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In Presenting to Win: Persuading Your Audience Every Time, the world's #1 presentation consultant shows how to connect with even the toughest, most high-level audiences--and move them to action. Jerry Weissman shows presenters of all kinds how to dump those PowerPoint templates once and for all--and learn to tell compelling stories that focus on what's in it for their listeners. Drawing on dozens of practical examples and real case studies, Weissman shows presenters how to identify their real goals and messages before they even open PowerPoint; how to stay focused on what their listeners really care about; and how to capture their audiences in the first crucial 90 seconds. From bullets and graphics to the effective, sparing use of special effects, Weissman covers all the practical mechanics of effective presentation--and walks readers through every step of building a Power Presentation, from brainstorming through delivery. Unlike the techniques in other presentation books, this book's easy, step-by-step approach has been proven with billions of dollars on the line, in hundreds of IPO road shows before the world's most jaded investors.
Product Details
* Amazon Sales Rank: #105952 in Books
* Published on: 2003-03-13
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Hardcover
* 304 pages
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
In Presenting to Win: Persuading Your Audience Every Time, the world's #1 presentation consultant shows how to connect with even the toughest, most high-level audiences--and move them to action. Jerry Weissman shows presenters of all kinds how to dump those PowerPoint templates once and for all--and learn to tell compelling stories that focus on what's in it for their listeners. Drawing on dozens of practical examples and real case studies, Weissman shows presenters how to identify their real goals and messages before they even open PowerPoint; how to stay focused on what their listeners really care about; and how to capture their audiences in the first crucial 90 seconds. From bullets and graphics to the effective, sparing use of special effects, Weissman covers all the practical mechanics of effective presentation--and walks readers through every step of building a Power Presentation, from brainstorming through delivery. Unlike the techniques in other presentation books, this book's easy, step-by-step approach has been proven with billions of dollars on the line, in hundreds of IPO road shows before the world's most jaded investors.
About the Author
Jerry Weissman, the world's #1 corporate presentations consultant, is known worldwide for his confidential executive coaching sessions. Weissman's private client list reads like a Who's Who of the world's great companies, including the top brass at Yahoo!, eBay, Intel, Intuit, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and many others. Weissman's techniques have helped nearly 400 client firms hone persuasive IPO road show presentations that have raised hundreds of billions of dollars in the stock market; and have helped hundreds of other public and pre-public firms develop and deliver crucial business presentations.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
What's Past Is Prologue
My first experience with the power of the spoken word came on December 8, 1941, when as a child, I joined my father and mother at the family Philco radio to hear President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, deliver his stirring Day of Infamy speech. I'll never forget how he concluded, his rich voice reverberating: "With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounded determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God." In that exhilarating moment, Roosevelt's potent words pierced through our dismay, lifted our spirits, and restored our confidence in our nation and in our future.
Later, I learned more about the ability of words to move people's minds in my graduate classes in the Speech and Drama Department at Stanford University, where I studied the works of the great Greek orators. Still later, in my work as a news and public affairs producer for CBS Television in New York, I witnessed the momentous impact of the words of great national leaders, from John F. Kennedy to Martin Luther King, Jr.
But I never fully realized the universal significance of communication until I left the broadcast medium and entered the world of business. The medium of choice in business is the presentation, and I soon discovered the force it can exert: A poor presentation can kill a deal, while a powerful one can make it soar. Early in my business career, I was privileged to work on the Initial Public Offering presentation, known as an IPO road show, for Cisco Systems, and saw, on its first day of trading after the road show, Cisco's valuation increase by over 40 million dollars.
The big Aha!for me was the realization that every communication is an IPO. Everyone communicates every day. You do. I do. Every time we do, we can either fail or succeed. My job is to help you succeed in your everyday communications, just as I helped the Cisco IPO, and as I've helped hundreds of corporations like Microsoft and Intel, and thousands of clients who are executives or managers or salespeople just like you. My job is to help you persuade every audience, every time.
