Customer Reviews

The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way: How to Speak, Write, Present, Persuade, Influence, and Sell Your Point of View to Others (VIDEOBOOK) (Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Books)

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Years ago, I attended a reception in Washington (DC) honoring a British diplomat who was about to retire. At one point, I engaged in conversation with him and presumed to ask what was the single most important lesson he had learned after 30+ years of public service. He replied, "Always let the other chap have it your way." How simple! Only later did I realize that he was describing what Oliver Wendell Holmes once characterized as "the other side of complexity." And I think this is what Jeffrey Gitomer has in mind in this volume when suggesting how to speak, write, present, persuade, influence, and sell your point of view to others. That is an accurate subtitle because it correctly indicates precisely what this "little book" is all about.

Others have their own reasons for their praise of this book. Here are three of mine. First, I appreciate the visual format within which Gitomer presents his material. Key points are brilliantly displayed with a variety of colors, font sizes, use of bold and italic faces, and page location. Also, I appreciate the strategic insertion of dozens of quotations and insights, each of which is directly relevant to the given context. Here are three of my personal favorites:

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people, than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." - Dale Carnegie

"Being a person of influence means that you have reputation, character, credibility, and stature enough that people will take your message seriously. [They] come from your track record and your success record combined with your perceived expertise." - Gitomer

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Finally, I admire Gitomer's characteristically pragmatic approach. All of his observations and recommendations are driven by his determination to explain "why" and "how." The narrative is mercifully free of general theories, pretentious rhetoric, and problematic assumptions. I hasten to add that there is a total lack of cynicism. He assumes that each reader has a point of view that is well thought-out, sincere, authentic, and worthy of careful consideration.

Argumentation is one of the four levels of classical discourse, the others being exposition (explaining with information), description (making vivid with compelling details, and narration (telling a story with a sequence of events or developing a sequence of separate but related ideas). The term "argumentation" is sometimes misunderstood to mean arguing when, in fact, its purpose is to persuade with logic and/or evidence.

Gitomer understands all this, of course, and effectively uses each of the other three levels of discourse when explaining how to "sell your point of view to others." (Be sure to check out the "8.5 key elements that make up your ability to persuade others and get your way" on Pages 40-41.) He also has a solid understanding of human nature. Therefore, throughout his narrative, he includes frequent reminders to take human skepticism, insecurity, and (yes) recalcitrance into full account. As indicated earlier, with all due respect to Gitomer's inventive mind and passion for communicating, he is ultimately a pragmatist. That is, he is almost wholly preoccupied with helping others to understand what "works," what doesn't, and most importantly, why.

More a quibble than a complaint, the next edition should have an index.

This may be a "small book" in certain respects but, one man's opinion, it offers a wealth of practical advice with eloquence and enthusiasm. Well-done!

As the author of Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want I know more than a little about persuasion and I loved this book.

What I like about this book is that Jeffrey has taken key principles of persuasion and influence and broken them down into easy to implement ideas. He makes adding the persuasion and influence principles to your existing sales process not only simple but effective.

One of the areas where I think this book really shines is when Jeffrey talks about speaking to influence. As one of the most prolific speakers working today, he brings a unique blend of personal insight, techniques that have stood the test of time and audiences. These tips alone are some of the most valuable in the book.

If you are new to the area of persuasion this book will be a great starting point for you. If you are a seasoned pro who fully understands persuasion, you'll find this book an exceptional review of core concepts.

Jeffrey has written another book that is fun to read, practical and valuable to virtually any sales professional.

I think this book gives a lot of great tips for those who want to improve their presentations. He is a big believer in Toastmasters, as am I. I would say it is more focused on style than substance- substance being content and how to phrase/influence. Good tips nonetheless. Easy to read.

In my opinion, Jeffrey's "Little Books" tend to erode a bit in quality from book to book. I think part of this is the fact he returns to the same themes over and over in hs books, so there isn't much here you haven't seen in his earlier publications. He is mostly mining familar Gitomer territory here.

Still, I give his titles to my salespeople and they seem to eat his words like candy. Jeffrey focuses on the basics of selling (being accountable, delivering value, making yourself different) and such themes never go out of style, no matter how many times you read them.

