Pitch Perfect

By: Bill McGowan

Narrated by: Bill McGowan

Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's Summary

Media guru and Emmy Award-winning correspondent Bill McGowan - coach to some of the biggest names in business and entertainment, including Eli Manning, Kelly Clarkson, Jack Welch, Thomas Keller, and Kenneth Cole - teaches you how to get your message across and get what you want with pitch-perfect communication. He is also a trusted advisor in the C-suites of tech companies like Facebook, Spotify, AirBnB, Dropbox, and Salesforce.com.

Saying the right thing the right way can make the difference between sealing the deal or losing the account, getting a promotion, or getting a pink slip. It's essential to be pitch perfect - to get the right message across to the right person at the right time. In Pitch Perfect, Bill McGowan shows you how to craft the right message and deliver it using the right language - both verbal and nonverbal.

Pitch Perfect teaches you how to overcome common communication pitfalls using McGowan's simple Principles of Persuasion, which are highly effective and easy to learn, implement, and master. With Pitch Perfect you can harness the power of persuasion and have people not only listening closely to your every word but also remembering you long after you've left the room.

©2014 Bill McGowan (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers

Interesting Read

I loved the content. I actually was less enthusiastic by the authors reading style. I felt at times he appear a bit self-righteous. Overall, the information is applicable to anyone wanting to improve their communication skills. I'll probably re-read this book as I think it requires more than one pass to internalize the information. This may actually be a better book read in text than listened to.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Bill McGowan needs to heed his own advice

I picked up this audiobook in hopes of improving my public communication skills. While there were several great pointers throughout the book, I can't help drifting away while listening.

The author/narrator's presentation of stories were not well defined from the rest of the book's content. It can be difficult to know if the author is presenting a story or giving advice as part of its book.

The greatest flaw, however, is a mistake Bill himself mentioned in his book. The invention of terms/words. All of the seven principles mean nothing if you have not read/heard the entire book. They serve no purpose at all and would be forgettable, especially in an audio form when the reader have no convenient means to flip back the pages to recall what was mentioned about the principles.

After about halfway through the book, I had to force myself to listen till the end as I do recognise great material Bill McGowan presented in his book. But these material were so buried that it takes conscious effort to find them.

All in all, while I did learn from the book, the audio book is a disappointment, but it might be just slightly better if I had the print version. A rewording of the 7 principles will help the book tremendously.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Couldn’t force myself to finish...

Take this review with a grain of salt as I have not entirely finished the book. I’ve listened to about 2 hours of the story, but it is so dry and vague that I don’t think I will bother with the rest. I wanted to learn more about speaking in a professional setting to coworkers and management, but this book focuses more on public speaking. The guidelines are to non-specific for me to easily apply to general discussion, and the humor is dry. I was also slightly annoyed by his perception of millennials, but that barely affects my views on his book.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Don't waste your time

Would you try another book from Bill McGowan and/or Bill McGowan?

This is a book about Bill McGowan. Name dropping and proselytizing his progressive beliefs. Its 90% about Bill and 10% about public speaking.

Has Pitch Perfect turned you off from other books in this genre?

Yes

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Great descriptions

Great examples, clear descriptions, actionable advice. pitch perfect clearly explains all the tools needed to set you up for winning presentations and interviews.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Relatable stories

I love the examples in the book to help improve delivery while thinking about what to say and how to say it to make relevant.

Self promoting, tedious, un-relatable stories

I am currently in chapter 4 and I am finding hard to listen to the book. These chapters have so far been used by the author to promote and praise himself on how good he is at communications. I am not sure why it has 4 stars. He claims he has changed people's lives, but he gives almost no pointers or techniques so far in the book, none that really relatable, I really hope it gets better and I am wrong. I will update this review, if that becomes the case...

Some great advice if you can stomach author.

I found McGowan to offer some really good advice and also offer some boneheaded and even offensive comments. I found the book hard to listen to and eventually just deleted it and asked audible for my money back. McGowan starts out the book by putting down anyone who ever bought clothes from Sears. Other small remarks solidified his superiority in his own mind. I kept trying to ignore his elitism and just listen to his points but he just really grated on me so I finally stopped. He also puts down concepts he doesn’t understand while he uses them himself. An example is the advice to “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them” McGowan said this means repeating yourself - it doesn’t, what is means is to do something very similar to McGowan’s advice of how to introduce your topic and then end with a call to action. Anyway, he obviously knows his stuff, he has great advice and knows more about speaking, writing and etc. then I ever will. If he had kept his condescending attitude in check I would have really enjoyed the book and given it more stars.

Useful and clear guidance

My manager read this book and recommended it to me. Its full of strategies and tips to overcome common problems and become a great communicator. Each chapter includes examples and step by step instructions to use the technique. The entertaining stories made it a fun read even as I cringed in recognition of my own gaffs.
I listened to the audiobook but I plan to buy the print version to keep as a reference.

Mixed Feelings

I found the boom to be useful and practical, it has several good tips and pointers, however I constantly found myself fighting the urge of quitting, the author tries to hard to be funny and entertaining which sadly he is not. In fact its even annoying....I constantly thought to myself that even if I had a free session with him and despite it would most definitely be useful, I wouldn't accept it. Too dense and self absorbed to my own liking.