One Perfect Pitch: How to Sell Your Idea, Your Product, Your Business--or Yourself

INTRODUCTIONStorytelling: A Skill That Sells

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In November 2008, I left my Radio France and BBC beats covering the turbulent changes in the world—from natural disasters to the skyrocketing business markets—to cover the Wild West of Silicon Valley. Those years overseas, crafting radio pieces on events ranging from the Kashmir earthquake in 2005 to the staggering growth of Shanghai as one of the world’s new business capitals, helped me better understand the wide range of stories people tell to make sense of their world.

Whether it was reporting from Surat, the epicenter of diamond polishing, and learning about the lives of the workers who shaped the diamonds set on Mont Blanc pens that they could never afford ...