Breaking down the wall between the stage and your audience is an advanced public speaking technique reserved for the most confident presenters (Cisco CEO John Chambers also uses the tactic very effectively). I’m a strong advocate of the technique, but in order for the technique to be done well, a speaker must be confident, passionate, and prepared.
Benioff is confident. He’s confident about salesforce.com and its ability to help companies use the cloud to transform the way they manage their sales teams and do business in social media. When Forbes named Benioff a top global innovator, it said that Benioff’s idea to bring business software to the web was ridiculed a decade earlier. Today Benioff is a multi-billionaire (#218 on Forbes’ 400 richest americans) and the industry is “following Benioff’s lead in taking software from disparate servers inside companies to the cloud.” You can’t inspire unless you’re confident about your message.
Benioff is passionate. Very few corporate leaders exhibit the same level of excitement and enthusiasm that Steve Jobs demonstrated on stage. Benioff matches Jobs when it comes to passion. It’s no surprise that Benioff greatly admired Jobs and graciously endorsed one of my books, The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Benioff’s passion for how cloud computing will change the world comes across in his verbal delivery and body language. In the clip below you will hear the passion in his voice and see the passion in his use of animated gestures.
This edited video clip demonstrates how confidently and passionately Benioff delivers his company's story.
Benioff is prepared. Benioff facilitated the 2.5 hour keynote with no notes. He interviewed partners, talked about the content on the slides, and walked the audience without pulling notes from his pocket. He could see the slides on screens strategically placed in the auditorium, but the slides were heavy on images and light on text, so they provided little guidance. He clearly had the content internalized. Benioff also knew where people were sitting in the audience and called upon those people in an interview-style conversation. He talked to the CIO of General Electric, the CEO of Virgin America, and even motivational guru Tony Robbins as part of his keynote.
It’s hard to think of anyone who can upstage Tony Robbins, but Benioff comes close. In a previous article, I wrote about Jeff Bezos and the end of PowerPoint as we know it. I discussed a fresh, modern way of displaying presentation slides. Today I think Benioff is taking presentations even further by breaking down barriers between the speaker and the audience. It takes confidence, passion, and preparation to do it well.
Carmine Gallo is the communications coach for the world’s most admired brands. He is a popular keynote speaker and author of several books, including the international bestsellers The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. His new book, The Apple Experience,is the first book to reveal the secrets behind the stunning success of the Apple Retail Store. Carmine has recently launched an eLearning course titled, The New Rules of Persuasive Presentations. Follow Carmine on Facebook or Twitter.
