Posts Tagged ‘persuasion’

Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert Cialdini

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

Wow, what an amazing book. Simply put the best book on the inner workings of our irresistable, automatic responses and how to manipulate those responses to achieve our outcomes.

In the hands of the unscrupulous, this book is quite simply DANGEROUS.

There are response mechanisms that served us as a developing human species and the remnants of those mechanisms can still be exploited today.

Robert Cialdini masterfully uses examples, studies and case histories to PROVE his theories so none of this book is useless opinion, it is all proven fact on how to be a stealth warrior in your persuasion efforts.

Please don’t buy this if you have larceny in your heart.

How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

Monday, December 29th, 2008

This is one of the original Self Help books that I read and it certainly starts you on the road to learning how to manage people in all areas of your life. There’s a VERY successful real estate company near me that won’t even look at your resume unless you have attached to it, a two page book report on what you learned from this book, and how you will apply it.

12 things it boasts it will help you achieve (and it meets many of these points successfully)

  1. Get out of a mental rut, think new thoughts, acquire new visions, new ambitions
  2. Make friends quickly and easily
  3. Increase your popularity
  4. Win people to your way of thinking
  5. Influence your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done
  6. Win new clients, new customers
  7. Increase your earning power
  8. Make you a better salesman, a better executive
  9. Handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant
  10. Become a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist
  11. Make the principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts
  12. Arouse enthusiasm among your associates

This book has done all these things for countless thousands of readers in 28 different languages

In my 1964 edition of this book (that was written in 1936) it has on the fron cover

‘NOW OVER 9,944,500 COPIES SOLD’

Wikipedia now quotes that it has sold over 15 million copies. So it’s obviously got something to offer. Well, it has lots to offer.

Some of the principles are a little dated, like smiling a lot will help, and say people’s names all the time. It sounds so basic, but it’s true and works. Some of the examples are a little dated as well, but there is a revised edition available that helps in that area.

All in all worth your attention and the time it takes to read, if just to re-enforce some of the things you already know, and to analyse this piece of ‘self help’ history.

Glenn Twiddle