Product Description

"This book should be on every individuals bookshelf!" Sir John Harvey Jones We all rely heavily on our persuasive powers every day - whether you are trying to get people to agree with you, influencing others to make a decision, asking for something, or attempting to bring about a change of behaviour or attitude in others, your success will depend on how persuasive you can be. Persuasion is key to personal and managerial success. Whether it's in your professional or your personal life, so much of your success in persuasion is down to a combination of self-assesment and situational assessment - being aware of what's going on inside you and being aware of what's happening around you. And the good news is that there are a set of golden behavioural rules that will boost your persuasive powers and get a positive result for you with increased regularity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1989116 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

From the Back Cover

Persuade Anyone!

Gain the ULTIMATE competitive advantage–at work and in life!

Master the 7 ESSENTIAL SKILLS that win hearts and minds!

Practical, easy, effective!

We all know people who are incredibly persuasive. With effortless charm, they manage to somehow gain our trust, interest, and support, time and time again. Is it a gift they are born with? Is it all an illusion?

No, it’s the art of persuasion, and you can learn it too.

Based on years of analyzing the behaviors and mind-sets of the most persuasive people around, Persuasion gives you the magic formula to master the power of persuasion–the ultimate way to achieve success in work and life.

About the Author
Foreword by Sir John Harvey-Jones MBEAcknowledgementsIntroduction1. The power of persuasion: How empathy and sincerity work wonders for you 2. Being a good listener: Why listening is so crucial 3. Attention please: Keeping attention where you want it 4. Mind your body language: How to read signals from others and send out the right ones 5. Memory magic: The impact of good recall and simple tips to improve your memory 6. Make words work for you - the power of psycholinguistics: Success can depend on saying the right thing at the right time 7. Telephone telepathy: Learn to use the telephone to your best advantage and read situations better 8. Negotiating for mutual benefit: Understand the psychology involved, to achieve the best possible result 9. The personality spectrum: How to identify successfully and deal with different 'types' 10. Persuasive power in action Appendix: Answers

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

The power of persuasion is maybe the ultimate source of advantage in life and work. It can be the critical separation factor between the successful and the rest. We all know people who are incredibly persuasive: Whatever the situation, somehow they always seem to be able to get others to agree with them, to go with their ideas, or to do what they want them to. With some people, it seems to be utterly effortless. Maybe they are so well versed in persuasive skills that it is effortless.

The good news for the rest of us is that persuasiveness can be learned and mastered.

In every area of your life, you've been involved with trying to move people—almost on a daily basis—to accept your point of view or request. It started early on as an infant, and as you grew older, all that changed was the magnitude of the tasks that you were faced with. My interest in the power of persuasion began very early in life when I became fascinated by the psychology of magic (especially mind reading) and was accepted as one of the youngest members of the Magic Circle. The Magic Circle is a prestigious society dedicated to the world of magic and illusion. Founded in 1905, the Circle has a total membership around 1,500 and members reside in 38 countries. For more information about the Magic Circle, visit their website at http://themagiccircle.co.uk.

Good magicians are masters of what are often loosely called "people skills." When psychologists were studying the broad area of persuasion and noting how we are all practitioners of this art (every day of our lives), some of them came to an interesting conclusion: They felt that of all the "persuasive" tasks carried out by human beings, the magician's task was the most difficult. Why? Because they had to "persuade" their audience (of one or many) to suspend their disbelief and believe that a miracle had taken place in front of their eyes (whether it was revealing a chosen playing card, witnessing the disappearance or production of an object, or beholding a mind-reading miracle).

They observed that, first of all, the magician would get and then control the audience's attention (whether it was one person or hundreds). They would use the "right" words, listen carefully to any volunteers (giving due respect), and get them to remember the things they wanted them to remember (often through the "power of suggestion"). At the same time, they would work out what "type" of person they were dealing with, inject some humor into the proceedings (to induce relaxation), "read" the other person by observing their body language, and ultimately get the audience to "trust" and feel favorably disposed toward them. All of which is designed to do one thing: persuade the audience to suspend their disbelief (and be entertained). A good demonstration of people/communication skills in action! But just like in everyday life, the most successful ones are those who deploy these skills effectively and have highly developed powers of persuasion.

It's been said that life is like a game of cards. Voltaire said, "Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her; once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game." In other words, the hand that is dealt you is determinism; how you play it is down to free will. So being aware of the outcome you would like in any interaction is the first step toward achieving your goal.

