Category: Sales

Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, Robert Cialdini- BOOK REVIEW

15/3/2016

Rating: 4 / 5

Who doesn’t want to be more persuasive? Whether you own a business or not you’re constantly in the business of trying to sell something – your great traits as an employee or wife(!), a project or even an idea.

Heck, if I got a penny for every time one of my mummy friends said, “I want to do x but I just need to convince my husband”, I’d be richer than Donald Trump!

I’ve had the paperback version of Yes! For ages but it’s only when I got the audio version that I got to the end.

The book is based on the subtle changes we can make to influence a decision. All 50 examples in the book are based on empirical studies so they are scientifically proven to work.

There are 50 ideas in this book so there is no way I can summarize them all but a few examples include the following:

Intuitively, we think that an increase in variety leads to more business but studies suggest that too wide a range of products leads to paralysis of analysis and reduced sales. Your customers do want some choice, yes, but too much choice and they get frustrated and leave without buying. This is not always the case but it is frequently the case.
An interesting small tweak in TV infomercials’ call to action led to a huge rise in demand: Instead of just saying “Please dial phone number x to make your order” a behavioural psychologist suggested a change to “Please dial phone number x to make your order. If operators are busy, please call again!” The impact? Everyone thinks, I need to get mine now, if lines are busy it suggests there is excess demand and scarcity is one of the biggest drivers of sales.
Reciprocity. Do someone a good turn and by and large, they feel compelled to do a good turn back.

There were tonnes of good tips here and I, in fact, feel I should re-read this book because I was very distracted over the period I read the book. I’m preparing for a property renovation so I was driving along half listening to the book and half thinking about the different tiles I’ll put in each one of my bathrooms.

Everyone has to sell something, even if it’s just yourself or your views so give this book a read to become more of a gentle persuasion artist. It’s available on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.

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If You’re Not First, You’re Last By Grant Cardone – BOOK REVIEW

11/11/2014

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Rating 4.5 / 5

My love affair with Grant Cardone continues. This is the second of his books that I have read and whilst it deserves a good rating, there needs to be at least a point differential between this book and Sell of Be Sold. But because he’s Grant, I gave him an extra 0.5 – just for being awesome!

The book was structured like a learning program with questions at the end to ensure you understood what had just been said and would implement the suggestions. I didn’t do the exercises as I was listening on the go but I took a few notes, as always:

Many people don’t finish things they start because:

They only made a small financial investment so they don’t feel as though they are wasting much by not taking action.
They don’t give themselves deadlines.
They don’t understand something that is being said in a program or disagree with it so much that they get separated from the plan or program that they have set.

A sure-fire way to ensure you never get to first place is to compare yourself to losers! That is, people that are less capable than you. You have to take massive action to succeed.

We’re socialized to be average, conformist and not to take grand actions. However, if you want above average success you need to:

Be unreasonable.
Take extreme action.
Be illogical, i.e. go against the logic of the masses.
Be contrarian – I love this statement because my husband is always saying to me, “Why are you so contrarian?” – I never had an answer to this except to say, I was contrarian before you married me and you still chose to! But now, I’ll add that, “Grant says contrarian is good.” – he’s already getting used to the “Grant says…” statements.

Grant went on to say, we’re not encouraged to do whatever it takes; society says don’t be too pushy, don’t be too aggressive – so this is what we do, we conform.

More notes:

Wow! The customer, especially in a recession.
It’s never about the price.
The second sale in a transaction is key, upsell!
Act hungry. Many people in the West have lost their ability to do this. I agree. It’s so rare to find people with fire in their belly. Real go-getters.
Aggressively and effectively market yourself. In a downturn UP your marketing budget.
Time x action = advancement / progress
Most of the middle class ARROGANTLY refuses to take any action that won’t lead to an immediate payment. However, making money usually involves a lot of necessary unpaid tasks before you hit “pay dirt” as Grant calls it. I love that phrase.
Poor people waste time, rich people buy it
Pack your day like a sardine, tight! Really pack it in.
It’s frequently not even about the product: Vincent Van Gogh one of the best artists of all time sold just ONE painting his entire life.
Don’t waste time dwelling on failures or successes; cry or celebrate then move on: FAST! There are more opportunities to be taken advantage of out there.

Finally, the placebo effect pretty much proves that what goes on in your mind can have REAL effects and consequences. Thoughts and beliefs massively impact outcomes. So the stories you tell yourself CAN and in fact, DO, become self-fulfilling.

The book concluded by stating that your financial situation is the sum total of the action you took yesterday. Indeed, I have been a firm believer in this kind of thinking for decades: I honestly believe my results at A-level and indeed in university were the sum total of dedication and hard work that I had put in since I was 11.

After a certain point, when we compare ourselves to someone and want to replicate their success don’t look at what they are doing now, look at what they were doing 10 years ago (or even further back) and start doing all that stuff too. Current actions simply reflect the cumulative effect of previous actions: big and small.

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Sell Or Be Sold By Grant Cardone - BOOK REVIEW

15/9/2014

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Rating: 5/5

This is possibly the book I enjoyed reading the most in 2014. It made me feel pumped and introduced me to pig latin.

Grant Cardone has a strong personality and strong opinions and they definitely come through in the book.

My notes:

You will see laziness when you fail. You get lazy because you are afraid of failing again.
America is a country of one uppers.
Whatever business you’re in, first and foremost you are in the people business.
Always agree with the customer.
People believe what they see more than what they hear;show, don’t tell.
Rich people buy time. Poor people waste it.
Work your powerbase. That is, friends, family, fans and existing customers.
Meals, e.g. lunch time are opportunities to sell. Don’t waste time eating with colleagues – you can’t sell to them. Go out and eat with customers.
Be seen where your ideal client is.
If you aren’t where you want to be in life you need to work every angle, you need to work every minute and you need to seize every opportunity: you owe it to your family, you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your future.
There is no treasure greater than a great attitude and there is no way to get a great treasure without it.
You are a product of everything you surround yourself with: TV, news, people, etc.
Obscurity is a bigger problem than being broke.
Anything lots of people do can’t be good for you!
He thinks most people indulge themselves in far too much leisure – they ain’t done ickday all week and then when Sunday comes they say,“The good book says I should rest.”As far as Grant Cardone is concerned, he believes God did that because he built the whole world between Monday and Saturday so he was entitled – what have you done?!

I loved the bit where he’s analyzing how much time there is in a day to spend working (I paraphrase): if I spend 2 hours with my kids, 1 hour with my wife, that’s 3 hours with my family; plus 7 hours in bed – what does that leave me? 14 hours. Wait am I doing this right, yep, that’s right that leaves me exactly 14 hours to do what? Grow my bidness!

Grant Cardone just made the word bidness cool for me because he’s cool and he uses it.

I was a little lost when he used the words itchbay, ickday, itshay but it later transpired they were b*tch, d*ck and sh*t in pig latin. It sounds a lot more acceptable in in pig latin.

In summary, I love Grant Cardone and I would definitely do one of his sales programs.

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Book Reviews

Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, Robert Cialdini- BOOK REVIEW

If You’re Not First, You’re Last By Grant Cardone – BOOK REVIEW

Sell Or Be Sold By Grant Cardone - BOOK REVIEW

Heather Katsonga-Woodward

2019 Life and Career Planner

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