Review of The Psychology of Persuasion: How to Persuade Others to Your Way of Thinking (Hardcover)

The Psychology of Persuasion is written for the person who wants to influence others. Hogan reveals more communication and influence secrets in one book than you might expect possible. The phallic paradigm of persuasion begins with the concept of Win/Win (which the author clearly believes in and repeats over and over throughout the text) and finishes with some very complex and advanced persuasion techniques that are difficult to describe in a book review.

Having been in market research for seven years, I can tell you that his insights into what works and what doesn't is pretty accurate. I also learned a great deal I hadn't come across in my work with P&G.

Specifically, the section about power words is worth a great deal to a person running their own business or for a salesperson. (It's also nice to have this information as a mother of a teenager!)

The next information that is striking (and there are some basics in the book like building rapport, elementary sales tools, and the like that make this useful for beginners as well as those of us who use this material to make a living)is the detailed discussions about nonverbal communication and strategic movement. I've never seen discussions of strategic movement in any book and the body language components are mature and insightful. Everything seems well researched and ready for use.

Another very nice benefit of this book is the subject of collecting intelligence. It seems that most everyone in the influence and persuasion professions have ignored this element and Hogan pulls a rabbit out of his hat here. Using simple examples, he shows how to really gather useful intelligence whether you are a marketer with a big budget or a small business person.

The most exciting material is the second half of the book. Here Hogan describes advanced techniques of persuasion that, once again, I have never seen anyone discuss. What again seems like magic is described carefully and with a simple but scientific precision.

Appropriate to news events of the year 2001, brainwashing is discussed in detail in the book and in light of current events, these revelations should be read by all.

The Psychology of Persuasion is a fun read. It is written so that you can be more influential with your kids, your boss or your business dealings.

The only drawback of this book was that most of the stories are about small business people. Those of us in corporate America have to extrapolate how to use these one on one tools, or small group strategies to the much larger audience of America and Western Europe. Aside from that, there isn't anything to complain about.

This was a big win for me.



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