Steve Jobs: Things I learnt #2: Making people feel they are part of something important and visionary story telling

I was at an internal training session once about PR and building powerful story pitches for the media. Other than being an enjoyable day (on an area that I used to think was a lot of puff and not really worth spending time on and now am a big convert to) there was one thing that really stood out for me.

One of the trainer / panel members was talking about building stories and how the key is to find something that is dramatic, sticks and resonates personally. 


He used the example of Steve Jobs and how good he is at telling powerful and memorable stories. Stories that grab people and motivate. He spoke about how Apple in the early days while still a small start-up had been trying to recruit someone from Pepsi to be the CEO. 


After many attempts by head-hunters to convince the chap, Steve Jobs gave him a call and asked:

“Do you want to work the rest of your life on selling flavoured sugar water, or on something that will change the world”

Hard to resist and it stuck in the guy’s mind and he moved. It was motivating, personal, compelling and short and snappy. Just like any great headline and copy should be.


There are a few things we can learn from this:


(1) importance of creating short, snappy and memorable story for PR and consumers,


(2) even more important is having a short and snappy way of capturing what you as a company and brand are trying to. Specific enough, but also open enough to encourage innovative and new thinking


(3) making everyone that works in your company or brand feeling they are part of something important and significant.

Love it.