Inside tips on how to craft pitches that seal the deal—no matter what industry you work in—and banish presentation anxiety forever From impromptu elevator pitches to full-board presentations, sales and marketing professionals face an “audience” daily―often with make-or-break consequences. As the person delivering the performance, you need to know you have a great script and are able to maintain composure throughout. To help you perfect both pitch and performance, there are no better coaches than clinical psychologist Peter Desberg and writer/producer Jeffrey Davis. With experience and insights from both the film industry and the corporate world, they understand the pitch process. In Pitch Like Hollywood, they show you how to up your game substantially—no matter what business you’re in—by incorporating elements of a classic Hollywood pitch: driving emotion, piquing curiosity, and ultimately winning over decision makers with powerful persuasion and performance. They take you on an insider’s tour of the entire process, from defining the fundamentals to designing effective presentation strategies to overcoming stage fright. With chapters that include Persuasion Boot Camp, The Pitch Panic Cycle, and Creating the Pitch II (The Sequel), Pitch Like Hollywood provides a front-row seat in a master class on giving great performances for any audience, every time—at board meetings, sales calls, and whenever else you want to make a case to get the results you want.
What’s YOUR story? In the hypercompetitive world of Silicon Valley, this question has replaced “What’s your pitch?” It’s another way of asking, “Who are you?” The art of the pitch is nothing short of a survival skill. If an entrepreneur can’t convince an investor in 10 minutes that a business idea has potential, that is often the end of it. If a project manager in a large enterprise can’t win support from other stakeholders, his or her project is at risk. You always need to be selling yourself, pitching your partners or your clients to work with you, or pitching what makes your new business an exciting and worthwhile investment. You may not realize it right now, but you do have a one-of-a-kind story to tell, one that makes you stand out from everyone else—a unique tale that makes you, your product, or your business unforgettable. In One Perfect Pitch, Marie Perruchet will help you discover it, hone it, and present it, so that you get buy-in from colleagues and potential investors. Learn: • How to mine the worst experiences of your life for your pitch • How to tell me, show me, and sign me up in one minute • How to make a good impression through any medium • The dos and don’ts of pitching etiquette—and how to correct common mistakes • The unspoken rules in Silicon Valley A former mentor at 500 Startups, where she was a pitching coach to world-changing companies at one of the largest incubators in the U.S., Perruchet shares her proven methodology, insider advice, and hands-on exercises. She provides a step-by-step framework that ensures you are pitch perfect whenever you need to sell an idea, a product, a business—or yourself. Marie Perruchet is the founder of One Perfect Pitch, a San Francisco-based consulting firm. Drawing on her experience as a BBC journalist and news correspondent, she works with business executives to shape their stories and deliver effective pitches. As a former mentor at 500 Startups, the largest accelerator program in the U.S., she helped prepare startup founders and entrepreneurs for Demo Day, when they pitch venture capital funds and angel investors. Her clients include multinationals, tech incubators and accelerators, startup founders and entrepreneurs, and portfolio companies. Perruchet also coaches C-level executives from around the world and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, and Le Monde.
Told from the perspective of a Hollywood executive with nearly 20 years’ experience professionally pitching and distributing film/TV projects, Mastering the Pitch reveals all the nuanced details of the pitching process. Readers will gain valuable insights into how the Hollywood system operates, improve their professional pitching skills and gain a competitive edge in getting their ideas from concept to greenlight. This book covers: how projects are packaged and developed before a pitch how a pitch presentation happens in a real-world setting the core concepts required to pitch each genre type how professional companies actually acquire a pitched project the legal workflows and financial details required to put a deal together examples of pitch documents, presentation materials and how these elements should be designed how to build your personal brand so that you’re seen by Hollywood decision makers as someone capable of delivering great projects; and how you should speak to professionals about the business viability of your projects Mastering the Pitch is a valuable crossover text, designed to help both students and veteran film/TV producers alike hone their pitching and presentation skills.
Told from a Hollywood executive--with nearly 20 years' experience professionally pitching and distributing film/TV projects--Mastering the Pitch reveals the nuanced details of the pitching process. The book is a valuable crossover text, designed to help students and veteran producers hone their pitching and presentation skills.
TV's most popular pitchman reveals the secrets of pitching to get what you want in virtually any situation. Anthony "Sully" Sullivan went from selling car washers in rainy Welsh street markets to selling to audiences of millions around the world as the face of OxiClean. How did he do it? Convincing people to give you what you want is an art form that takes charisma and confidence. But no great pitchman achieves success based on those qualities alone. The good ones make themselves great with practice and discipline, mastering a series of skills that Sullivan dubs the ten "Pitch Powers." These are essential techniques he's learned in more than twenty-five years "on the joint" (that's pitchman-speak for the area where you're selling). For the first time ever, Sullivan reveals the secrets behind his seemingly superhuman ability to persuade others--even if they start out regarding you with suspicion or even hostility. Do it right and you'll change minds, open doors, get opportunities, turn adversaries into allies, make more money, and gain the kind of confidence that makes other people want to know you. From the first Pitch Power ("Know Your Acceptable Outcomes") to the last ("Finish with Confidence")--with invaluable strategies along the way on using your flubs to get a laugh, how to deal with push-back, and more--Sullivan reveals that pitching is all about engaging a person face-to-face and eye-to-eye so they feel like you're speaking directly to them, even if there are fifty other people in the room. It's turning a crowd of strangers with their arms folded into a legion of fans ready to say "yes" enthusiastically to whatever you propose, what Anthony Sullivan calls fierce agreement. It's the power to get the job, get the girl (or guy), get the part, make money, get better service, advance your career--do just about anything you want to do.
