How to Win Friends and Influence People (6 page)

So the only way cm earth to influence other people is

to talk about what they want and show them how to get

it.

Remember that tomorrow when you are trying to get

somebody to do something. If, for example, you don’t

want your children to smoke, don’t preach at them, and

don’t talk about what you want; but show them that cigarettes

may keep them from making the basketball team

or winning the hundred-yard dash.

This is a good thing to remember regardless of

whether you are dealing with children or calves or chimpanzees.

For example: one day Ralph Waldo Emerson

and his son tried to get a calf into the barn. But they

made the common mistake of thinking only of what they

wanted: Emerson pushed and his son pulled. But the

calf was doing just what they were doing; he was thinking

only of what he wanted; so he stiffened his legs and

stubbornly refused to leave the pasture. The Irish housemaid

saw their predicament. She couldn’t write essays

and books; but, on this occasion at least, she had more

horse sense, or calf sense, than Emerson had. She

thought of what the calf wanted; so she put her maternal

finger in the calf’s mouth and let the calf suck her finger

as she gently led him into the barn.

Every act you have ever performed since the day you

were born was performed because you wanted something.

How about the time you gave a large contribution

to the Red Cross? Yes, that is no exception to the rule.

You gave the Red Cross the donation because you

wanted to lend a helping hand; you wanted to do a beautiful,

unselfish, divine act. " Inasmuch as ye have done it

unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done

it unto me.”

If you hadn’t wanted that feeling more than you

wanted your money, you would not have made the contribution.

Of course, you might have made the contribution

because you were ashamed to refuse or because a

customer asked you to do it. But one thing is certain. You

made the contribution because you wanted something.

Harry A, Overstreet in his illuminating book
Influencing

Human Behavior
said; “Action springs out of what

we fundamentally desire . . . and the best piece of advice

which can be given to would-be persuaders,

whether in business, in the home, in the school, in politics,

is: First, arouse in the other person an eager want.

He who can do this has the whole world with him. He

who cannot walks a lonely way.”

Andrew Carnegie, the poverty-stricken Scotch lad

who started to work at two cents an hour and finally gave

away $365 million, learned early in life that the only

way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the

other person wants. He attended school only four years;

yet he learned how to handle people.

To illustrate: His sister-in-law was worried sick over

her two boys. They were at Yale, and they were so busy

with their own affairs that they neglected to write home

and paid no attention whatever to their mother’s frantic

letters.

Then Carnegie offered to wager a hundred dollars that

he could get an answer by return mail, without even

asking for it. Someone called his bet; so he wrote his

nephews a chatty letter, mentioning casually in a post-script

that he was sending each one a five-dollar bill.

He neglected, however, to enclose the money.

Back came replies by return mail thanking “Dear

Uncle Andrew” for his kind note and-you can finish

the sentence yourself.

Another example of persuading comes from Stan

Novak of Cleveland, Ohio, a participant in our course.

Stan came home from work one evening to find his

youngest son, Tim, kicking and screaming on the living

room floor. He was to start kindergarten the next day and

was protesting that he would not go. Stan’s normal reaction

would have been to banish the child to his room

and tell him he’d just better make up his mind to go. He

had no choice. But tonight, recognizing that this would

not really help Tim start kindergarten in the best frame

of mind, Stan sat down and thought, “If I were Tim, why

would I be excited about going to kindergarten?” He

and his wife made a list of all the fun things Tim would

do such as finger painting, singing songs, making new

friends. Then they put them into action. “We all started

finger-painting on the kitchen table-my wife, Lil, my

other son Bob, and myself, all having fun. Soon Tim was

peeping around the corner. Next he was begging to participate.

‘Oh, no! You have to go to kindergarten first to

learn how to finger-paint.’ With all the enthusiasm I

could muster I went through the list talking in terms he

could understand-telling him all the fun he would

have in kindergarten. The next morning, I thought I was

the first one up. I went downstairs and found Tim sitting

sound asleep in the living room chair. ‘What are you

doing here?’ I asked. ‘I’m waiting to go to kindergarten.

I don’t want to be late.’ The enthusiasm of our entire

family had aroused in Tim an eager want that no amount

of discussion or threat could have possibly accomplished.”

Tomorrow you may want to persuade somebody to do

something. Before you speak, pause and ask yourself:

“How can I make this person want to do it?”

That question will stop us from rushing into a situation

heedlessly, with futile chatter about our desires.

At one time I rented the grand ballroom of a certain

New York hotel for twenty nights in each season in order

to hold a series of lectures.

At the beginning of one season, I was suddenly informed

that I should have to pay almost three times as

much rent as formerly. This news reached me after the

tickets had been printed and distributed and all announcements

had been made.

Naturally, I didn’t want to pay the increase, but what

was the use of talking to the hotel about what I wanted?

They were interested only in what they wanted. So a

couple of days later I went to see the manager.

"I was a bit shocked when I got your letter,” I said,

“but I don’t blame you at all. If I had been in your position,

I should probably have written a similar letter myself.

