takes a look back at lessons we can all learn from Steve Jobs.
Business Renegades: Howard Schultz
For the Forbes video series, Business Renegades, Carmine hits on three points as it relates to Howard Schultz's leadership qualities. 1. Ask yourself what business you are really in? 2. Make emotional connections with your consumers. 3. Tell your brand story.