Riffs, Tiffs and What Ifs

We've moved to a new site - WritingRiffs.com - Appreciate you checking this article out at WritingRiffs.com . We'll be deleting all the content on this site over the next few weeks. Thanks! Steve ______________________________________________ Pitch: A quick, concise communication meant to persuade someone to do something - buy a product, service, idea, etc. A pitch is a story told with the goal of getting someone to buy in to your idea; your request for action. You want them to do something. You appeal to their reason and emotions. They want you to do something too. Don't be stupid, waste their time or insult their intelligence with lame words drained of meaning. Good-to-Great There are good-to-great pitches. They're informative, interesting and on occasion, wonderfully inspiring. They connect with you emotionally and ride the road of reason and common sense over to their intended destination―the "decision." And, more often than not, the decision is good ...

We've moved to a new site - WritingRiffs.com Appreciate you checking this article out at WritingRiffs.com . We'll be deleting all the content on this site over the next few weeks. Thanks! Steve From personal experience and conversations with many experts in the business -to-business field, there is reasonable agreement that most corporate sales, marketing and PR lingo suffers from ... "The Four Too’s." Too wordy Too complex Too confusing Too valueless Agree or Disagree? Why is that? Essentially it boils down to: Trying to be all things to all people at all times Not knowing you can’t be all things to all people at all times Trying to sound really sophisticated, cool, intelligent, intricate and inclusive And finally, the biggie, not understanding your customer/buyer. They only want one thing. Understand this. You exist to solve a problem for them. In a recent technology ana...

We've moved to a new site - WritingRiffs.com. Appreciate you checking this article out at WritingRiffs.com . We'll be deleting all the content on this site over the next few weeks. Thanks! Steve They Don’t Teach Moving Mountains in School I was inundated with e-mails after digi-penning the article “Animotorize - Help Banish Boring Business Presentations.” M ost agreed that the proliferation of really bad business presentations was an overbearing tax on the human mind and spirit, but more importantly, a massive waste of valuable time. Giving Good Presentations A few of the respondents challenged me. They asked me to give them examples of what I thought were really good presentations. They also asked for some resource materials that could help them learn what actually makes a good presentation and how to deliver one. 10 Great Presentation Examples So … I will. Not only will I provide ten examples of some great presentations (purely subjective) at the end of this article, but al...

We've moved to a new site - WritingRiffs.com Appreciate you checking this article out at WritingRiffs.com . We'll be deleting all the content on this site over the next few weeks. Thanks! Steve I recently received an e-mail from a reader espousing the benefits and yes, even absolute necessity, of using PowerPoint slides during sales presentations (see see below). "Steve! No way you can give a sales presentation without PowerPoint. Business people expect it ... demand it! You must be a marketing bonehead!" Obviously the reader doesn’t know me. Do I look like a marketing bonehead? But, the vehemence and hard-core fanaticism of the reader’s comments (which I do not include here due to my civil nature) made me rethink my position. That’s right. I might quite possibly have been wrong. As hard as that is for me to admit, it’s true. I’m flip-flop...