What Would Steve Jobs Do?

Image via Ben Stanfield/Flickr CC

Dr. Mark Goulston is the author of best selling books like “Just Listen” also happens to “channel” Steve Jobs when he gives a keynote talk.

We met after Mark heard me give a talk on “Making The Perfect Elevator Pitch.” He came up to me and said, “That was one of the best talks I have ever heard on pitching because you talked with us not at or above us.” Since that day, we have become fast friends and he has become my mentor.

Mark said “The success of Steve Jobs is that one of the main things he was able to do is that he was what I’d call a first class noticer. And noticing is different than looking, watching and seeing. When you notice something, you’re actually tuned into it.”

Mark went on to tell me his last mentor was a fellow named Warren Bennis who mentored Howard Schultz at Starbucks (SBUX) and David Gergen from CNN.

Mark told Warren, “What you don’t realize Warren is that people don’t just respect you, they love you. And the reason they love you is something that they pick up that I knew within 30 seconds of meeting you. And what I knew is that I could trust you to never hurt me.”

And then, Warren looked at Mark and said “You know Mark, a lot of nice things have been said about me and I think people trust me to not hurt them is the third best thing I’ve ever heard and I can’t remember one and two.”

If people can trust you to not hurt them, you’ve got a leg up on the competition.

Mark has been talking around the country on how to create “Gotta have it.” Here is his story:

“About two or three years ago, I decided that I was tired of persuading anyone to do anything because a lot of what I taught, or what people needed, to listen better, to get out of their own way, I wrote two books on that, that did very well. But I had to persuade them but they didn’t want it.

It’s exhausting to persuade people to do things that they need that will make their life better but they don’t want. And so I decided, what do I do if I want to stop persuading them and I came up with this idea. If I could figure out what causes customers, clients, investors, or talent to think to themselves “I gotta buy that. I gotta have it” or “I gotta work there” or “I gotta invest there.”

If I can figure out how to create gotta, you don’t have to sell anyone on anything. This is how I got into Steve Jobs and I came up with a four-step formula that results in “Gotta have it.”

The four steps to creating gotta have it are:

1) Whoa

2) Wow

3) Hmmm

4) Yes

Whoa is, I can’t believe what I just saw, heard, read, or felt.

The wow is, that’s amazing, unbelievable. Wow creates delight.

The hmmm shows you are listening and thinking I’m going to remember this.

The yes is, when you figure out how you’re going to use it, you say to yourself “Sold.”

Here is an example of Mark when he is playing Steve Jobs now in one of the biggest whoa, wow, hmmm, yes moments.

Steve Jobs while he was visiting Xerox Park in 1979 …”We went to Xerox Park. We got this invitation to see these three things they were working on. So, I go there with Woz and they showed me three things but I didn’t even notice two of the things they showed me something, the windup computers or something about a different organization. I didn’t even notice that stuff. I was blinded by the first thing they showed me and that was the graphical user interface with the mouse and the icons. It was just like watching Atari where I used to work at.

It was the best thing I’d ever seen in my life, hands down. And when I saw it and when I played with it and I felt it, I looked at Woz and he whispered in my ears “Once they go there, they’re never going back the other way” and we both went “Hmmm, this is too good.” And so it was a good deal that we allowed Xerox to buy a million dollars of our Apple (AAPL) stock for just showing us these three things. And then the yes was when we went back to Apple, they didn’t give us the formula but we went back and we said “We’re going to create something and we called that the Macintosh.

So, that was the whoa, wow, hmmm, yes. If you’re not doing that with your products and services, I’ve been dead for five years so I feel for you but I’m looking at … in this day and age now, since I’ve died, if you’re not creating whoa, wow, hmmm, yes, you’re creating nah, never mind, no thanks, pass.”

So these words of wisdom from Steve Jobs as channeled through Dr Mark Goulston are now yours to use when you need to create the “Gotta Have It” feelings in your clients or customers. Dr. Mark Goulston, is also an international speaker and conferences are hiring him to do his: “How to Win People Over” presentation which is what he did with the Russian Federation and CEOs in Moscow in October 2017. If after watching his 3 min highlights reel you’d like an introduction to him, I can make that happen. Email me at [email protected] for an introduction.

John Livesay ,aka, The Pitch Whisperer, is a keynote speaker to brands and shares lessons learned from his award winning career at Conde Nast. His keynote talk ‘”Getting To Yes” shows companies’ sales teams how to become irresistible so they are magnetic to their ideal clients. After John speaks, the sales team becomes revenue rockstars who form an emotional connection and a compelling brand story with clients.

Get your FREE copy of my ebook “Getting To YES” and learn how to climb the ladder from invisible to irresistible! Here is your link to my Free eBook http://bit.ly/2BbJ5kH