In the many years I've spent in the business world, I've realized the huge advantage of being able to bring people along to our way of thinking. Every day, at work—and, of course, in your personal life— you come into contact with people who need to understand your point of view, either for you to help them or for them to help you. Equally, you need to understand their point of view. We need to persuade others to join our way of thinking and "read" how they are thinking.

In short, the power of persuasion is that little "magic formula" that we wish we could get our hands on to make life smoother for us. We could define it as this: any message that attempts to influence people's opinions, attitudes, or actions.

If there is a magic formula, then the concoction is the application of all of these techniques and skills together. This will help you to take people from point A to point B, because persuasion is a process.

This book is the result of my own experiences over many successful years in advertising, sales, marketing, journalism, work psychology, and coaching–all underpinned by applied behavioral and social psychology research. Because these are all tried-and-tested techniques, my aim has been to simplify the process of persuasion by showing its application in real-world situations. The book shows you how to present yourself and your thoughts convincingly and how to "read" other people more effectively—and, in so doing, to allow you to be more persuasive and for people to trust and feel favorably disposed toward you.

It will make you more aware of your senses and help you to bring out the "sixth sense" that lies dormant within all of us. Leonardo da Vinci astutely observed that the average person "looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odor or fragrance, and talks without thinking." Does that sound like a fair assessment of most of the human race (or you!)? Certainly, if I had to pinpoint in a phrase what separates the master "persuaders" from the rest, it's that they have an ability to understand what is going on in the other person's head.

An important point that I can't stress enough is that persuasion in this book, used in this way, is entirely positive. It works for your benefit—and for that of the people you are dealing with. You won't have success every time, but by honing these skills and your own self-awareness, you'll find that you increase your success rate significantly and forge better relationships. More and more research confirms that, in both our working and personal lives, it is persuasive skills that separate those who succeed from those who are less successful.

As my economics professor used to say, quoting J. K. Galbraith: "The world divides into just two types: Those of us who don't know. And those of us who don't know that we don't know."

This book is for both!

—James Borg

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Tremendously interesting and pretty instructive book!
This is a practical, readable and most of all tremendously interesting book from the field of communication skills and inter-personal relationships. Though it is written for general public and intended to facilitate our professional and personal face-to-face relationships, it can be extremely helpful for `business people' and all those dealing with other individuals or groups, such as tourist guides and interpreters. In the latter case, they will find the book instructive on how to carry out presentations and manage their groups more effectively.

The book describes various skills of controlling the audience's attention, among other topics. You can learn how to recognize (in)visible signs of a breakdown of attention of your audience, to `read' the body language of people in your tour groups, and to generally win more attention while guiding. You'll find here how to pick up signals as to how you are coming across, retrieve the situation if somebody is resistant, choose the right words to get results in any situation, and more.

The text of this book is written in a charming way with a lot of examples from everyday life, given in special 'boxes'. Each chapter is followed by a small test, so the reader can check out his understanding of the subject. Even though you might think of yourself as a persuasive professional, there is always enough space for further improvements. James Borg's book is here to help you in that direction, and not only in your professional milieu.

This review refers to the paperback edition, published in October 2004. At the moment, it is available from Amazon.co.uk

Good Overview of Persuation
James Borg offers an overview of the art of persuasion in this good book. The book offers a good balance of important ideas and straightforward presentation.

In a more general sense, this book serves as a good starting point for more thorough reading on topics addressed in this book.

I recommend this as a primer for those interested in the art of persuasion. It should serve as a good reference base for learning about this important topic.

A Complete Lemon
1. If you already know a little about presentation skills:

This is the only book I've ever seen where the author claims that people pay maximum attention in the **middle** of a presentation, and least attention at the beginning and the end.

The rest of the content is of a similar quality.

2. If you are a newcomer to presentation skills:

Based on numerous studies of such things as "primacy and recency" (what was said first, and what was said most recently), it is generally acknowledged that people tend to pay most attention at the beginning of a standard presentation, nearly as much at the end, and least in the middle.

According to this book, however, and with no hint of an explanation or supporting evidence, the exact opposite is true.

The rest of the content is of a similar quality.

It is possible, of course, that I have misunderstood the author's intended message - in which case I guess that simply demonstrates that the explanations in the book are even worse than I thought they are.