Summary: Pitch Perfect

Review and Analysis of Bill McGowan's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511035924
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Meetings & Presentations
• Index: Business

Complete summary of Bill McGowan's book: `Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time`.

This summary of the ideas from Bill McGowan’s book `Pitch Perfect` gives advice on how to make your presentations engaging and influential. According to McGowan, there are Seven Principles of Persuasion that you can use to make your presentations more effective and entertain your audience.

The Seven Principles of Persuasion are:
1. An engaging headline
2. Vivid visual images
3. Make it rich and brief
4. Think, then talk
5. Exude certainty
6. Be insatiably curious
7. Play to your strengths

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Make your presentations more engaging and effective
• Learn how to grab the attention of your audience from the start

To learn more, read “Pitch Perfect” and find out how to deliver the perfect presentation every time!

Summary of Pitch Perfect (Bill McGowan)

1. An engaging headline

Always start with your best idea expressed in a thought-provoking headline. Make people immediately think: I want to know more. Don't bury your lead, copy others or resort to cliches. Start out with a concise and compelling statement.

Is there anything worse than starting your pitch with an apology?

• "Good morning. I know it's early and everyone was out late last night partying, so stay with me as best you can through blurry eyes."
• "OK, I know it's been a long morning and this is the last presentation before we break for lunch. I just want to take a little bit of your time."
• "Hi. I realize you've just had a big lunch and feel like taking a siesta. I promise I will try and keep this lively so you stay awake."
• "Good afternoon. I understand this time slot is really hard to fill because there's a mid-afternoon energy lull. Well, I will do my best to take your mind off that sugar fix you're probably craving about now."
• "It's been a long day and my presentation is the only thing standing between you and Happy Hour, but I'm just going to walk you through a few key points."

What were these people thinking when they said those things? The worst possible way to start out your pitch is with an apology of any kind or even a hint you'd rather be somewhere else or doing something else.

Instead, you should always start your presentation with your very best and strongest idea. That's what journalists do when they write their stories. They put their best point in the headline so nobody misses it. You should do the same. Grab attention by putting your best idea front and center.

So how do TV journalists actually do that? It's very simple - you make a bold and definitive (or a teaser) statement and then discuss a few succinct follow-up points right at the outset of your presentation.

Teaser statement

Follow-up point #1
Follow-up point #2

Some good examples:

• "New York at Christmas time is incredibly magical. I don't know how many of you have noticed that in the hustle and bustle of your professional lives. I really could have used some of that magic, though, the other day when I was trying to get across town while the lighting of the tree was going on. Some of you have traveled many miles to get here and some of you might feel like you did just to get across town. To all of you: thank you."
• "Hi. I'm Steve Jobs. It is 1958. IBM passes up the chance to buy a young, fledgling company that has invented a new technology called xerography."
• "With amazing consistency every year, we human beings agree there are three things that scare the living hell out of us more than anything else in life. Ranked in order of the terror they instill, the first is dying and the third is flying. And wedged smack bang in the middle of those two is something that can reduce normally confident and accomplished people into cowards: it's public speaking. After today, you'll need to find something else to fret about because I'm going to give you the keys to making such a great public presentation that this becomes one of your assets, not a liability."

As you can see, a good teaser statement generally has three characteristics:

1. Teaser statements need to be short - just a line or two generally suffices.
2. Teaser statements should inject a sense of intrigue - you make a bold statement that gets people thinking "What does that mean?"
3. You have to surprise people with your teaser statement - you have to tell them something they don't already know.

With a bit of thought and introspection, you'll probably find there is an engaging and memo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Book Presentation
• Summary
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright