Book

Pitch Anything

An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal

Oren Klaff

McGraw-Hill, 2011

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Recommendation

Have you ever made a pitch or presentation that offered all the facts perfectly and countered every objection, but still fell flat after all your efforts? Investment banker Oren Klaff suggests that how you pitch is more important than how many pitches you throw. You can win your audience by knowing how the human brain reacts to new information and by learning how to control each interaction by using “frames.” With Klaff’s pitching method, you engage each listener’s emotional “croc brain” and keep your audience members in a state of “hot cognition” until you win their business. getAbstract recommends Klaff’s perceptive methods and illustrative stories to everyone who pitches and presents. You might have logical reasons to read this, but your emotional response is what will keep you interested.

Summary

Here’s the Pitch

Regardless of the business you’re in or the product you sell, common wisdom holds that you must work harder to land more sales pitches and that you will make only a couple of sales from every 100 pitches. Thus, sales is a numbers game that depends only on effort and volume.

That sounds like a pretty difficult way to make a living, because it depends on the idea that – no matter how good your presentation skills – you are destined to strike out most of the time. Instead, you need to learn this crucial secret: As a presenter, the success of your pitch is less about your presentation skills and more about how you get and hold your audience’s attention.

Crocodiles and Business

To boost your pitch success percentage, take a moment to understand some basic neuroscience. The brain is divided into three parts. The first and deepest part is the “crocodile brain”: The “croc brain” responds first to all incoming messages and reacts in a fundamental way, with raw emotion and a fast fight-or-flight reaction. The second part is the midbrain, which responds next and gives meaning and thought to the input it receives. The last response comes from the...

About the Author

Oren Klaff is director of capital markets for the investment bank Intersection Capital, where his neuroscience-based pitches have grown the firm’s assets to $250 million.

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K. S. 1 decade ago

I wonder how you managed to fit this much information in 4 pages. Really great summary. A must read for almost everyone who would want to "enter into a deal" of any sort.
P. B. getAbstract 1 decade ago

Great read !