Book Review: How To Win Friends And Influence People

I attended this Sales Training where I won a Free book. I was so surprised because trust me I’m one of those people that barley ever wins when it comes to drawing names out of a hat.

I won the book’ “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. When I first heard the title not gonna lie I thought it was going to be stupid.

So 2 weeks go by and I actually forgot about the book and then it came in the mail and my excitement came back to me! After I put my son to sleep I jumped on my bed and cracked it open.

I absolutely LOVED this book! It is such basic principles, but so helpful at the same time. I kept being like “oh I do this, no wonder I was able to move up at work,” or “Oh I know I need to do this” and got to see how important it is to why I should be doing it.

So let me break down my key takeaways from How To Win Friends & Influence People by dale carnegie.

How To Win Friends & Influence People was published in 1936 and has since been updated by the author, Dale Carnegie's daughter. I told my dad I was reading this book and he said that Dale Carnegie was THE Business Guru back in the day. His program helped shape a lot of business owners.

The book has 4 Parts:

Part One: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

Part Two: Six Ways To Make People Like You

Part Three: How To Win People To Your Way Of Thinking

Part Four: Be a Leader: How To Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

The principles he describes in the book are very basic but so powerful at the same time. It is basically showing how you should just be a nice person and show genuine interest in people that you come in contact with.

Here are the key takeaways I took from this book to help me in my own business:

Learn someone's name
Be a good listener
Show genuine interest in your client
Making a good first impression
Talking about what the person wants

1 Learn Names:

Oh the power of knowing someone's name. Not going to lie, I am literally (and I mean literally) the worst at remembering people’s names. I’ve known for a while now that I should get better with names, but I still just slack off when it comes to meeting new people.

I’m one of those people that never really uses someone's name. I actually just say hey and start talking with a smile haha.

As I was reading this book I was like yeah I know, but as I thought about this concept a little more I remembered how good it feels when someone calls me by my name after only meeting me once and we haven’t seen or spoken to each other in weeks or maybe months.

It makes you feel remembered and loved.

Have you ever known anyone like that?

How did it make you feel when they talked to you and used your name even when you didn’t think they knew your name?

Next time you are at a networking event make sure to remember everyone’s name that you connected with and for an extra challenge remember a fact about them to bring up when you see them again.

Quoted in the book “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language”

2 Be A Good Listener:

Struggling with sales calls? Try becoming a good listener and see what happens!

I was told this by two separate people that I learned sales call training from (one being the sales training I mentioned earlier).

Quoted in the book; “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.”

No matter how much you want to bust in and say something, hold yourself back.

Something I was told, learned in this book and have practiced in sales calls is to ask open-ended questions about my client.

Then shut up. Just listen

When you are on a sales call with a potential client you want to get the most out of the client as you can. Even if the client pauses, don’t jump in just yet if you feel they could or want to expand a little further.

Now don’t get me wrong, definitely feel out the situation, but you want to keep in mind that during a sales call you should barely be the one talking.

Let your client do all the talking. Maybe they don’t have anyone that asks them about their business goals or where they want to be in 5 years.

When you listen it brings trust to the relationship.

Would you rather work with someone who was talking about them and their business the whole time or someone that just listened to your business, ideas and future plans?

When we listen and let clients just talk they become more comfortable and you are able to get more information so you can actually help them instead of having to pull teeth for information you need for a specific project.

I’ve been able to help my clients with their copy on their website, just by sitting back and listening to them talk about their business and how they help their own clients.

By using this technique I’ve also been able to help my clients understand their business better and help them make adjustments that they would never have thought of, just because they were able to talk it out and have someone listen.

3 Show Genuine Interest In Your Client:

Showing genuine interest in your client goes hand in hand with being a good listener.

When you are genuinely interested it can open up for a more comfortable and relaxed conversation.

What I like to do before any sales call is to find out something about the person I’m getting on a call with and see how we can connect through something they are interested in.

Example: I was getting on an interview call with a potential contract employer that lived in Atlanta for many years and I found out he liked sports. So I took a shot and opened our conversation with “Hey, how about the Braves?!”

The Atlanta Braves had just won the World Series a few days before our call and it opened up such a comfortable conversation.

Example: I was getting on a call with a client that was on maternity leave and just had a baby boy. I myself have a son and just got through the newborn/baby phase.

I started the conversation with “How old is your son?” We then went into a whole conversation on his sleeping habits and the joys and craziness of having a baby.

Then after honestly maybe 5-10min we finally jumped into talking about her business and by that time she was talking to me as if we were already friends.

She felt comfortable, she even had to get her son during our call and it wasn’t awkward or unprofessional in any way.

I ended up booking that client right there on the call and then waved goodbye to her son.

Bringing it back to the book is a story that stuck out to me. This ties together two of his principles in the book; showing genuine interest and making people feel important.

The story talks about the president of the Superior Seating Company of New York, James Adamson looking to make a sale to fill an auditorium full of theater seats. The man he had to sell to was a very busy powerful man, George Eastman of Kodak fame.

As James Adamson walked into Mr. Eastman’s office he said; “I’ve been admiring your office. I wouldn’t mind working in a room like this myself. I’m in the interior-woodworking business, and I never saw a more beautiful office in my life.”

The two men went back and forth talking about the beauty and detail of the design within his office. What was supposed to be a 5 minute sales proposition turned into hours passed, them going to lunch and of course Mr. Eastman ordered $90,000 in sales.

This also wasn’t just a sale and dip. The two actually became lifelong friends.

4 Making a good first impression:

This principle is super simple and gonna brag on myself a little bit, I’m very good at!

Always give a good smile when interacting with anyone.

Here is a paragraph from the book I highlighted that stuck out to me:

“Whenever you go out-of-doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handshake. Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would like to do’ and then, without veering off direction, you will move straight to your goal.”

This goes on a little further but I feel like it comes down to that saying you get what you put out into the world.

If you walk around with a frown on your face, bitter or always thinking negatively, guess what you're going to get back?

You never know who is having just one of those days and when you bring a smile their way it honestly could just make their day.

This is one reason why I really like to do a video call with potential clients before deciding if we should work together.

I actually had one client that when we got on a call for the second time she laughed and said “you’re so funny I love talking to you.” This also was from a client that I quoted above her budget and she still chose to work with me!

Share your beautiful smile and bring a little joy to everyone’s world and see what you get back in return!

Conclusion:

Remember their name, Show Interest, Listen and Smile.

Continue to do this no matter where you are in the world. You never know the person in the seat next to you on that flight might be a potential client or knows someone that could use your services.

Clients aren’t just going to come from networking events. One of the biggest avenues of finding clients is through referrals and word of mouth.

Talking to people in your day to day life, even when you don’t want to always remember to be positive and helpful. You never know who they know.

When looking for your next book to read I highly recommend reading “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.