This is the twentieth post in a multi-part series where I share the highlights of the sections/subsections of the book How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
Previous: Appeal to the nobler motives
How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
Principle 11: Dramatize your ideas
- Merely stating the truth isn’t enough; it needs to be made interesting — use showmanship.
- Advertisers dramatize things to convince you to buy their product
- When proposing marriage, one doesn’t simply recite words. He/she gets down on one knee and makes it romantic and special.
- Example: An employee was having problems getting an audience with the company president about a problem in her division. Her solution was to send him a self-addressed form letter stating, “I can meet with you on ___ at ___ for ___ minutes.” Within three hours, she received a letter back from the president that he could see her that afternoon for 10 minutes. They spoke for over an hour, and got the issue resolved.
- This concept was also echoed in Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. John Stegner noticed his company was wasting a lot of money buying lots of different gloves at different prices from different vendors. Management wasn’t particularly interested in changing the company’s purchasing practices, so Stegner brought in all 424 types of gloves to the conference room and put prices on them. The management was shocked to see the display, and soon after implemented Stegner’s plan.
Up Next
Throw down a challenge.