Even though this book is inexpensive, it still isn't worth the price of admission. The book is very repetitious, and instead of expanding on the ideas presented in the first chapter, the book simply reiterates them.
Probably the biggest problem with the book is that the author doesn't take the time to give examples to illustrate the techniques he's advocating. In summary, this is a how-to book that doesn't show you how to do it.

My sales team and I recently went through this book together. It was an incredible mistake. Gitomer states the same points over and over again, in each chapter. My team kept asking eachother, "when is he going to start teaching us how to persuade people?" This was a horribly written book with little to no specific insight into the art of persuasion. If you've ever read any other book on sales...you've heard everything that is included in this book. In my opinion, the purpose of the book is not to teach people to persuade, but rather to become a revenue generator for Jeffrey Gitomer. The good news is that he will eventually run out of colors...

This is the second book I've bought from Gitomer, and much like the last one (Black book of connections) it is a very self-centered read. Dale Carnegie's stories from 80 years ago are more relevant than Gitomer's own personal experiences, nevermind the countless quotes of his own words in 300pt. type. Like another reviewer said, there is a lot of fluff and hardly any substance. This really should be split into two books - since half of it is devoted to giving speeches and barely applies to selling in any way. The "presenting" aspect of giving a speech might have some merit, except that most selling is done on such a smaller scale and Gitomer paints such broad strokes he would be better off not saying anything at all. I wanted a book that helped with persuasion in a sales setting -- this is not that book. Its more about motivating yourself than persuading others.

The reason I gave it two stars instead of one is because some of the takeaways in Chapter 4 and Chapter 7 are helpful and worth revisiting from time to time. This accounts for maybe 5-10% of the book. The rest of the pages it seems like Gitomer is vomiting repitious words just to fill up the space in a "200 page" book.

One of the things he preaches about is not to say "we" or "our" when presenting, yet his whole book is saying "be like me". What guys like this need to realize is that not everyone is just like him. If everyone actually did what he said in this book, Barnes and Noble would have 500,000 books just like this one on their shelf. Not everyone wants to write books. Not everyone wants to give speeches for people who will never buy their niche product. Some people just want a book that will help them sell!

I have no interest in any future books from Gitomer, who apparently succeeded in getting me to buy two of his books and continues to lure people in with different color schemes and an unusual shape. Marketing genius, yes. Provider of tangible information, not so much.

Whant to be a better persuader, right? Want to be a presenter, uh?

Ok. You can buy this book. But you'll save only 3 pages on a total of 201.

Jeffrey is a master on flying around concepts... and around, and around.
Some sections of the book recall past books from the author, while other sections, you can bet on it, will "inspire" additional books from him.

I added a star because he is very smart.

Everyone who is in sales should follow Jeffrey's lead. He knows what it's like to be a business owner living on a checking account full of air. But he's persevered and become one of the world's leading (and most highly paid) sales professionals. Jeffrey was not born a movie star. (No offense Jeffrey) If he can become successful, so can anyone by following his examples.

PS. I don't know him personally and he didn't pay me to say this!

A similar message to that of the great Dale Carnegie in his classic books "How to Win Friends & Influence People" and "Effective Public Speaking" etc, Jeffery presents a bang up to date modern way of learning & achieving all of these things in one book.

His style is very modern and fresh, making the learning process easy, interesting & enjoyable. His layout method is unique & eye catching but without being confusing.

His lessons are delivered in a short and to the point easy to remember way without all the waffle of previous authors on the same subject, which used to harp on about "I knew a man once who bla boring bla......"

This isn't a book aimed at just sales people, his valuable lessons on finding out what makes people tick, so that you can influence (not manipulate) them in order to achieve something that you're after, are written in a nice clear friendly style that is full of positive wisdom.

A great compliment to Jeffery's other books; - "Little Black Book of Connections" & "Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude". All of which could be comfortably read in a couple of days - although well worth reading each a couple of times to make sure the message has got through.

His American style of writing is easy on the eye.

If you need more help on a particular topic, Jeffery provides backup help with a link to his web site, where you can get further help & go into the topic much deeper (for FREE!)