Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal [Hardcover]

I read this book in one day. Couldn't put it down. It is engaging, fun to read and practical. I found it viscerally satisfying and fulfilling.

If you've been involved in copywriting, advertising, or selling, you're already familiar with the adage "first aim for the heart, then go for the mind" or "people buy for emotional reasons and then justify their purchase rationally". The interesting information bits that Oren shares from neuroscience about how the brain processes incoming information fit like beautiful pieces of a puzzle.

Oren begins by pointing out how when we prepare pitches we are creating them in neocortex, whereas the listener is first processing the message through his reptilian or, as the Oren calls it, croc brain. While neocortex processes complex information and is involved in problem solving, the croc brain deals with the basics of survival. It just wants to know whether what we are facing is good for us, or a threat to us - should we eat it or mate with it.

Oren then delves into frames. A frame is a perspective from which you look at the situation. As you change the way you look at something, different solutions become possible and when you communicate with others, different frames enable you to engage people in different ways, from different positions. Oren explores power frames, time frames, analysis frames, intrigue frames, and morality frames. You learn how to play with frames - how to create or bust them, how to deframe and reframe them, and how to collide and stack them. The more skilled you become with flipping frames, the better you are able to create conditions that are conducive to obtaining your desired outcomes. Near the end of the book, Oren gives suggestions for practicing frame games so that you can become a frame master.

After you've set the stage with frames, Oren shares ideas on controlling different elements of the pitch - how to create and maintain the attention of your listeners, how to elicit just the right balance between desire and tension to hold one's attention; how to change your situational status, and how to construct your pitch - from the point of introducing yourself and the big idea, explaining the budget and the secret sauce, offering the deal, and then stacking frames for hot cognition. He points out what to do to make it all easier on yourself and to get faster results.

Throughout the book, Oren illustrates the points he is making with many instructive and entertaining stories.

Oren uses the acronym STRONG to sum up his formula: setting the frame; telling the story; revealing the intrigue, offering the prize, getting a decision. As he guides you through each stages, he points out the most likely places where you may stumble or trip yourself, and tells you what to do to recover, so that you can create the perfect pitch.

I was recommended this book by at least three different people from different parts of the business world and so I thought it was worth a look and I am glad I did.

What is so interesting about the concepts described here are that they are extremely simple (brilliant ideas often are) and the explanation of them helps you realise the scientific basis on which the process is founded (yes it is a process).

I liked this book for three reasons:

1. It breaks down the process and explains it step by step
2. The author shares his personal story and journey about a) developing the approach and b)using it for what is claimed is now a famous negotiation story
3. At the very end there is a detailed breakdown of the whole approach as it was used in a multi-million dollar deal.

Be under no illusion that whilst the concepts are very simple it will take time and effort to master them however just the one insight about how the brain reacts, responds and processes messages that comes right at the beginning of the book is something anyone who communicates with anyone else needs to understand.

Well worth the investment (in fact it is so good this is the third copy I have purchased beccause I keep giving it away to clients!)

Oren provides some very interesting and (obviously) compelling approaches to the art of the pitch. I would say that you need alot of confidence to follow through on his advice and it does remind me of Mr Potter's One Upmanship. I have read it twice now and will eventually summon the courage to try it.