I'm in the middle of reading Pitch Anything. This is a book by Oren Klaff. It is basically a book describing  how to deliver your pitch so it hits all the right buttons so that your prospect says "yes" and not "no" or even worse than that, "I'll think about it."

Today I was reading the section where Klaff was describing, what he calls The Intrigue Frame. Basically as the name would suggest you need to tell a story where it creates intrigue. People are waiting for you to finish. What's going to happen they are wondering.

What really interested me in my reading this morning was the part when Klaff talks about prospects or targets as he calls them, wanting to know how you overcame obstacles. They don't want to hear a story of you observing something. They want to see that you that you have beaten that problem and also that you live in the company of interesting people.

This got me thinking, this also happens in social relationships. I can only talk from a male perspective but it seems to me that women want to know that you are interesting, they want to know that you have friends and participate fully in that circle.

I think that the best part of this section of the book however is when OK tells us how to tell the story to create the intrigue:

• You are in a difficult situation
• There are problems being faced by you
• Then you show safety but leave it just short as that creates the intrigue

For anyone who has to pitch to people, and basically that is all of us, I recommend this book. As I said I am reading this for the second time and I will read it a few times after that.

In the beginning - an introduction

About four years ago a very good friend and I were talking about one of the self-help books that we had read. The book, written by Brian Tracy advocated the idea of waking up one hour earlier than usual and reading for that hour in your field. So what that means is that if you are a salesman you should wake up and read for one hour about sales, or if you are lacking in the relationship department then you should read for one hour about relationships.

This particular activity, Tracy called it the Golden Hour my friend and I decided to adopt it and so we have continued it. We have called it another name but the idea is the same, read for one hour and summarise what we have read and send it to the other person for the other person to comment on it and send it back.

At the beginning we only read one book but my friend soon got restless of this and we changed it to two or three books at a time. I think the record at one stage was twelve.

In the head to head stakes, my friend leads the number of books read but at the end of the day who cares what the score is as long as you get something out of it and apply what you have read.

This blog will a review of some of the books and topics that I have read about  in the last few years as well as a review of things that I have read in the current week. I urge you to not only read this blog but to go and read some of the books that are mentioned in the following posts. You don't have to buy them, I’m sure you live in a town like my hometown where the public library is full of books that are just waiting to be read by you.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and I hope that we are all on the way to financial security and freedom, great relationships and healthy futures.