Product Description

The pitch is the absolute essence of modern business. Ideas are the most valuable commodity in the modern economy and it is human skill which develops them. In pitching for new business, ideas and emotional intelligence dominate. However the skills of the pitch are not only relevant to the world of business, rather they apply to just about every significant personal transaction in your life..."Life's a Pitch" is the ultimate how-to book - a mixture of mechanics and magic. Nothing like it has been written before. A mixture of mentoring, graphics, anthropology, market research and modern Machiavellianism, this book will prepare you for success. So whether at a sales conference in corporate conference room hell or over lunch at a glamourous restaurant, "Life's a Pitch" tells you how to handle human transactions. A pitch is not a meeting, it's a drama. A pitch is not about transferring information, it's about transferring power. It is business, but it is also theatre. And the results of a successful pitch are - quite simply but rather persuasively - money and power.Part inspirational manual for business, part guidebook to a successful and happy social life, "Life's a Pitch" is written as the result of an accumulated half century of (mostly successful) pitching by the authors. Ground-breaking and genre-busting, it will transform the way you think about the art of persuasion for ever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15727 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From the Back Cover
The date which leads to a passionate affair is a pitch. The interview which starts your new career is a pitch. Every meeting and every new opportunity involves pitching to someone, somewhere. We’re at it all the time.

Now, Life’s a Pitch tells you how to do it better. How to be best, first or, at least, different. How to get noticed, how to say the right thing and how to get to ‘yes’. How to be smarter, cleverer, sexier.

Witty, irreverent and stuffed to the gunnels with unconventional wisdom, Life’s a Pitch will help you win life’s battles – in the office, at home and over lunch…

‘One of the most honest books I've read in a long, long time. Maybe for ever’Tom Peters

‘Crammed with ideas and rich in the kind of quotations that have a way of giving you a jolt up the spine and lodging themselves in your brain’ Time Out

About the Author
Stephen Bayley first became famous as an authority on style and design when Sir Terence Conran chose him to head up the Boilerhouse at the V&A, Britain's first permanent exhibition of design. He then went on to become the first Chief Executive of the Design Museum and he is now a celebrated, outspoken broadcaster and critic, author of 12 books and consultant on design and presentation to companies such as Ford and Coca-Cola.

Customer Reviews

The Power of Persuasion
Aristotle and Shakespeare had a name for it - they called rhetoric the art of persuasion, and like Bayley and Mavity, knew that to persuade involved passion, emotion and getting your audience's imagination fired up.'Life's a Pitch' is different from all those boring business How-To-Succeed books because it shows how every transaction in life involves the emotions, whether you're pitching for a new client, asking for a mortgage, or negotiating a tricky sex life. The book's design is a joy to behold, and the style sparkles with wit and passion, seducing the reader -perfect examples of the book's subject - the power of persuasion.

something quite different
this book is something quite different - if you're nervous about pitching (yes, I am, how about you?) it tells you how, it gives you the info and the confidence. But it's also very funny, witty and beautiful to look at. I loved it.

Life's a Pitch
This is a brilliant book. It's so wittily instructive whether you're in business or not. Beautifully designed too. I would recommend the book to all young people starting out after university or college as well as anyone selling anything to anyone.