Customer Reviews
Disappointing - over promises and under delivers - By: Wants-to-do-better, 04 Oct 2008 
Well, let's start by an admission, I'm only 1/2 way through so far. I'm writing because I feel the book is underdelivering on its core promise - that of being a way to improve ones own ability to persuade.
I workin marketing & am always interestedin new ways to increase the persuasiveness of what I do - both to persuade customers to buy more, but more importantly to be more persuasive with the internal stakeholders I need on my sidein order to be able to do anything at all.
And this is where it falls flat. Yes, the book is well researched. And yes, it's useful to help yourself stop being a 'patsy' (Caldini describes himself as the ultimate mug who learned to recognise how he was being played by persuasive salesmen). However, the book has two main failings.
1) it's old, old, old. The examples used are from 30+ years ago. Read through examples of Encylcopedia salesmen going door to door & you'll think... "hmmm, how is this relevantin helping me sellin the C21st?"
2) it's highly general, & not applied. Caldini (so far) has set up 6 attributes of persuasiveness, which he's researched & can support with lots of interesting personal anecdotes. But the attributes are so general (likeability), & the anecdotes either so lab-based ("we put a likeable studentin a room with other students...") or so shallow ("when a salesman smiles at you...") that you again can't take anything specific & useful away.
A pity. But I'd strongly suggest that this one is worth a visit to the library to read, but not the £5-£10 that it'll cost to buy.
It is a great book but not 100% what im after, reccomend it though.. - By: , 20 Aug 2008 
This book is definetly worth gettin because it is an interesting read & the author clearly knows what he is talking about. What i like about the book is it is based on research & science, not half guesses & assumptions.
It does make you more aware of sales techniques & how to not fall victim to their techniques. I do think some chapters he tends to go on abit too much for the sake of making the chapter & book longer ( feels that way when you read it) because when you read the book you will find a summary at the end of each chapter which explains 40 pages worth on 1 page.
Though he does go deep into the principles & logic of the science of persuasion if you think that you will become a master persuader after reading this then you will be dissapointed. I have seen Derren Brown & other masters of NLP influence people ( with extraordinary skill ) into making decisions with indirect suggestions, clever word play & body lanuguage without them even realising & this is the type of persuasion that interests me & this book does not go into any of this really.
As i said some interesting facts & research & a good read but for the reason above is why i rated it 3 stars
Wonderful book - By: -, 18 Aug 2008 
I read this bookin less than 4 days.
I reckon this is a must read not just for Marketers but everyone involvedin business.
I found the informal style really engaging but yet rigorous & supported by plenty of facts & research.
I have already started to spot at work some of the topics discussed & I am starting to use some of the tecniques.
I can only highly reccomend this enjoyable & interesting reading, especially if you liase with peoplein your daily job.
Not bad, but... - By: Ton, 19 Jan 2008 This is not a bad book. Actually, I'm ok with having bought it here at Amazon. However, that was not my impression when I startedin the first chapter; I thought "oh no, not again, another book of a wannabe self-proclaimed "guru"". From chapter 3 onwards it became better, but I have one serious problem with this book: I do understand Cialdini is an academic, but I really wish he would stop cluttering up the text with all these side steps to academic research; it's annoying. Just pose your statements, explain them short & clear, & put all your detailed explanations of academic research that supports your statementsin the footnotes. This is your typical book where you have to turn back two pages constantly to see "what was his main argument?". This book could be considerably shorter, *still preservering the same value when it comes to insight", & would make for much more pleasant reading (Mind you, I hold a PhD myself, I know this is academic writing. That's fine when your audience is the academical world, but that is clearly not what the intended audience of this book is). To conclude: there are some valuable lessons containedin this book, it is worth the money, but it needs to be less on the academical details, because that distracts.
Priceless - By: B. W. Jenner, 28 Oct 2007 I have been entertaining my friends at dinner parties with this book. Cialdini, who admits to being a bit of a sucker himself, shows all the ways we've been manipulated over the years by small gestures & situations contrived by salesmen.
There are so many good stories. The one about Joe Girard, a car salesman who sends out each month 13,000 cards every month to former customers with a card saying, "I like you". Surely people wouldn't fall for that? Yes they do, he made more than $200,000 a year selling cars. He'sin the Guinness Book of Records.
There's the story of how the Chinese got the American prisonersin the Korean War to betray their country by setting them essay questions. There's accounts of the trouble we can get into when we insist on being consistent or make a vague commitment to supporting a cause.
Cialdini exposes loads of sales techniques & has some fascinating insights into what motivates us.
As a self-employed person I'm really grateful for this knowledge. This is a book that everyone should read.
