The Art of the Pitch Quotes

“there are three categories of stimulus present in human communication—the Visual, the Tone of Voice, and the Words used (spoken or read). He suggested that 55 percent of what we take away from communication comes from the visual, 38 percent from the tone of voice, and 7 percent from the actual words.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“Start each of your sentences by looking directly into someone’s eyes.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“And then, you’ve got to sit down and write what I call the “Voice Over” for each slide. You’ve got to decide exactly what you will be saying as your audience is seeing the slide on the screen.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“The words on the screen are usually a distraction to the audience. If you’re reading the words, by the time you’ve gotten around to mouthing the words, the audience has finished reading them and is getting bored by hearing you say them.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“When we are selling our ideas, the audience must first buy us.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“things—Feeling Safe, Being Right, Feeling Good, and Looking Good. If any of these conditions are challenged, we become fearful.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“Make a choice about what’s important and let everything else go.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“the audience will not remember the vast majority of what you say. But they will remember what they thought about what you said. And what they felt about what you said. So help them. Leave moments in your narrative for the audience’s reflection.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“We’re telling them our truth. That’s our gift to them.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“But it’s not because we’re afraid to fail. It’s because we’re afraid that we’ll succeed. That is what truly terrifies us.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“the way to deal with those nervous feelings is to channel them into adrenalin. Let the feelings pump you up. Enjoy the feeling of being excited.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“The most important factor in the equation”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time,”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“This is why we won’t have Marlon play “Layla” on his electric guitar. The seven-minute version with the birds tweeting at the end. Yes, it’s still a cool song, and he plays it really well, but it has nothing to do with what we want out of the presentation.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.” —Martha Graham,”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“Anyone who’s been in the business for any length of time knows how false these assumptions are. Great work has to be sold. And it isn’t easy to do so, because great work is unexpected.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“But when you have something important to say, you must be looking at someone.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“should be on the screen until it suits your purposes.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“If they’re not getting something, you’ve got to make the point in a way that they do get before you move on to the next point. Because that’s the way great presentations work—they are built step by step, point by point, until the argument that has been constructed is irrefutable.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“Just spend a bit of time bringing the same level of creativity to selling the work as you brought to creating the work.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“It should seem as if we’re thinking of these words for the first time as we say them. In fact, it should feel as if we’re telling this particular story for the first time.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“We all fall in love with our own ideas. The trick is to know when to fall out of love with these ideas and get out of the presentation.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“The secret to selling great work is to sell the idea of the work before you sell the work.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business

“Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub, It is the centre hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel, It is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room, It is the holes which make it useful. Therefore profit comes from what is there, Usefulness from what is not there.”
― Peter Coughter, The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business