Your duty as the manager of the hotel is to make all

the profit possible. If you don’t do that, you will be fired

and you ought to be fired. Now, let’s take a piece of

paper and write down the advantages and the disadvantages

that will accrue to you, if you insist on this increase

in rent.”

Then I took a letterhead and ran a line through the

center and headed one column “Advantages” and the

other column “Disadvantages.”

I wrote down under the head “Advantages” these

words: “Ballroom free.” Then I went on to say: “You

will have the advantage of having the ballroom free to

rent for dances and conventions. That is a big advantage,

for affairs like that will pay you much more than you can

get for a series of lectures. If I tie your ballroom up

for twenty nights during the course of the season, it is

sure to mean a loss of some very profitable business to

you.

“Now, let’s ‘consider the disadvantages. First, instead

of increasing your income from me, you are going to

decrease it. In fact, you are going to wipe it out because

I cannot pay the rent you are asking. I shall be forced to

hold these lectures at some other place.

“There’s another disadvantage to you also. These lectures

attract crowds of educated and cultured people to

your hotel. That is good advertising for you, isn’t it? In

fact, if you spent five thousand dollars advertising in the

newspapers, you couldn’t bring as many people to look

at your hotel as I can bring by these lectures. That is

worth a lot to a hotel, isn’t it?”

As I talked, I wrote these two “disadvantages” under

the proper heading, and handed the sheet of paper to

the manager, saying: "I wish you would carefully consider

both the advantages and disadvantages that are

going to accrue to you and then give me your final decision.”

I received a letter the next day, informing me that my

rent would be increased only 50 percent instead of 300

percent.

Mind you, I got this reduction without saying a word

about what I wanted. I talked all the time about what

the other person wanted and how he could get it.

Suppose I had done the human, natural thing; suppose

I had stormed into his office and said, “What do you

mean by raising my rent three hundred percent when

you know the tickets have been printed and the announcements

made? Three hundred percent! Ridiculous!

Absurd! I won’t pay it!”

What would have happened then? An argument would

have begun to steam and boil and sputter - and you

know how arguments end. Even if I had convinced him

that he was wrong, his pride would have made it difficult

for him to back down and give in.

Here is one of the best bits of advice ever given about

the fine art of human relationships. “If there is any one

secret of success,” said Henry Ford, “it lies in the ability

to get the other person’s point of view and see things

from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”

That is so good, I want to repeat it:
"If there is any one

secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other

person's point of view and see things from that person’s

angle as well as from your own.”

That is so simple, so obvious, that anyone ought to see

the truth of it at a glance; yet 90 percent of the people

on this earth ignore it 90 percent of the time.

An example? Look at the letters that come across your

desk tomorrow morning, and you will find that most of

them violate this important canon of common sense.

Take this one, a letter written by the head of the radio

department of an advertising agency with offices scattered

across the continent. This letter was sent to the

managers of local radio stations throughout the country.

(I have set down, in brackets, my reactions to each paragraph.)

Mr. John Blank,

Blankville,

Indiana

Dear Mr. Blank:

The ------ company desires to retain its position in advertising

agency leadership in the radio field.

[Who cares what your company desires? I am worried

about my own problems. The bank is foreclosing the

mortage on my house, the bugs are destroying the hollyhocks,

the stock market tumbled yesterday. I missed

the eight-fifteen this morning, I wasn’t invited to the

Jones’s dance last night, the doctor tells me I have high

blood pressure and neuritis and dandruff. And then what

happens? I come down to the office this morning worried,

open my mail and here is some little whippersnapper

off in New York yapping about what his company

wants. Bah! If he only realized what sort of impression

his letter makes, he would get out of the advertising

business and start manufacturing sheep dip.]

This agency’s national advertising accounts were the

bulwark of the network. Our subsequent clearances of

station time have kept us at the top of agencies year after

year.

[You are big and rich and right at the top, are you? So

what? I don’t give two whoops in Hades if you are as big

as General Motors and General Electric and the General

Staff of the U.S. Army all combined. If you had as much

sense as a half-witted hummingbird, you would realize

that I am interested in how big I am - not how big you

are. All this talk about your enormous success makes me

feel small and unimportant.]

We
desire to service our accounts with the last word on

radio station information
.

[You desire! You desire. You unmitigated ass. I’m not

interested in what you desire or what the President of

the United States desires. Let me tell you once and for

all that I am interested in what I desire - and you

haven’t said a word about that yet in this absurd letter of

yours .]

Will you, therefore, put the ---------- company on your

 preferred list for weekly station information - every single

detail that will be useful to an agency in intelligently booking

time.

[“Preferred list.” You have your nerve! You make me

feel insignificant by your big talk about your company

- nd then you ask me to put you on a “preferred” list,

and you don’t even say “please” when you ask it.]

A
prompt acknowledgment of this letter, giving us your

latest “doings,” will be mutually helpful.