House of Literature // How to Win Friends and Influence People

I read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie for work last month in order to help me learn how to sell better. I just started as an account executive at Theo, which is a fancy word for sales rep. I loved this book because it showed how really we are all salespeople to a certain extent. Even if we are not trying to make money by convincing someone to buy a service or a product from us, we are always trying to sway people to our way of thinking as a spouse, parent, teacher, doctor, etc. Doing all of this well requires sales ability and this book highlights the foundation for being successful with it. 

It is also a very practical book for developing solid relationships with the people in our lives. The golden rule here is to put the other person's interests and ambitions in front of your own. This book lays out specifically where to do that and how to get better at it. 

So I made a mess of my copy of this book underlining everything. Below are five of the quotes I underlined that I believe challenged or inspired me the most. Mostly challenged though. 

Quotes I underlined:    **These are all direct quotes from the book**

·       So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

·       Even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15% of one's financial success is due to one's technical knowledge and about 85% is due to skill in human engineering - to personality and the ability to lead people.

·       If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as wells as from your own.

·       You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

·       It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow man who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.

Below is my brain dump action list for things I want to actually do because of what I learned. I highly recommend this book for everyone, but especially for managers and salespeople.

My main takeaways:

·       Public Speaking class.

·       Practice asking good questions and being interested in the other person.

·       Make it known what you can do for them, maybe even present some of your own ideas. Then become wholly interested in them and their problems—even if it is unrelated to what you are selling.

·       Brainstorm creative ideas for showing interest in other companies/people.

·       Read more about the topics that matter to my customers/prospects.

·       List what these topics are and start finding good books/articles on them.

·       Learn how to provide value personally past just being their print contact.

·       Always strive to be a student of different industries.

     Thanks for reading! I hope this was at least a little bit inspiring for those of you wanting to be successful at moving people.