One of the Best Business Books Ever Ever Ever...
Written: Jan 08 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: One of the best books ever written!
Cons: Covers only six influence techniques that author studied.
The Bottom Line: Must buy. Must read. Must use.
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| rabodzey's Full Review: Robert B. Cialdini - Influence: Science and Practi... |
Amazingly enough, I bought this book without knowing that it was one of the top 75 business books accordingly to Forbes. I had no idea that Robert Cialdini is one of the greatest psychologists of all times and, of course, I had no clue that this book will change my vision of regular things that happen to me on a day-to-day basis... But let's start from the very beginning.
Why we hate business psychology books?
Short answer - 95% of them are B.S. It seems like there are five types of these books:
- Dale Carnegie (too obvious for today's world),
- Texbooks (hard to read and extract actionable items),
- NLP (too dangerous to use),
- Pop psychology (how-know-everything-in-24-hours type),
- Sane books that actually have something to say
Most of us thought that it is a great idea to know more about psychology: it is cool, you can trick people and finally get your wife into cooking. The problem is that there are TOO many of books with word "psychology" in the title and it is not clear how good are they.
Majority are real B.S. I read all of the above and I claim that the worst thing is NLP. I saw too many people suffering from their false belief in omnipotence. But let's get back to the topic. Influence is a class-five type of book. A sane one.
What is this book about?
The book is about different influence techniques. Robert Cialdini, the leading expert in the field, calls them "weapons of influence". He classifies them in six major categories:
1. reciprocacy,
2. commitment and consistency,
3. social proof,
4. liking,
5. authority,
6. scarcity.
Structure of the book and writing style
The book devotes one chapter to each weapon discussing it in deep details. Influence is a very unique book because it is a light version of the textbook Robert wrote. The great thing about this is that you get all references and proofs of the statements by experiments. Cialdini gives a number of examples (including pictures) in each chapter, thus facilitating digestion of the material and memorization.
What is in there for me?
This is something I enjoyed most - the immediate realization of truth. When you are reading the book, you often jump and start screaming: "Ah, F&^ERS! I KNEW YOU F&^ED ME!!!" Robert reveals so many marketing and business techniques, that I was unable to sit for more than five consecutive minutes without exclaiming the F-word.
So many things that I never thought about penetrate our mind without us knowing it. So many things force us to give up dollars for stuff we would never need... I feel so bad for myself that I haven't bought this book years ago. I would have saved enough to buy a Porsche by now!
I do not want to reveal secrets of the book - you must read it for yourself. One thing I must mention - more than a MILLION copies were sold worldwide. Well... I know you, Epinions members, you want an example, right? Okay, there we go: you will learn why you can never find Nintendo WII before Christmas and it is sold out. You will learn how retail explores your natural instinct to reciprocate and your perception of contrast.
Isn't that all obvious?
YES! There is nothing fundamentally new there, there is no E=mc2 type of formula there. The problem is that you knowingly still buy into these tricks over and over and over again. The book is not only about these tricks , but also about how to avoid them.
What sucks?
This is often the case - greatest strength is, at the same time, the greatest weakness. Influence is great at revealing six techniques of influence, but it completely misses everything outside the scope of magic six. The good thing is that there are a lot of other books that address this topic down there on Amazon.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
rabodzey
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Member: Alex
Location: Cambridge, MA, USA
Reviews written: 68
Trusted by: 18 members
About Me:
I enjoy writing essays on various topics, especially if it helps people.
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