I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and not as much writing as I should. To that end, I’ll give some quick highs and lows of what I’ve read as of late.

  • The Power Presenter by Jerry Weissman: The third in Jerry’s line of presentation skills books after In the Line of Fire and Presenting to Win, this one focuses on skills to use Many good techniques are included, like “Phrase and Pause”, “Eye Connect”, and “Completing the Arc”. Jerry is very fond of his technique names, but other than that you’ll learn some solid skills to take into your presentations.
  • In the Line of Fire by Jerry Weissman: Yes, I read these out of order. Jerry talks about how to handle question and answer periods in your presentations, with a heavy focus on hostile questioning; invaluable for anyone who’s even thinking of including a Q&A. Several examples of politicians and others who’ve expertly and not-so-expertly handled questioning, including a focus on Al Gore’s hits and misses, are included and are considerably enlightening.
  • Punk Marketing by Richard Laermer and Mark Simmons: Probably what stuck out about this book was its advocacy for truth, though ‘told’ in more interesting ways, as well as its warning that traditional marketing is failing (mostly because of DVR and the like).
  • The Irresistable Offer by Mark Joyner: If you had three seconds or less to express what your business was about and convince people to buy into it, could you do it? Mark’s Irresistable Offer is about creating a value statement that you can quickly use to sell others. Heavy use of FedEx and Dominos Pizza as examples.
  • Jeffrey Gitomer’s Sales Bible: As with most Gitomer books, this is very heavy in the content department; this means it needs a few reads or at least coming back to relevant sections later. While there is a lot of good material here (including how to overcome common objections and stalls), it did not seem that this was geared to completely new salespeople; some sample dialogues that went from start to finish of the selling process may’ve helped.
  • Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte: Initially I thought this book would be a long read, but this wasn’t the case. You’ll get a decent amount of advice about creative use of slide shows here, including color use, law of threes, and more, though ultimately it felt like it was “let the creative folks do it”. If you want to see some creative uses of PowerPoint or Keynote, give it a look.
  • The One Decision by Judith Wright: I’ve gone over a lot of books, but this one made me glaze over hardcore, and I really couldn’t stand it. The idea is that you come up with a sort of mantra for your life that will make it great and wonderful. Lots of “oh and my husband Bob is great” stories, and a large amount of woo. The core message isn’t horrible, but three hundred pages for it was about two hundred too many.
  • The Heart and Art of Netweaving by Bob Littell: The takeaway from this one could be Stephen Covey’s Habit #5 (Seek first to understand, then to be understood) though tweaked a bit: “Seek first to help others, then be helped yourself”.

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