# 4 books that made me less bad at presenting ![[presenting-books-banner.jpeg]] Public speaking is a skill: it can be learned, practised, and improved. While I'm not going to win any awards, these are the books that have helped me be less bad at presenting. I'm not a natural public speaker, but I'm a strong believer that time, effort, and luck can improve most skills. I've come to understand that public speaking is a skill: it can be learned, practised, and improved. In this post I'm going to share four books that challenged the way I approached public speaking. These aren't a recipe for becoming an amazingly persuasive motivational speaker (which I hasten to add that I'm not) but they are books that have given me the awareness and tools to improve how I communicate with an audience. ## 1: The Presentation Coach ### Bare knuckle brilliance for every presenter Available from: [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Presentation-Coach-Knuckle-Brilliance-Presenter/dp/085708044X?ref=nathankitchen.ghost.io) ![[presenting-books-coach.jpg]] **Who is it for:** Anyone with a public speaking appointment (wedding speech, work presentation, lecture) looking for a structured way to collate and present their thoughts. **What you will learn:** The key building blocks of a good presentation, and the order in which you need to prepare them. **Why you should read it:** Hammering your content into a coherent message is really difficult, and it's tempting to pack out your presentation with all the things you find interesting about your subject. The guidance in this book brings a discipline to your thoughts which is conceptually simple but practically challenging. **Key quotes:** > Every presentation must be created to achieve something specific > If it's not worth writing out, it's not worth listening to **Favourite insight:** If you ever have your audience's attention it's for the opening few seconds. Don't waste time introducing yourself, making apologies, or welcoming them. Give them a reason to keep listening. ## 2: Pitch Anything ### An innovative method for presenting, persuading, and winning the deal Available from: [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pitch-Anything-Innovative-Presenting-Persuading/dp/0071752854?ref=nathankitchen.ghost.io) ![[presenting-books-pitch.jpg]] **Who is it for:** Sales-type scenarios where your presentations are designed to convince audiences to make some investment. **What you will learn:** How "frames" define your interactions with your audience, and how you can use them to keep, build, and control interest in your pitch. **Why you should read it:** It's easy to get overly focussed on the presentation itself, and then be caught off-guard by individuals, interactions, or circumstances that torpedo your goal. This book equips you to deal with more dynamic presentation environments. **Key quotes:** > The difference isn't luck. It is not a special gift. And I have no background in sales. What I do have is a good method. > To solidify a prize frame, you make the buyer qualify himself to you. "Can you tell me more about yourself? I'm picky about who I work with" At a primal, croc-brain level, you have just issued a challenge: _why do I want to do business with you?_ **Favourite insight:** You need to pitch through a person's "croc brain": your idea has to be a simple, clear, non-threatening, pleasant novelty. ## 3: The Art of Explanation ### Making your ideas, products, and services easier to understand Available from: [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Explanation-Products-Services-Understand/dp/1118374584?ref=nathankitchen.ghost.io) ![[presenting-books-explanation.png]] **Who is it for:** Specialists who need to communicate with non-specialists. **What you will learn:** How to package ideas to make them accessible from other contexts. **Why you should read it:** As specialists we often forget how high-context our communications are, and that our audiences need us to start from a lower, common baseline and build from there. This book gives practical examples of where we go wrong, and how we can explain better. **Key quotes:** > One of the most profound products of the curse [of knowledge] is the inability to simplify. > Looking at a problem through the lens of explanation can reveal challenges that may not have been visible before. **Favourite insight:** An explanation needs to address both why, and how, in that order. ## 4: Talk like TED ### The 9 public speaking secrets of the world's top minds Available from: [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HPYMTOO?ref=nathankitchen.ghost.io) ![[presenting-books-ted.jpg]] **Who is it for:** Presenters who want to inspire. **What you will learn:** How some of the best TED talks were created, broken into key components and analysed alongside insights from the presenters themselves. **Why you should read it:** TED content has some incredible content and messages. Rather than trying to deconstruct presentation techniques from the videos, this book collates them for you with lots of behind-the-scenes advice from the presenters themselves with sound analysis on top. A lot of it is quite surprising. **Key quotes:** > Remember, if you can't inspire anyone with your ideas, it won't matter how great those ideas are. > You need to practise communicating your content every day at every opportunity so that the mechanics of giving your presentation don't monopolise your attention and focus. **Favourite insight:** Many of the best presenters wrote their presentations out word-for-word, practised like crazy, and refined their content. --- _Header image credit: [Kane Reinholdtsen](https://unsplash.com/photos/LETdkk7wHQk?ref=nathankitchen.ghost.io)_