Book Review: Perfect Pitch - the art of selling ideas and winning new business by Jon Steel.

As well as providing practical techniques to help everyone deliver great presentations, this is also a cracking read (even though we know the ending). Engaging, inspiring, brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny are just some of the praises to heap on Jon’s book. If more people adopt the approach he provides, we may be spared ‘death by Powerpoint’ and badly thought-through presentations.

The book begins with the O.J Simpson trial, forcefully making the point about understanding the audience. Illustrated with often hilarious stories from a highly-successful ad industry career in the UK and USA, we are guided step-by-step through the process of figuring out who exactly we’re pitching to and therefore what we’ll say and how we’ll say it. How to field questions, what to leave behind and how follow up on the pitch are also covered. There are some wonderful ‘how not to do it’ anecdotes as well as plenty of ‘how we won’ show-stoppers, such as the pitch for Sega where every employee got involved. The book culminates in a riveting account of London’s successful bid for the 2010 Olympics.

It’s a recommended read on all the workshops I run about presentation skills and presenting creative work. Buy it here