The Power Presenter: Technique, Style, and Strategy from America's Top Speaking Coach [Hardcover]

Jerry Weissman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0470376481 | ISBN-13: 978-0470376485 | Edition: 1

Learn the successful presentation techniques used in over 500 IPO road shows and featured in The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company.

Jerry Weissman is the presentations coach to Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and many of America's top executives, including founding Yahoo CEO Tim Koogle, Intuit founder Scott Cook, Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings, and many others. The San Jose Mercury News says that Weissman's IPO presentation coaching "is worth 10% on a company stock." Learn why your body language and voice are more important than your words, how to present with poise and confidence naturally, and how to connect with any audience emotionally. Filled with illustrative case studies of Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, and many others, The Power Presenter will bring out the best in anyone who has to stand and deliver.

Readers of The Power Presenter will have access to video clips referenced in the book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Capture your audiences with a powerful delivery style

Presentation coach Jerry Weissman has spent twenty years teaching CEOs and other executives how to deliver successful, profitable IPO road shows. His clients credit Jerry's presentation coaching with helping their companies earn higher stock prices and higher IPO valuations. Weissman's strategies have worked for dozens of big-name business leaders, including founding Yahoo! CEO Tim Koogle, Intuit founder Scott Cook, and Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings.

Now, The Power Presenter gives you the same effective technique, style, and strategy that executive teams from more than 1,000 companies have used to raise financing, sell products, propose partnerships, or seek approval for projects. Packed with case studies of famous power presenters—from Martin Luther King, Jr. to John F. Kennedy, from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama—this book shows you how to deliver a winning speech or presentation that will engage your audience from beginning to end.

You'll follow a seven-step plan for crafting your content into a compelling story. You'll learn how to conquer your fear of public speaking and present with force and conviction, naturally. You'll also learn how to speak with your body language, create empathy with your audience, and integrate your graphics design and animation with your delivery.

For anyone who has to stand up and deliver, The Power Presenter is a master resource filled with proven techniques, practical tools, insightful wisdom, and illustrative, inspiring examples.

From the Back Cover

"Jerry Weissman is one of the world's experts in teaching people to overcome their nerves, and his secret starts with something very natural—the comfort we feel when having a conversation with one other person."
—Chip Heath, coauthor of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

"Jerry's coaching added tremendous clarity to our IPO presentations. Not only should IPO-bound CEOs read this book, but everyone who gives important presentations."
—Reed Hastings, founder and CEO, Netflix

"Jerry is a coach like no other. If you need to give an important presentation, buy this book. Now. The only thing at stake is your income, your influence, and the success of your cause."
—Scott Cook, founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit

"This book will help you bring out your natural charisma. It's like a bottle of turbo-charged personality. Take a swig, and you'll kick butt."
—Guy Kawasaki, cofounder of Alltop.com, author of Reality Check

"I watched with my own eyes as Jerry created billions in stock market value by teaching CEOs his speaking styles and strategies. Now it's all in a 250-page book. How cool is that?"
—Andy Kessler, bestselling author of Wall Street Meat and Running Money

"Jerry Weissman explains in clear terms how to stand up, be heard, and truly master how to reach people with influence."
—Simon Witts, Corporate Vice President, Enterprise and Partner Group, Microsoft Corporation

"Jerry has the uncanny ability to take the art of communicating and make it feel like science. The Power Presenter is a prescriptive road map to communications confidence and excellence."
—Ron Ricci, Vice President, Corporate Positioning, Cisco Systems

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470376481
• ISBN-13: 978-0470376485
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #287,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jerry Weissman is the world's number one corporate presentations coach. His private client list reads like a who's who of the world's best companies, including the top brass at Yahoo!, Intel, Intuit, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Dolby Labs and many others.

Mr. Weissman founded Power Presentations, Ltd. in 1988. One of his earliest efforts was the Cisco Systems IPO roadshow. Following its successful launch, Don Valentine, of Sequoia Capital, and then chairman of Cisco's Board of Directors, attributed "at least two to three dollars" of the offering price to Mr. Weissman's coaching. That endorsement led to nearly 500 other IPO roadshow presentations that have raised hundreds of billions of dollars in the stock market. Mr. Weissman's focus widened from coaching IPOs to include public and privately held companies. His techniques have helped another 500 firms develop and deliver their mission-critical business presentations.

Those same techniques form the basis of Jerry's publications. The book, Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story, covers his concepts of story development and graphics design. His second book, In the Line of Fire: How to Handle Tough Questions...When it Counts, and its companion DVD, In the Line of Fire: An Interactive Guide to Handling Tough Questions, cover his Q&A techniques.

The DVD contains lessons from the book, illustrated by video clips of tough Q&A sessions in the public arena. It includes press conferences, media interviews and presidential debates, featuring the 2004 debates between President George W. Bush and John F. Kerry.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing Common Sense for Businesspeople Who Speak February 5, 2009

By David Garfinkel

Format:Hardcover

Jerry Weissman breaks through a powerful myth about public speaking and offers an appealing alternative right at the start of this book. I'll rephrase it for you: Public speaking should not be required to mimic what a Broadway actor does on his or her day off!

This is really important for the many businesspeople who speak and have been browbeaten by well-meaning but ill-informed coaches to think that they need to summon up their Inner Thespian just to make an acceptable speech. They don't. I was once a speech coach and I was on the side of Weissman's philosophy. Namely, that a speech is not necessarily a Tony-Award-winning performance; but it _is_ a _conversation_ with your audience.

Drama ain't for everyone. But clear, connected, and ideally compelling communication is.

