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Book Review: You Get What You Pitch

Published Friday Mar 27, 2020

Author Terri Schlichenmeyer of The Bookworm Sez, LLC

"You Get What You Pitch For"
by Anthony Sullivan with Tim Vandehey
2017, Da Capo Press
$26/$34 Canada
232 pages

If you are not getting what you want in life, you may want to read “You Get What You Pitch For” by Anthony Sullivan with Tim Vandehey.

Back when he was 24 and selling mops, Sullivan lived in a van, but he was on a learning curve. He developed a pitch, figured out how to use it, and ultimately attained his goal to appear on TV. So how did he do it?  He pitched.

“Pitching,” he says, “is a superpower. Do it right and you’ll change minds, open doors, get opportunities…”

But don't equate pitching with selling. It can be used to sell, but it shouldn’t be the only tool in your sales arsenal. Master it, and you can become a boss at connecting with anyone, anywhere; in fact, chances are that you already know how to pitch and, he writes, you don’t realize it.  

To activate your pitching superpowers, first determine your ideal outcome.Identify what else you would consider a success, knowing falling short of the former is not failure; it’s being happy with an alternate outcome.

Then, know your audience and what they need. Then figure out how to “be the cure” for that need. Practice, practice, practice, until you’ve got your patter down pat and then practice some more. Learn how to work past what Sullivan calls “the Force Field” and how to call positive attention to yourself. Be a storyteller. Embrace your mistakes and know how to recover from them in front of an audience. Understand when and how to push back properly. Forget the close and “trust the process.” Finally, be confident and have fun. That's what makes people want to buy from you.

If you need a new angle for a business- or life-pitch, this book is worth a try. It’s readable and doable.

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