Scripting Important Conversations: A Guide to Effective Communication

Perfecting Your Pitch

Introduction

There are plenty of conversations that occur throughout a person’s life of which the outcome bears significant weight. These types of conversations include but are not limited to: job interviews, contract negotiations, ending a relationship with a significant other, and asking for a salary increase. The author of Perfecting Your Pitch, Ronald M. Shapiro, happens to have a considerable amount of experience with these kinds of conversations as a former lawyer and sports agent, and now through running a negotiation firm. In Perfecting Your Pitch, Shapiro uses his expertise and personal experiences to teach his readers a process of scripting important conversations to ensure confidence and articulation and cultivate

This book is naturally a nonfiction book, and includes multiple elements of a memoir. Shapiro primarily uses story telling to illustrate real life examples of scripting and walks the reader through the process.

Shapiro himself has an extensive background prior to be an author which gives him abundant credibility on the subject. He was formerly a lawyer, sports agent, corporate executive, counselor, and teacher (24).

Shapiro’s primary approach to the topic of scripting as as a teacher. Most of his examples relate to business situations, but he is careful to also include outlying examples as far removed from business as his own fifth grade daughter confronting her former-friend on their falling out (33).

Perfecting Your Pitch is truly a book written for anyone in any walk of life. Perfecting Your Pitch is an incredibly powerful yet intimately practical book that is sure to help anyone with their own crucial conversations by teaching three simple steps to scripting those conversations.

Crucial Conversations deals with more abstract concepts such as understanding and recognizing your emotions, while Perfecting Your Pitch gives a simple, yet effective three-step process to mastering life’s crucial conversations.

I relate heavily to example Shapiro gave of the executive requesting his salary. Although I am not a business executive and I am in no position to request a $100,000 salary, I understand the fear that caused this man to instead request a range. I can think of plenty of times where I was asked to provide a number, whether that be a time, price, or date. In many of these moments I end up providing a range of numbers at the expense of my own convenience in order to hope to satisfy the convenience of the person asking.

My favorite part of reading Perfecting Your Pitch was considering all the future situations I expect to be in during which I will certainly be compelled to use Shapiro’s three D’s to script my conversation to achieve my desired outcome. The repetitiveness of this book, however, was slightly hard to bear. Instead of giving four examples related to sales, six examples related to management, five examples related to employment, two examples related to media, eight examples related to family, seven examples related to friendship, and seven examples related to consumers, I would have preferred that he just give on example for each