There's lots more in this book besides that stress-relieving idea, but it alone will make it worth your reading, especially if you are a man or woman in business. Here is why: Many people successful in business have already learned how to listen and how to speak persuasively, long before they needed to get in front of an audience. (Not all, but many.) That everyday persuasion skill is relatively easy to extend and expand on the platform, compared to the much more demanding (and often awkward) skill set that needs to be mastered from the dramatic arts.

I know a number of people in the professional speaking community and a number of coaches. One other good thing Weissman does that I haven't seen anyone else in his field do nearly as well or as thoroughly is, he meticulously researches and presents examples from famous people familiar to the reader (one chapter: Winston Churchill, JFK, Martin Luther King, Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama) and shows someone who has no mastery of oratorical skills, and no desire to have it, how to apply some lessons from the greats in their own presentations.

I've been speaking in front of groups professionally since 1987. I know from experience (not just as a coach, but as a speaker) that it makes a huge difference to have a model and approach that lets you be yourself in front of a group while still being interesting and worthwhile for your audience. This book gives you many tips and techniques to get you there.

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The Art of the Sizzle March 8, 2009

By QuinnCreative VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Jerry Wiseman's latest book (he also wrote "In The Line of Fire" and "Presenting to Win")is subtitled "Technique, Style, and Strategy from America's Top Speaking Coach." While the book certainly is packed with practical and useful ideas, I had some difficulties getting through it. Rather than let my subjective opinion color my entire review, here's what worked and what didn't work (in my opinion.)

What works:
1. You'll find a lot of specific examples of good and bad speeches, along with the urls so you can view them online.

2. Weissman stresses the importance of knowing and working with the audience. He brings it up early and keeps coming back to it. It's the key to good presentations and he wraps much of the book around it.

3. He gives specific examples of improving vocal and visual components of presenting.

4. He addresses how to handle nerves and non-verbal fillers (e.g., "ummm) in clear, useful ways.

5. Chapters 11 through 13 give specific, useful, attainable instructions on how to deliver a PowerPoint presentation that creates a bond of clarity between the speaker and audience. No more Death By PowerPoint.

What doesn't work:

1. Weissman spends 230 pages on the sizzle and 8.5 on the steak. Chapter 4 is "How to Prepare Your Content, The Seven Steps of Story Development," but points 6 and 7 are not really about story development. Without meaningful content, there is no presentation, no matter how powerful the presenter. From frequent mentions, I surmise content was the topic of a previous book. But no book on presentation should gloss over the importance of content. Skip it entirely and say why, or include more material on how to write a good presentation.

2. The subtitle of the book includes the words "from America's Top Speaking Coach." Who decides that? In case you wonder, the book's introduction assures the reader that Weissman's speech coaching has raised the value of an IPO (initial public offering of stock) for none less than Cisco Systems. You also are reminded that Weissman has an MA from Stanford University, and that his client list includes the CEOs of well-known companies, which are named. He makes reference to his other books often. In our culture, self promotion is a virtue, intended to explain expertise. It made me feel browbeaten instead.

3. The majority of speech quotes are political. There is a good reason for that--they are recognizable and easily accessible. The disadvantage is that most people feel strongly supportive of their political choice, and that lessens the reader's ability to be impartial in how these speeches are described.

4. Their are design and editorial flaws. The book's photos and clips are in black and white, even after TV programs ran in color. Some of the photos are blurry. The pie chart on pages 2 and 4 is presented incorrectly: a pie chart's biggest segment begins at the top of the circle and moves clockwise, followed by the next biggest segment. The political quotes are too busy--they appear in italics, separated from the text by indents and keylines. One of those would have been enough. The urls for each political clip (conveniently, the url is an ad for the author) is given in a large shaded box marked "Note" and a reminder to use the passcode in the introduction. This material could have been handled in a less obtrusive way. Important notes, such as how to black out a PowerPoint screen are presented in the same way, making it easy for a reader to skip them. Elizabeth Dole's nickname is "Liddy" not "Libby." There is mention of a Pulitzer Prize winning television critic, but he or she is not named. On p. 207 is a chart that "summarizes. . .all that you've learned in the last two chapters," but the chart shows 6 identical storyboard segments. All these stumbles make me doubt some of the veracity of the book.

The book is certainly worth reading and even worth owning. It's not a textbook, but it will help you improve your presentation skills.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Winning Technique, Style and Strategy in an Outstanding New Book February 1, 2009

By Larry Mullins

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Like most professional presenters I have a couple of shelves of books on public speaking and presenting. We always look for a new wrinkle. Jerry Weissman's book seemed especially promising. He had trained some heavy hitters, including the CEO's of Yahoo, Intuit, and Netflix. I was not disappointed. One moment we all fear is when we stand up to speak ... what Jerry calls the "Moment of Truth," the critical first few seconds when you begin to speak, when appearance, body language and the way you sound account for 93% of the impression you make. (WHAT you say accounts for only 7%!) Jerry's techniques for handling the adrenaline rush and moving with confidence and grace are excellent. His most important quality is writing with clarity and precision and walking you through each step in the preparation process. In my judgment, every battle is won or lost before it is set into motion, and Jerry handles this concept as the "Mental Method of Presenting." Assuming you have a precious payload, preparation and multiple rehearsals will launch it into orbit successfully.

There is a great deal more, including learning to tell the right story in a compelling way, using graphics to wow and not confuse, using body language to deliver with poise and power, and orchestrating proper cadence. The book abounds with great examples, and Weissman provides web access to view the video clips of many of the examples he refers to. These clips are worth the price of the book and include outstanding presentations of Ronald Reagan, contrasting examples of passionless a Bob Dole and fiery Barack Obama, Generals Neal and Schwarzkopf, Kennedy/Nixon in debate; George Bush's dramatic improvements before and after being coached, Libby Dole's dramatic invasion of the audience,the monumental errors by a cranky and negative Ross Perot and much more. If you give talks or presentations you will not regret this investment.