The very same principles that propelled Cisco's success reach all the way back to the classical concepts of Aristotle. Those same basics underlie Abraham Lincoln's towering rhetoric that healed a nation torn asunder by civil war. They underlie Sir Winston Churchill's inspiring orations and Franklin Roosevelt's assuring fireside chats that rallied their nations to the victorious defense of the free world. And they underlie Martin Luther King's rousing speeches that spearheaded the civil rights movement.
They also underlie your sales pitch, your presentation to a potential new customer, your bid for financing, your requisition for more resources, your petition for a promotion, your appeal for a raise, your call to action, your own quest for the big Aha!
They are the principles that will empower you to present to win.
Customer Reviews
Presenting to Win is an excellent tool4
This book is an excellent tool. It focuses very specifically on effectively creating a business presentation. The tips were valuable to be and I have been creating presentations for several years. It will also be very easy to reference in the future.
Homerun after homerun after homerun ...4
This book is about making CONSCIOUS decisions for balancing the story board itself for hard facts, visual, ethical and psychological aspects, politicily correctness etc. but of course doesnt stop there.
The book shows and discusses which elements you need to convey your story and why you use certain presentation technics over others to achieve your goals.
The book is devided in 14 chapters. Each chapter is focused on either
a) How to create or develop your basic story or on
b) How to enhance it
(by using the described technics and its implications and reactons it will provoke).
What makes this book standing out is the careful analyzation of the aspects that came into play when giving an presentation.
That obviously includes the analytical skills itself but also the time and effort to explicitely mention and discuss (dis)advantages of each element.
The carefully chosen presentation samples will be disassembled throughout the book and taken apart into its peaces, analyzed, explained and put back together.
Where required, the example will be (dis)assembled several times to bring the points across.
Its the analysation of those presentations and its aspects to a granular level and putting the gained knowledge into a conscious presentation creation process that make the book so valuable.
Most books tell you just how to use software to make graphics etc. but this book tells you what you have to present to your adience to actually win them over.
The fact that the many aspects are explicitely explained helps you visualize the options you have at your disposal and the reason why you chose one presentation form over another.
While this book focuses on presentations that show off your assets and the art of persuasion. There is also a companion book "In the line of Fire" which focuses more on the defense to hardball questions.
I do also want to recommend a third book - "Dan Roams: Back of the Napkin" which focuses more on the technical aspects of how to find your story, and a strong focus on visualizing it fool prove and providing rock solid hard facts that wont be beaten.
What Jerry*s books does express very well is the fact that giving a presentation is like being an athlet.
You will have to exercise "verbalize" regularly to be in top form when it counts.
Good luck to you !!
You will never present the same way again...and your audiece will thank you5
Jerry Weissman is one of those rare people who has written an authoritative sounding book about how to present and has the real experience and background to justify every claim he makes.
The book starts with the premise that the presenter must focus on the audience and that he must make them focus on him. He must understand the mental point they are at (Point A) and moves them to Point B. He must understand what is in it for them (WIIFY) and constantly use it as he constructs every slide to walk them to Point B. He must also understand the setting of the audience, and his main points of argument. Finally, he must tie those points together with a flow structure that fits his argument.
That's the first half of the book and as someone who has through some awful presentations, I can only wish reading this book were the equivalent of a driver's license for public speakers.
The back half of the book draws on his background in television and employs standard cinematic techniques to improve the appearance of PowerPoint. It's easy to overlook this part, but it makes a huge difference as well.
I've now had a chance to see people who have used these techniques for years present, and it makes a huge difference. I have also seen someone present in a tough situation using these techniques for the first time. This person is level-headed and not given to fads. His comment? "I wish I had run to Jerry's book ten years earlier."
If you speak in public, this is the one book you have to read, and re-read. It is common sensical, based in fact, and surprisingly intuitive.
