Win the Crowd: Unlock the Secrets of Influence, Charisma, and Showmanship

Steve Cohen thank you for sharing your experiences and your knowledge about presentation & people skills. I have enjoyed reading this book and I recommend anyone that is involved in public speaking to read this book. Maybe you could learn a few magic tricks to gain an audience's attention. Overall a really good book. Thanks again.

Win the Crowd is a good primer for people who want to understand some of the skills necessary to be effective presenting yourself with confidence and being persuasive in front of groups of people. The book categorizes what is needed to be effective with crowds (there are one-on-one discussions as well) and suggests some tricks to help strengthen the skills which may need to be improved.

Steve Cohen obviously has worked for many years perfecting his stage presence (he is a successful magician), and how he presents himself to smaller groups at private functions. His opinions on how to improve presentation skills in front of people come from his successful trial and errors. The most helpful portion of the book is when he gives practical advice on how to be more engaging, confident and improve ones appearance when on stage giving a speech.

However, the book has a lot of filler that contains generalizations merely touching on other important aspects that reader may want to study further. These sections also tend to mutate into references of magic that are interesting but not necessarily informative. His sections on building a better personality, charisma and reading people just scratch the surface of what can be done, and offers no enhancements from what someone could find in a psychology text book. His build-up to the chapter "Misdirection" led to a major let down. Although I did try the magic trick he teaches to my children and failed miserably. Practice, practice, practice is a major theme. Obviously after the magic trick failure I need to be reminded of that more.

Win the Crowd has good stuff and does identify the secrets needed to be effective with crowds (both large and small). It's only fault is that it does not dig deeper into some areas. However, once these areas are identified, more research from other books can be found if the reader wants additional advice.

First off let me say I'm a performing semi-pro musician and writer of "How-to" gigging information for the music press.

A few months ago a change in personnel in my band meant that we were without our regular front man, our extrovert who handled the majority of the audience interaction. I was looking for a guide that would help me and the rest of the band be able to deal with those sometimes awkward moments in between numbers. Something that would enable us to feel more relaxed ourselves and encourage the audience to have a good time.

Although this book is written by a performing Magician, Steve Cohen's book promised me I could "unlock the secrets of influence, charisma and showmanship". Perfect for any performer but a tall order to deliver in my case.

Cohen gives simple to follow guidelines which really help you to feel in control and less at the mercy of circumstances on the night. His whole approach is based around faking it 'till you make it. Basically, audiences want their performers to appear confident and in control. If you don't feel it at least pretend you do. This will relax both the audience and you.

Some of his gems include:

1. Practise the words and phrases you'll use on the night - beforehand, alone and in the dark.
2. It takes three attempts at "banter" with an audience before they succumb to you. It takes a little while to establish credibility, you can't do this in one phrase. So, don't worry if at first they don't respond to you.
2. Audiences don't want their performers to be too slick. Some top performers fail at certain things to show their fallibility. The audience generally wants you to succeed if they see a small failure. This was a great help in terms of taking pressure of to be word perfect when speaking to the audience.
3. If you're not offending some members of the audience you're too middle of the road (I liked that one!)
4. Don't take yourself too seriously
5. Establish eye contact with audience members to show you're in command

Other tips which helped me greatly were to raise my voice so that it sounded too loud to me. That way it would be about right to an audience. And, to slow my words down so they sounded unnaturally slow to my ear. Again that would be about right to the public.

A final killer tactic to get an audience going and which I can guarantee which works like a dream is this. Early on look for the most receptive members in an audience, anyone mouthing the words to a song, or dancing along etc. Play to them, in terms of your in between chat and you'll receive the best responses. As Cohen says, "it only takes a few to get the rest of an audience going". Using his advice, I would look for a couple of different groups or a handful of people scattered about every audience. These would also be the people I'd get up on stage later in the night or that I'd wonder off wireless to "serenade" if the mood took me.

All in all a great guide for helping you feel more comfortable in front of an audience and full of practical tips so everyone enjoys themselves more on gig night(including you).

Win the Crowd is a compact little book with some real substance for anyone who wants to get his or message across to others, whether before an audience or one-to-one. The ability to communicate effectively is perhaps the most "magical" force known. Found a number of ideas that I was able to put to good use right away.

This book is so good that I don't even want to tell you how good it is! I quadruple quadrupled my performance as an entertainer. However, it seems like most of what he talks about is covered more in depth in "Magic and Showmanship", but either way this book is a concise version of the information. I hardly ever write reviews, but this book has helped me a ton, so I hope it can help you too.