This is Dale Carnegie’s summary of his book:  How to Win Friends & Influence People

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

• Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
• Give honest and sincere appreciation.
• Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six Ways to Make People Like You

• Become genuinely interested in other people.
• Smile.
• Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
• Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
• Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
• Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Win People to Your Way of Thinking

• The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
• Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
• If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
• Begin in a friendly way.
• Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
• Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
• Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
• Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
• Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
• Appeal to the nobler motives.
• Dramatize your ideas.
• Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

A leader’s job often includes changing your people’s attitudes and behavior.
Some suggestions to accomplish this:

• Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
• Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
• Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
• Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
• Let the other person save face.
• Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
• Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
• Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
• Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

How to Win Friends and Influence People Book Summary by Dale Carnegie

SPIN Selling By Neil Rackham, Huthwaite, Inc. McGraw-Hill © 1988, 197 pages.

Buy This Book – SPIN Selling

This book is a classic sales book and I have provided my own summary below.

Below are the key points from this book – SPIN Selling Summary

“There’s no doubt about it, questions persuade more powerfully than any other form of verbal behavior. And this is not just in selling.”

(I would agree that powerful questions are key, but note that “persuasion” in the traditional sense is out-dated when it comes to selling effectively. Persuasion can put the prospect on the defensive and can make the sales person uncomfortable as well. Learn more about my Sales Coaching Programs)

The SPIN Sales Stages

Preliminaries: These are the way you introduce yourself and how you begin the conversation.

Example: “Hi John, nice to meet you. Thank you for your time today. I am here to understand more about your business, goals and challenges. To do this, I am going to ask you various questions today, sound good?”

Investigating: Uncovering needs and getting a better understanding of your prospects.

• Situation Questions: Data-gathering questions. “How long have you had your present equipment?” or “Could you tell me about your company’s growth plans?”
• Problem Questions: “Is this operation difficult to perform?” or “Are you worried about the quality you get from your old machine?”
• Implication Questions: “How will this problem affect your future profitability?” or “What effect does this reject rate have on customer satisfaction?”
• Need-payoff Questions: “Would it be useful to speed this operation by 10 percent?” or “If we could improve the quality of this operation, how would that help you?”

Demonstrating Capability: Features, Advantages and Benefits.

• Features: Describe facts and data. Example: “Because of… ABC Logistics Company’s own in-house customs brokers in 140 countries…”
• Advantages: Illustrate how products or services can be used to help the customer. Example: ”You can… expedite the clearance process…”
• Benefits: Show how services or products meet the needs expressed by the customer. Example: ”Which means… your shipments will arrive to their final destination faster, increasing your customers’ satisfaction.”

Obtaining Commitment (Instead of “Closing”)

• Give a great deal of attention to Investigating and Demonstrating Capability. Spend more time in the Investigating stage than any other stage. The prospect will become more clear on their needs will realize they need to buy on their own.
• Check that all concerns are covered and addressed. Example: “Well, I think that covers everything, Ms. Johnson. But before we go further, could I check whether there are any areas that you feel I should tell you more about?” Once the concerns are raised and addressed, commitment can happen.
• Summarize all the benefits before you try to get any commitment from the prospect.
• Propose a Commitment. Simply suggest a next step to take that will move the sale forward. The suggested next step is a realistic proposal that the customer will likely accept without feeling pressure. Example: “I suggest that the next step would be for you and your partner to come see a demonstration of this copier.”

“It’s not enough to go Barnes & Noble and read the books. Jeremy puts it all together in a package that transcends the information itself, and takes you to a place where you can see how it all pieces together. Moreover, he shows how it’s not just about information, but about how people feel, and he does it in a way you just can’t get from a book. Highly recommended.” -George, PhD, Director of Consulting

Would you like to take your sales results to the next level? Contact me for a free consultation.

Learn more about: Sales Coaching or check out the breakthrough Sales Workshop: Reprogram Your Sales Mind

Create your own selling style with Coach Jeremy! We will learn together what sales methods, techniques, and philosophies will work best for you, or your sales team, to sell in the most genuine and natural way. Persuasive and pressure selling is a thing of the past!  A selling style based on your values and strengths will maximize your results!

Read what my clients are saying.

Spin Selling Summary

Source: WIKI Summaries

In Built to Last, Porras and Collins learned that their prior beliefs were misfires. During a six year research process, they “unlearned” much of what they learned with large corporations’ successes. In place of former beliefs lays a new groundwork for what exemplifies visionary companies. Here are some of the former myths removed with their research:

• A great idea is needed to start companies
• Visionary organizations need charismatic leaders
• Maximizing profits is the dominate goal with visionary companies
• Visionary companies focus on beating competitors
• Hiring outsiders as CEO’s is the best way to spark an organization

Some of the core beliefs Porras and Collins discuss in Built to Last include:

• Preserving a core ideology
• The BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) concept
• Owning a cult-like culture
• Trying new things
• Refusing the idea of a “great idea” to start a company
• Consistent innovation

Read more about Built to Last at WIKI Summaries.

Learn about my coaching programs.

Freakonomics Book Summary, by Chapter

Buy This Book – Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.)

Freakonomics By Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner is based on four fundamental ideas:

1. Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life.
2. Conventional wisdom is often wrong.
3. Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle, causes.
4. “Experts” use their informational advantage to serve their own interests.

Freakonomics Chapter 1 Summary: What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?

This chapter defines economics as a study of incentives and how they are pursued. How do we profit by what we do and what incentives are so attractive that they compel us to act unethically?

