5 Useful Suggestions to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Books are considered as one of the best friends a person can have. There are so many self-improvement books out there. I personally have many books in my library. Some books give me new ideas, other books give me inspiration and motivation.

I am a book lover and I remember in 2003 I read my first book - Over The Top by late Zig Ziglar. It was an amazing experience and then I realized why people love to read books. After I started working I made sure that I spend some money every quarter to purchase new books.

In this article, I like to share the five useful suggestions shared by author Dale Carnegie through his famous book - How To Win Friends And Influence People. Dale Carnegie was a famous American writer and speaker who devoted his time and energy in writing many self-improvement books for various field. This is based on human psychology and each points are even relevant in today’s time. Let’s see five useful suggestions he disclosed in this famous book.

I am sure you are lucky enough to have many friends and family members around you. This point is very valid and important for us to understand. Let me share one example so you can understand this point easily.

Suppose you know someone who is trying to learn something new but making slow progress. So, in normal case, we all try to bully that person or child by saying negative things which is what we shouldn’t do.

Instead, we should appreciate the fact he is trying his best to learn something new. And everyone is not equal. Instead of scolding you should motivate that person, then he will motivate to learn more. So, next time, if you come across such situation remember to give people a fine reputation, and motivate them to live up to.

We are human beings and it’s normal that we are more interested in ourselves and in our problems than the problem of others. To understand this point let me share one example.

Suppose you visit your prospective client then it’s always advisable to give the client the chance to speak out all his worries and ideas. Because people are more interested in solving their problem.

If you start meeting by sharing your consulting charges and what all magic you can do etc then chances are you will never able to acquire the prospect. So, during meeting always give chance to others to speak out their worries first. Then share your ideas and thoughts with him. In this way, you will able to win more trust. So, human psychology says - if you want people to like you, get them to talk about themselves.

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Let’s me share another example to make you understand this point. John is a good and hardworking salesman. But most of the time when he visits his prospective clients he use to argue why his company’s products are better than competitors. And due to such arguments, he lost many opportunities as a salesman.

So, this advice says, we should never argue with people and instead we should acknowledge the facts. In the same case, if John will acknowledge that yes products of competitors are also good. Then prospective clients will never argue further. Then he can put his points easily and may have better chances to close the sales. So, don’t resist people, agree first.

If I tell you I have a product which can help you to save one hour of your night time in making dinner then will you be interested? Or if I say my products have these many features, so purchase this product.

I believe this point is very helpful to the sales, marketing and advertising professionals. You see now-a-days people are not interested in the features of the products.

They are more interested in how this product can help in improving their life. So, it’s very important when you talk to someone don’t try to sale features, try to tell them how this can benefit them. So, always keep on asking what our customers need are? What are they most interested in? How this product or service can benefit them? And just give that to them.

Well, actually in the book, the author didn’t mention this point separately but this is the soul of this book. This is the foundation of this book and if you will not use this principle than none of the other suggestions will work.

So, the point is straight and simple, first you must like the other person genuinely. This is the stepping stone of building any relationship. And if you can do this honestly, then you can easily make friends, motivate them, build trust and inspire them etc. So, you must like them first and it must be genuine. Because if you fake it other people are smart enough to know your intentions.

There are more points inside this book. By the way, this book was published more than eighty years back and till now more than twenty million copies have been sold.

Dale Carnegie published many other self-improvement books during his time. Some of them are, how to win friends and influence people, how to stop worrying and start living, the art of public speaking, how to develop self-confidence and public speaking etc. So, go ahead and read these high-quality self improvements books.