Take a photo of a barcode or cover
46 reviews for:
Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal
Oren Klaff
3.66 AVERAGE
46 reviews for:
Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal
Oren Klaff
3.66 AVERAGE
1. Understand your audience - using the neocortex is how you explain your idea, but people use their crock brain at first to understand.
2. You must create desire and tension - desire arises when you offer a reward and tension when you show them they might lose something.
3. You must establish frame control - strong frames survive when they clash together
4. You will encounter strong frames so you need to conteract it with a stronger frame
5. Use prizing frame to gain attention
6. Stack frames
7. Don't be needy, let your target chase you
8. Maintain alpha status
9. Keep your pitch short and simple
2. You must create desire and tension - desire arises when you offer a reward and tension when you show them they might lose something.
3. You must establish frame control - strong frames survive when they clash together
4. You will encounter strong frames so you need to conteract it with a stronger frame
5. Use prizing frame to gain attention
6. Stack frames
7. Don't be needy, let your target chase you
8. Maintain alpha status
9. Keep your pitch short and simple
challenging
informative
tense
fast-paced
I learned many key insights and theories on how to like sales pitch eh, the STONG METHOD and the 3 frames that the sales pitcher must combat in the everyday pitching of your product is helpful but limiting to the different amounts of wants and needs of other people. And also a step by step guide on pitching an idea in just 20 mins being categorized 5-10-2-3 and technical terms such as neurofinance and how 'crocodile brained' people are.
I wouldn't consider this a great read. I enjoyed hearing the author's airport pitch as I thought it brought the concepts together, but I feel the lessons he was trying to convey were a bit jumbled throughout the rest of the book. The main message is to portray yourself as an alpha dog, even when you need (money/time/expertise) from someone who is much higher than you on the social/business ladder. I feel there have to be other authors out there who shed more light on this subject and will continue searching.
Okay Goodreads friends don't make fun of me for reading a Sales book. My new job wants us to do some reading as part of training, so I had to stray from my usual books for this. There's no way I wasn't going to count it for my reading goal though.
As sales books go, it was typical. One or two really good ideas/frameworks that could have been summarized in a blog post or even an infographic. So, as they usually go, in order to hit a page requirement to be published, the "good ideas" have to be wrapped up in far-fetched or, at least, inapplicable anecdotes and vain attempts to force neuroscience into the equation.
And yes there will be more of these as part of my new hire training, apologies in advance.
As sales books go, it was typical. One or two really good ideas/frameworks that could have been summarized in a blog post or even an infographic. So, as they usually go, in order to hit a page requirement to be published, the "good ideas" have to be wrapped up in far-fetched or, at least, inapplicable anecdotes and vain attempts to force neuroscience into the equation.
And yes there will be more of these as part of my new hire training, apologies in advance.
I don't pitch things in the sense of this book, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. I think the basic concepts are useful to consider. The author is very confident in pitching himself to the reader. A bit much, maybe :D I do agree with other reviewers that for a short book, there is little meaningful organisation.
The book is also very male and I have a feeling that some of those power moves would not translate well if a woman were to do sth like that. This one particular bit with an apple comes to mind. I mean, there are no women mentioned at all in his field. Which is maybe close to reality, but the author could have made an effort to generalise into other situations as well.
I liked the emphasis on the emotional aspects of decision-making (what he called the "croc" brain or whatever). We want to be super rational and choose according to the best arguments, but there is obviously a lot more going on. If there wasn't, I wouldn't like eat ice-cream DURING a supposed "workout".
The book is also very male and I have a feeling that some of those power moves would not translate well if a woman were to do sth like that. This one particular bit with an apple comes to mind. I mean, there are no women mentioned at all in his field. Which is maybe close to reality, but the author could have made an effort to generalise into other situations as well.
I liked the emphasis on the emotional aspects of decision-making (what he called the "croc" brain or whatever). We want to be super rational and choose according to the best arguments, but there is obviously a lot more going on. If there wasn't, I wouldn't like eat ice-cream DURING a supposed "workout".
Oren Klaff tells us that the "frame control" approach to pitching he describes in Pitch Anything was motivated by his distaste for the earlier approaches that focused on putting maximum pressure on the person you're pitching to. But throughout Pitch Anything he uses violent and combative metaphors, like "crushing your target's frame". This dissonance is grating and distracting.
Here's my advice:
- The book is short, so read it quickly.
- Don't listen to the audio-book: you'll just be distracted by the obnoxious delivery.
- Focus on the core message. Pitching is about appealing to the emotional, reflex-driven parts of us (what Klaff calls the "crocodile brain", and Daniel Kahneman calls "System 1"). You can't make an appeal to the slow-thinking rational parts of the brain until you've convinced the crocodile brain that you aren't a threat and what you have to say is interesting.
- Klaff has a lot to say about generating "local star-power" when you pitch. Much of the time it sounds like he's describing phallocentric pissing contests to gain situational social dominance. This is where the disconnect between his style and his motivation is most glaring. You might, like me, find these parts of the book grotesque but ultimately not essential to his bigger message.
- The discussions about "beta traps" and neediness ("validation-seeking behavior") will sound like a prescription for being an obnoxious jerk. But once you wash off the encasing slime, the core message is important: neediness is not attractive. If you seem needy, your credibility will collapse and your pitch will fail. This won't be because you lost social dominance, although that's certainly one way to frame it, but as a consequence of basic human cognitive wiring.
- Finally, ignore all the neuroscience. It's simplified almost to the point of being gibberish.
Here's my advice:
- The book is short, so read it quickly.
- Don't listen to the audio-book: you'll just be distracted by the obnoxious delivery.
- Focus on the core message. Pitching is about appealing to the emotional, reflex-driven parts of us (what Klaff calls the "crocodile brain", and Daniel Kahneman calls "System 1"). You can't make an appeal to the slow-thinking rational parts of the brain until you've convinced the crocodile brain that you aren't a threat and what you have to say is interesting.
- Klaff has a lot to say about generating "local star-power" when you pitch. Much of the time it sounds like he's describing phallocentric pissing contests to gain situational social dominance. This is where the disconnect between his style and his motivation is most glaring. You might, like me, find these parts of the book grotesque but ultimately not essential to his bigger message.
- The discussions about "beta traps" and neediness ("validation-seeking behavior") will sound like a prescription for being an obnoxious jerk. But once you wash off the encasing slime, the core message is important: neediness is not attractive. If you seem needy, your credibility will collapse and your pitch will fail. This won't be because you lost social dominance, although that's certainly one way to frame it, but as a consequence of basic human cognitive wiring.
- Finally, ignore all the neuroscience. It's simplified almost to the point of being gibberish.
Nicely surprised. Was expecting a really cringy salesman method. But got a nice bunch of stories about a salesman.
Going to re-read it right away. Framing isn’t new but going into this depth, and his language and model crystallizes some pragmatic ways of using modern research in neuroscience is super fun, fresh and needed.
So glad he didn’t come at it from the angle of the pile of sales books already out there with their language.
So glad he didn’t come at it from the angle of the pile of sales books already out there with their language.