Media guru and Emmy Award-winning correspondent Bill McGowan—coach to some of the biggest names in business and entertainment, including Eli Manning, Kelly Clarkson, Jack Welch, Thomas Keller and Kenneth Cole teaches you how to get your message across and get what you want with pitch perfect communication. He is also a trusted advisor in the C-suites of tech companies like, Facebook, Spotify, AirBnB, Dropbox and Salesforce.com. Saying the right thing the right way can make the difference between sealing the deal or losing the account, getting a promotion, or getting a pink slip. It’s essential to be pitch perfect—to get the right message across to the right person at the right time. In Pitch Perfect, Bill McGowan shows you how to craft the right message and deliver it using the right language—both verbal and nonverbal. Pitch Perfect teaches you how to overcome common communication pitfalls using McGowan’s simple Principles of Persuasion, which are highly effective and easy to learn, implement, and master. With Pitch Perfect you can harness the power of persuasion and have people not only listening closely to your every word but also remembering you long after you’ve left the room.
Through an engaging and humorous narrative, Peter Coughter presents the tools he designed to help advertising and marketing professionals develop persuasive presentations that deliver business. Readers will learn how to develop skills to create the perfect presentation.
It takes more than just a brilliant idea to be a successful entrepreneur. Among all of the challenges facing a business owner, finding funding is one of the most overwhelming. This challenge alone can significantly limit an entrepreneurial dream. Pitch Your Business Like a Pro arms you with the techniques necessary to effectively pitch your business and entrepreneurial ideas anytime an opportunity comes your way to do so. It is designed to help you to explore which options are best for you and how to position yourself to pitch you, your idea and your business to potential investors. To do this most effectively, it is important to know to whom you are pitching to, what they look for in a winning pitch, and how to best deliver it. As an established entrepreneur and business professional who has made a significant number of pitches and has helped prepare others do so over the years, I've designed this book to help you successfully address these questions by: Discussing the major funding options, investor groups and platforms available to the entrepreneur. Offering a complete guide to creating a compelling business plan as a basis for developing an outstanding pitch. Providing a valuable list of the essential do's and don'ts of pitching. This book also shows you what to aim for in a pitch and what investor audiences look for in a pitch, as well as offering a master-class in how to deliver a pitch that you can use to develop your own winning pitching style. At the end of the book is a bonus chapter with precise details on how to make a successful sales pitch. Your ability to pitch effectively will go a long way toward making your business dream a success, especially when you are able to attract the right kind of investor who is not just keen on making some money from your business but believes in you and your journey. Welcome to Pitch Your Business Like a Pro!
Author and former literary agent Nathan Bransford shares his secrets for creating killer plots, fleshing out your first ideas, crafting compelling characters, and staying sane in the process. Read the guide that New York Times bestselling author Ransom Riggs called "The best how-to-write-a-novel book I've read."
The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. is the definitive how-to guide for every advertising, design, digital and PR agency that wants to increase its odds of winning new accounts. Based on 30 years of pitching for new accounts, I know that there is no such thing as a standard marketing services pitch scenario. Every client category, assignment, timetable, budget, search consultant, procurement system, and client personality is unique. However... While there is no standard pitch or agency, I know from experience that there are universal pitch criteria that can be identified and addressed regardless of the type or size of client, specific marketing objectives, or agency. To that extent, The Levitan Pitch is designed to deliver one master benefit: You will win more new clients. In Chapter One of this book, I discuss the very high cost of failing to run well-crafted, efficient pitches. The costs of failure include poor agency staff morale, individual employee burnout, and the financial cost to an agency's bottom-line that comes from the cost of participating in four-month agency searches and funding an agency's annual business development plan. This chapter tells the story of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising's "The Worst Advertising Pitch Ever." Chapter Two offers an escape hatch. You should not pitch every account that comes knocking. I give you a handy tool to gauge both the value of the prospective client and your agency's chances of winning. Chapter Three begins to help you position the pitch for success. We look at the essential facts of the pitch and dig into understanding the client's mindset by understanding the type of assignment, type of relationship they are looking for, and what type of agency will fulfill their needs. Chapter Four delivers the list of "The 12 Deadliest Presentation Mistakes." These are identified pitch killers that come from my personal experience and the experiences of agency CEO's, clients, and search consultants. The accompanying cartoons wouldn't be as funny if these mistakes were not being made over and over, even by the most sophisticated agencies. In Chapter Five I lay out thirty short but very sweet suggestions for how to build a brilliant presentation that I know will greatly increase your odds of winning. These ideas cover three core elements of a successful pitch: process management, content development, and how to deliver a standout presentation. Each rule is supported by a tip or insight that offers a fast way to achieve your objectives. Chapter Six is all about don't take my word for it. This chapter brings in valuable learning via fourteen interviews with a range of communications industry experts. It is informative and often mind-blowing to hear the pitch related experiences and advice of agency search consultants, compensation experts, an ex P&G procurement executive, a negotiation trainer, the 4A's, the Association of National Advertisers, a silicon valley presentation guru, a leading agency strategist, an ex-Nike and W+K executive on building chemistry, an IP lawyer on who actually owns your pitch ideas, the CEO of a London advertising agency, and the CEO of an independent agency network who has been on both sides of the table. Finally, I've included insights about all too common agency pitch mistakes from 16 of the world's leading search consultants. I hope that you will find the book informative, insightful, occasionally humorous, and most importantly, a good read that ultimately results in more wins for your company.