The author describes the research he used to identify a number of Chicago public school teachers who helped their students cheat on standardized tests. He analyzed standardized test answer patterns and identified suspicious groups of correct answers. A retest was administered to identify cheating teachers and the findings resulted in the termination of the clear offenders / cheaters, as well as systematic reforms in the school standardized testing practices.

Another research project involved the analysis of the scores and contest records of Japan’s top level sumo wrestlers. No definitive proof had ever been shown that cheating had been taken place in this sport, though there had always been suspicion. By comparing the performances of the wrestlers in matches with different stakes and potential consequences, the author found that cheating does often take place in the sport.

The story of an entrepreneur who sold bagels using the honor system to office workers in Washington, D.C. wraps up this chapter. The entrepreneur kept details financial records and found consistent patterns in the behavior of those who stole bagels. The author clearly illustrates that cheating can be predicted.

Freakonomics Chapter 2 Summary: How is the Ku Klux Klan like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?

The focus is on how individuals, organizations, and businesses often exploit their access to information at the expense of others. Entire industries have attained great success and many significant historical events have transpired as the result of an imbalance in the flow of information.

The authors describe a story of a man who helped cripple the racist Ku Klux Klan simply by widely disseminating their secrets. Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the group in the World War II time period and documented the secret rituals and codes of the organization. Kennedy then gave the records and reports to Hollywood writers, who used the information to create a long-running story on the wildly popular Superman radio program. Children across the United States imitated the shows in their schoolyard games, and gradually, the mystery and influence of the group were diminished.

The author also explores the real estate industry and the behavior of real estate agents. By reviewing data about real estate agents typical practices when they are selling their own houses, the author found that they may not always have their clients’ best interests at heart.

Also, the author claims that the world wide web / Internet has started a shift in many industries simply by providing consumers with more information than they have ever had access to before in the past.

Freakonomics Chapter 3 Summary: Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?

The common belief that all drug dealers are rich is proved to be incorrect. The author uses the research from sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh. Venkatesh conducted field studies in Chicago which granted him access to the inner workings of gangs, including financial information.

The author compares the organizational structure of the gang to McDonalds. He explains how very few executives and upper level managers prosper from the work of 1000’s of minimum wage or low wage workers. He even found that most street drug dealers made less than minimum wage.

Freakonomics Chapter 4 Summary: Where Have All the Criminals Gone?

Research showed a link between the legalization of abortion in the United States in 1973 and the drop in violent crime in the 1990’s. The author’s research suggests that the drop in violent crime in the United States occurred at the same time that the first wave of babies conceived after the legalization of abortion were entering late adolescence. The author claims that many of the additional children who would have been born annually if abortion had remained illegal would have been at high risk for engaging in violent crime. The authors do not take an ideological stance on the issue, however, they do conclude that women with the right to choose abortion tend to make good decisions.

Freakonomics Chapter 5 Summary: What Makes a Perfect Parent?

Both chapters 5 and chapter 6 address aspects of parenting and the way that parents’ actions and choices can impact the outcomes of their children’s lives’. His research found that when allowing children to play in swimming pools, they were more than 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than playing with a gun.

The author found that “good” or “positive parenting outcomes” on their children are connected more strongly to factors such as socioeconomic status and the education of parents more than any specific parenting practices.

The author found that the following factors had an impact on children receiving high standardized test scores: highly educated parents, high socioeconomic status, low birth weight, English as the primary language spoken at home, parental involvement in the PTA, and many books simply in the home.

Factors that are not important based on the author’s research in determining high standardized test scores in children include: the family is intact, moved to a better neighborhood, the mother didn’t work between birth and kindergarten, the child attended Head Start, going to museums, being spanked, watching TV, the parents read to the child almost every single day.

Freakonomics Chapter 6 Summary: Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?

In the final chapter, the authors extend the discussion of parenting with an overview of more economic aspects of parental choices. The focus is on the economic implications of children’s names. The author claims that having a distinctively “black name” was linked to lower attainment, less education, less income, and overall less success in life.

Explore Other Books That I Recommend Here

Buy This Book – Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.)

Source: WIKI Summaries

The 4-Hour Workweek is divided into four sections, each of which explores one of the components to lifestyle design:

• Define your objectives. Decide what’s important. Set goals. Ask yourself, “What do I really want?”
• Eliminate distractions to free up time. Learn to be effective, not efficient. Focus on the 20% of stuff that’s important and ignore the 80% that isn’t. Put yourself on a low-information diet. Learn to shunt aside interruptions, and learn to say “no.”
• Automate your cash flow to increase income. Outsource your life — hire a virtual assistant to handle menial tasks. Develop a business that can run on auto-pilot.
• Liberate yourself from traditional expectations. Design your job to increase mobility. This could mean working from home, or it could mean using geographic arbitrage to take mini-retirements in countries with favorable exchange rates.

Read more about The 4-Hour Workweek at WIKI Summaries.

Learn about Professional Coaching.

Source: WIKI Summaries

In Rich Dad, Poor Dad the author presents six major lessons which he discusses throughout the book:

• The rich don’t work for money
• The importance of financial literacy
• Minding Your own business
• Taxes and corporations
• The rich invent money
• The need to work to learn and not to work for money

Rich Dad, Poor Dad revolves around three main characters: poor dad, rich dad (Kiyosaki’s second father) and the son (the author himself as narrator of the book). The essence of each character is:

Poor dad – educated but lacking the street smarts

Rich dad – very little education (eighth grade), tons of street smarts

Kiyosaki – the spectator who learns lessons from both but internalizes only rich dad’s traits

Read more about Rich Dad, Poor Dad at WIKI Summaries.

Learn about Executive Coaching, Sales Coaching, Business Coaching.

Benefits of Coaching