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A review by charleseliot
Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal by Oren Klaff
3.0
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.