Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story    by Peter Guber Order:  USA  Can Crown, 2011 (2011) Hardcover, CD, e-Book     Reviewed by Bob Walch This book purports to make the reader a purposeful storyteller, thus enabling the person to motivate, win over, shape, engage and sell those he or she deals with. The idea here is to dazzle your audience not with a Power Point presentation or chart after chart of facts, figures and graphs but with stories that share your vision, illustrate your message or captivate your audience in such a manner that they will be more than willing to purchase your service or product. Among the techniques Guber explains, on how to become a riveting story teller, is how to capture your audience's attention and then motivate the listener by demonstrating authenticity. There's advice on how to transform a passive audience into active participants and create a presentation that also explains how the listener can benefit from what he is hearing. As a way of validating the power of telling purposeful stories, the author includes a number of voices. These are master tellers with whom Guber has shared experiences. The list includes Steven Spielberg, Deepak Chopra, Pat Riley, David Copperfield and a wide range of other famous entertainment, sports and business celebrities. As the former chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, current head of the Mandalay Entertainment Group, and co-owner of the NBA's Gold State Warriors, Peter Guber knows a lot of people. Flip open this book to any page and you'll discover this since he drops names throughout the book. I guess the idea is to use all these acquaintances to illustrate how his ideas are, in fact, worth taking seriously, but after a while the approach becomes rather cloying. Although the book's first chapter is entitled, It's The Story, Stupid, I wonder if that shouldn't really be It's Who You Know, Stupid instead. It seems that although the story and how you deliver it may be important, in the case of this book it is the storyteller who will elicit the most attention. I guess the idea is that if you can mention enough famous folks from all walks of life whatever you are saying automatically has credibility. Perhaps! Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more NonFiction books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews