Is there a modern equivalent to Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People?

The World has changed. Somebody else must have written something better than Carnegie’s classic in the last 75 years! So, I posed this question on LinkedIn in October 2011 and received some great feedback. By the way, the following list is not in any particular order of goodness.

1. Book: Everyone Communicates, Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently
   
   Author: John C. Maxwell
   Recommended by: Kevin Hrim
2. Book: Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding The Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty
   
   Author: Patrick Lencioni
   Author’s Website: http://www.tablegroup.com/
   Recommended by: Kevin Hrim
3. Book: How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age(Oct 4, 2011)
   
   Author: Dale Carnegie
   Recommended by: Todd South
4. Book: Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions
   
   Author: Guy Kawasaki
   Testimonial: “The best overall treatise on interpersonal relationships since Dale Carnegie wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People.” – Michael Gartenberg, Research Director, Gartner
   Recommended by: Hillary Schieve
5. Book: Influence: Science and Practice
   
   Author: Robert Cialdini
   Author’s Website: http://www.influenceatwork.com/
   Recommended by: Francesco Ferzini
6. Book: Winning with People: Discover the People Principles that Work for You Every Time
   
   Author: John C. Maxwell
   Recommended by: Bill Martin
7. Book: The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
   
   Author: Jack Canfield
   Book’s Website: http://www.thesuccessprinciples.com/
   Recommended by: Clay Hall
8. Book: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
   
   Author: Simon Sinek
   Authors’s Website: http://www.startwithwhy.com/
   TED Conference: Video
   Recommended, independently, by: Alice Heiman and John Bankhead
   Alice’s comment: I recommend the How to Win Friends & Influence People book to all the young people I mentor and the college students I teach. I don’t know of anything new with the same message, but I do love the book Start With Why by Simon Sinek and have been sending that out to all my CEOs.
9. Book: Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
   
   Author: Keith Ferrazzi
   Recommended by: Oliver Lee Mincey
   Oliver’s comment: I enjoyed the book. Not quite Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends, but it does have some good nuggets.
10. Book: Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web
    
    Author: Brian Solis
    Recommended by: Felipe Huicochea
11. Book: Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
    
    Authors: Chris Brogan & Julien Smith
    Recommended by: Felipe Huicochea
12. Book: You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar: The Sandler Sales Institute’s 7-Step System for Successful Selling
    
    Author: David H. Sandler
    Recommended by: Luke Davies

While everybody recommended an alternative, almost everybody agreed that Carnegie’s How to Win Friends was still the timeless gold standard.

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Don’t bombard me with a “Four tires for the price of three” sale.
Find me on the side of the road and help me change my flat tire!

• Old, status quo marketing: “Here’s my stuff. Buy my stuff!”
• New, cool-kid marketing: “Here’s an exact solution to your exact problem!”

Here’s how to make your company, product, service kick ass with Twitter!

The perfect example:

On Tuesday, Nov 15, 2011, I Tweeted that I had shared a couple of WordPress e-commerce alternatives with a client:

Five minutes later @Cart66 (a WordPress e-commerce plugin developer) replied to my Tweet with the following message:

Cart66 was on the ball. They offered a specific solution to my specific circumstance and they offered to answer any questions. They replied to me in 5 minutes… 5 minutes! Dude, that’s fast! And because they answered so quickly the topic was still fresh in my mind. I have to admit I was really surprised at how quickly anybody* replied.

They weren’t selling, they were solving. And that kicks ass!

Use Twitter’s search engine http://twitter.com/search to find your industry’s problems – and solve them. Never before in the history of marketing and advertising has any company been able to know – in real time – what customers are actually freaking out about. Twitter allows you to search your industry, as well as existing and potential clients, and offer assistance!

Find me on the side of the road and help me change my flat tire!

*By the way, @Cart66 was the only WordPress e-commerce plugin developer that replied.

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“I always feel enriched and re-energized after our meetings. You help me see things from a different perspective and push me to step out of the box a bit.

“There are many potential distractions during our public meetings (ie. gorgeous women walking about;) however, you remain focused on our time together. I respect and appreciate that about you!”

Jeanine Calandri
Retirement plan and asset management consulting
Sacramento, CA
Nov. 12, 2011

Then somebody mentioned that she might have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and recommended that she visit the VA Hospital. She went. And now she’s way up on the upside of all the hell that is PTSD.

PTSD was the topic of Amber’s speech Monday evening (Nov 7, 2011) at our Capital City Toastmasters meeting in Sacramento. It was her Ice Breaker, which is the very first speech that anybody gives. It was amazing! The best I’ve ever heard in the 2 years that I’ve been a Toastmaster.

Her story about working through PTSD is the sole reason that Amber joined Toastmasters – to get her story of hope out to the world.

Amber stood in front of us and presented her speech with such conviction, honesty, humility and proof-of-hope. I was her speech evaluator, and I got to mention that she presented the best Ice Breaker I’d ever heard! And nothing in her speech was over-dramatic, hyped up or depressing. It was simply the truth about war, combat Veterans, PTSD and hope.

Amber shared all the facts and symptoms of PTSD. And she shared some of the triggers that set off debilitating flashbacks – hers is the sound of helicopters. She also mentioned that as she was spiraling out of control, she had no idea what was actually going wrong with her. It took an outside observer to suggest that she might be suffering from PTSD and that she should visit the VA Hospital.

Toastmasters is part of her recovery. Not for PTSD itself, but for spreading the message of hope to other soldiers. Amber has fought in Iraq, suffered the symptoms and the triggers, been homeless – and is now high up on the making-it-back side of life! She’s living proof that actually getting help and getting a proper diagnosis really works.

Amber’s Toastmasters speech was solid, factual and an easy-to-follow recipe for all Veterans who find themselves losing their job, their family, their home and their life.

After Amber’s speech, everybody replied how motivational it was. And it was. But it wasn’t rah-rah, you-can-do-it, go-get’em kinda stuff. It was straight from the battlefield, straight from the heart, and the steps that actually worked for her. It was an autobiography with a purpose, a plan and a path out of misery.

Nobody said hello. Nobody acknowledged I was at the window explaining what I wanted. So I just kept explaining what I wanted, out loud, to the cashier – who wasn’t paying attention to me at all. “I’m sorry, what?” asked the distracted Wells Fargo cashier. During our entire transaction she had her head turned toward her co-worker’s, engaged in “their” conversation and didn’t engage me at all. It was nuts. I guess she doesn’t need her job. I guess Wells Fargo doesn’t give a damn.

Gary Vaynerchuk recently mentioned in his Inc 500 Conference keynote that “We are at the dawn of doing 1-on-1 marketing!” I was definitely second-place with this Wells Fargo cashier.

Wells Fargo’s 1-on-1 marketing sucks!

Read Chris Brogan’s full post: Memorable Speakers Blend Stories, A Connection to the Audience, and Takeaways

“I’m doing my 10th [Toastmasters] speech this week and wanted to say thank you for the inspiration. You truly are an amazing speaker. I found the link to your website on YouTube and it seems as though you also have a successful business. The company I work for, BluEra, builds evolved and awakened teams from executive search and team transformation practices. Much of what you said in your speech was very relevant to what I see and do in a given day.

“Best of luck with your business and thank you again for posting your video, it was a pleasure to watch.”

Hilary May Smith
Toastmasters member
Calgary, Canada
Oct. 2011

In my experience, I’m either standing or sitting while I wait for my turn to speak. I don’t really like the waiting part: my knees and hands used to shake uncontrollably and my teeth would chatter. But nowadays, I’m just plain antsy and excited to get in front of a crowd.

Here’s what worked for me to overcome* my butterflies:

1. Sit up straight: physically move forward in your seat. When you’re sitting back in your seat, the butterflies are in the pit of your stomach. It’s like they’re in front of your stomach. By sitting up straight, your back moves away from the back of your seat, where the butterflies are. You’re physically moving forward, so you’re now in front of the butterflies. That’s how I always envision it: By sitting up straight, I’m pushing myself through the butterflies and they’re now behind me. I’m typically sitting down before my name is called to speak, so the difference between sitting back in my chair, and then purposefully sitting up straight is a huge help in calming – by directly facing – my nerves.
2. Breathe: purposefully and deliberately. Take deep breathes and make them count. And don’t just breathe in and out deeply, but instead: breathe in, hold it, and then breathe out. Equally important to the holding-it-in part is the breathing out part. Breathe out with purpose.
3. Smile: yes, smile! It’s another purposefully physical reaction to butterflies that really helps. Smiling breaks up your facial tension and takes physical attention away from your stomach. I use smiling in conjunction with breathing.
4. Prepare: I never thought being prepared would be such an important part of feeling confident. But it is. Being prepared makes sitting up straight, breathing and smiling a whole lot more effective.

The first three tips above are physical reactions to butterflies. However, feeling confident starts long before my name is called to get up and speak. Comparing my first speeches to speeches I give now, feeling confident (by being prepared) goes a long, long way toward sitting up straight, breathing and smiling actually being helpful in overcoming* my butterflies!

It really comes down to screaming confidence. And for me it’s these four things: being prepared, sitting up straight, breathing and smiling.

How I initially approached public speaking:

First, I decided right up front that I wanted the experience of having butterflies and getting up to speak. In the beginning, that’s what I was after: butterflies and speaking, all happening at the same time. So I joined Toastmasters (in particular, I joined Capital City Toastmasters in Sacramento, CA). I didn’t care if my speeches were perfect, I only cared about getting the experience in my bones. I’ve forgotten my next line, I’ve mixed up paragraphs, I’ve completely forgotten stuff – and I’m still alive! And I always looked at my current speech as the experience to get me to the next speech.

Second, I realized early on that everybody just wanted to get their speeches over with and out of the way. I heard a lot of “I’m glad that’s over with!” This approach was not going to work for me and it wasn’t going to help at all with actually overcoming my butterflies. Instead, I decided I wanted to be right in the middle of a speech. Looking forward to being-in-the-middle meant I wasn’t focused on getting it over with – my celebration wasn’t at the end of the speech but, rather, it was in the middle! This made a big difference in my overall approach to pubic speaking and overcoming* my butterflies. This new being-in-the-middle approach ended up reducing each individual speeches’ overall nervousness. I started focusing on experiencing multiple speeches, instead of the fear of getting just one speech out of the way.

What I discovered about butterflies:

I’m not actually trying to get rid of my butterflies, I’m working with them. They’re a part of me and my experience, so I decided we should get friendly. You know, invite the butterflies over for a weekend BBQ and get to know each other. With each new speech, I learned to more openly wrap one arm around my butterflies, stand together at the podium and give the speech as a team.

*Overcoming butterflies is a myth. I never overcame my butterflies, I still get them. But now I have enough experience to know that they’re a completely normal part of my speaking routine. So I’m not scared of them anymore, and I’ve learned to quickly transform the feeling of nervousness into a feeling of antsy excitedness. Butterflies are now expected, I know they’re coming, so I wrap my arms around’em and off we go to give another speech.

Simple rule: any change in an appointment’s schedule means the appointment is cancelled and needs to be re-scheduled. But more importantly, it means any other client or activity has now permanently lost out. It’s the allotted time that’s valuable, not necessarily what’s done with it. Although, what’s done with your time always has consequences.

My time is far more valuable than the rate being charged for it, because I’ll never get that time back again.

A client is welcome to use their appointment with me in almost any way they see fit: tell jokes, talk on the phone or show me funny videos on YouTube (this has actually happened). They can even show up late or cancel the appointment altogether.

The client still gets charged for the full appointment, whether they use it or not.

In some industries charging for a cancelled appointment is called a kill fee. We all know that stuff comes up – even emergencies – and things need to be rescheduled. But the important distinction is this: all time is hugely valuable. And it’s the time-slot that’s billable, not the circumstances surrounding it.

Family and Friends:

You can’t let your time get wasted by family and friends. Do your best to limit your exposure to habitual time-wasters, late-arrivers and re-schedulers.

How could we respond to family and friends who show up late, cancel appointments or reschedule at the last minute? With compassion and clarity. What else could you be doing with your time?: reading/writing a book, answering a customer service call, designing a product, selling a service, starting/finishing a blog entry, volunteering, exercising, studying for school.

Since you can’t charge family & friends a time-evaporator kill fee – or maybe you can – here’s the next best move: invite them to participate in your activities instead of joining them for theirs. Also stress-relieving: allot only a certain amount of time per week and make it count.