SalesTeamTools Book Club #2

How to Win Friends and Influence People

[rate 4.5]

I was recently organizing my library of sales and business books and stumbled across this great classic. What a powerful book.

Most of you have read it before, but it’s one of those classics that can be read over and over. Good, timeless stuff. A great snippet:

“If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish; bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.”

On the other hand, this advice is offered to counter:

“Be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and needs and problems than they are in you and your problems.”

Any less true in 2005 than when written in 1936?