Customer Reviews

Persuasion IQ: The 10 Skills You Need to Get Exactly What You Want

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

A couple of years ago, I took a class with Kurt and signed up for his year long coaching at a tune of $6,000.00. Now mind you, I've spent a lot of money on coaching and training over the years and this was absolutely the worst, and I mean absolutely the worst training (if you can call it that)I have ever received. Someone in my organization signed he and his wife up for an even bigger coaching package than me($30,000) and still hasn't received a refund. We were told there were so many unhappy customers, they can't refund everyone's money which is their guarantee.

Kathleen Yow-Wells
Kirkland, WA

After months and Better Business Bureau in Utah, I did get a partial refund, but they still owe me $1500.00.

I wouldn't buy anything extra from Kurt Mortenson, i.e. trainings or coaching packages.

I own and I've read many (most?) books on persuasion and found most of them to be at best average. Most fail to persuade the reader. This one is one of the worst. It rehashes the old (and by now tired) principles form Cialdini's Influence, while not adding anything new or useful.

The writing style lacks enthusiasm, leaves you bored and uninspired. If an "expert" on persuasion fails to persuade the reader to keep reading, his credibility suffers. The only reason I kept reading is to find out if things get better towards its end. They don't. If there has ever been a book that looked like it was written by a committee, this would come very close.

This book is a useful primer for learning well-established persuasion techniques. Although author Kurt Mortensen makes few new points, he does a good job of compiling and synthesizing the current wisdom. Nothing here will challenge readers who are already familiar with the art, but newbies will find Mortensen's book a useful introduction, with references to classic motivational writers such as Napoleon Hill, time-management gurus such as Stephen Covey and classic thinkers such as Ben Franklin and Mohandas Gandhi. His enthusiasm helps, as do his checklists and examples. getAbstract recommends his book to aspiring salespeople and negotiators, and to anyone else who wants to improve his or her persuasion skills but doesn't know where to start.

Persuasion IQ is an incredible book, the charts and graphs as well as the specific lists are all designed with elegant precision and are very insightful. Kurt Mortensen must have persuaded an expert designer to lay that all out.
The thing I like best about the book though is that it makes it really easy to find out just how good of a persuader you are and then shows you how to improve. Why would anyone want to go study psychology for 20 years when they can get what will make a difference in this book.
I have read a lot of books in this genre and have found that most of them are full of fluff and regurgitated garbage. It seems as though Kurt has written Persuasion IQ from a refreshingly new perspective.
I recommend reading this book and buying one for each person in your organization, even if you aren't at the top of it yet.

When it comes to the science of persuasion, both personal and professional this is not only the best, but also the most important book out there.
Kurt Mortensen talks about how the inability to command influence is a universal personal and professional dilemma. He also explains the common pitfalls such as "The 5 C's of Trust" in an accessible and easy to understand manner.

An excellent business book for your library. If you deal with people, I would highly recommend this read. You may not get a ton of information from it, but I learned a lot!

Kurt shatters the old ideas of how persuasion should be. There are a lot of other great persuasion authors out there with good info, but I was surprised at how effectively Kurt writes about new persuasion concepts that nobody has touched yet. If you're serious about persuading, this is a must.

Someone has finally written a masterwork on the science of how we persuade people.

Historically, most books on persuasion revolve around old-school sales techniques that simply don't work in the 21st century. Mortensen looks at persuasion the way it should be seen, as a set of procedural skills with real evidence behind them. Starting with the inner game of your thoughts and personal beliefs, Persuasion IQ teaches you into ten rules that - surprise - have much more to do with your attitude, competence, and presence with others than selling techniques. Look critically at where you succeed - and if you are brave, where you fail - and you will find that this book's very detailed, structured view of the world will resonate very strongly with you.

I have met Kurt Mortensen, and he is the real deal. He exudes the kind of positive self-confidence and mental toughness that can make anyone successful - but more important, he has boiled down the mechanics of how you and I can be exactly the same way. The result, in the form of this book, is truly a gift for all of us. -Rich Gallagher, author of Great Customer Connections and What to Say to a Porcupine.

A book full of strong statements accompanied by loose arguments. Many times you would feel you could use those arguments to support the opposite statements.

Here are some random examples:

+ Page 5:
"No matter what type of vehicle (business) you have, it will go nowhere if you do not have the gas (persuasion and people skills)."

Where you can also say: "No matter what persuasion and people skills you have, you will go nowhere if you do not have the gas (business model)"

+ Page 42
"(Tools + Training + Experience) * Mindset = Success/Wealth
(100 + 100 + 100) * 0 = 0 (Failure)"
(which means that no success is brought if you don't have a correct mindset)

The example then goes with "no matter how powerful and fancy your computer is, you cannot use it if there is no software".

Anyone could ask about a different formula:

"(Mindset + Training + Experience) * Tools = Success/Wealth
(100 + 100 + 100) * 0 = 0 (Failure)"

which can be "explained" as: "no matter how determined (with good mindset) you are, how many years of training and experience you have, if you don't have a tool (e.g. a saw), then you cannot cut the wood"

Has a few interesting tidbits and generally valuable pockets of information, but not a great book.