How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: leil lowndes, sticky eyes, accidental adulation, Epoxy Eyes, Killer Compliment, Lady Stephanie (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"You'll not only break the ice, you'll melt it away with your new skills."--Larry King

"The lost art of verbal communication may be revitalized by Leil Lowndes."--Harvey McKay, author of Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten

Leil Lowndes' How to Talk to Anyone offers101 time-tested hints, tips, and techniques for confidently communicating with others. A bestselling author and renowned communications consultant, Lowndes focuses on ice-breaking skills and communication techniques that are proven successful when making a positive first impression, establishing instant rapport and credibility, and more.

Packed with basic, no-nonsense advice and solid research evidence about which techniques work best in which areas, How to Talk to Anyone show readers how to:

• Make small talk not so small
• Use body language to captivate an audience
• Look like you know what you're talking about--even when you don't

From the Back Cover

"You'll not only break the ice, you'll melt it away with your new skills."
--Larry King

"The ultimate guide to the thinking person . . . an invaluable tool for conversations."
--Sally Jesse Raphael

Become a master communicator and succeed in life, love, and business

Have you ever admired those successful people who seem to have it all? You see them chatting confidently at parties and being listened to in business meetings. They're the ones with the best jobs, nicest parties, and most interesting friends.

But wait a minute. They're not necessarily smarter than you or even better looking. What it comes down to is their more skillful way of communicating with other people. Now How to Talk to Anyone reveals the secrets of successful communication. With Leil Lowndes's ninety-two easy and effective techniques, you will discover how to become a master communicator in life, love, and business.

Combining the latest research with Leil's trademark wit and warm-hearted observations of human foibles, How to Talk to Anyone shows you how to:

• Make an unforgettable entrance and meet the people you want to meet
• Sound like an insider in any crowd, no matter how little you have in common
• Use body language to captivate audiences of all sizes
• Work a party the way a politician works a room
• Always come across confident, credible, and charismatic wherever you are

Leil Lowndes is among today's most sought-after communication consultants and the author of the international bestsellers How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You and How to Be a People Magnet.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 2 edition (September 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007141858X
• ISBN-13: 978-0071418584
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (96 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,288 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #12 in	Books > Business & Investing > Skills > Communications
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My daughter found me out!, December 10, 2003

By	David Coasby (London UK) - See all my reviews

Us guys in the UK are generally a little more reserved than you folk in America (all part of being English I suppose?). Meeting and starting conversations with strangers doesn't usually come so easily for most of us. So when I came across this book 'How to talk to anyone' on my daughters bookshelf I decided to `borrow' it.

I was quite impressed with some of the easy-to-use techniques the author suggested but hadn't really appreciated just how much they'd obviously sunk in as I read through it.

It was only when my daughter remarked to me a few weeks later "Dad, have you been reading 'How to talk to anyone'?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, I've been watching you recently, and you're going round talking to everyone like you've known them for years. Even the way you stand, listen and look at people is different!".

I confessed, and we both laughed. Like I said, I hadn't realised how easy and just how well Leil Lowndes' techniques worked.

87 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful, but limited if you aren't networking or looking for a promotion, June 10, 2008

By	Coyote - See all my reviews

I borrowed this book from a friend. I was both impressed and turned off by it on many different levels. I have no interest in navigating the shark filled waters of corporate America or the yacht club and this book seems to be geared for those seeking entrée into that world. Of the 92 tips, the majority focused on working parties like a politician, making people think you like them when you secretly find them to be bores and pandering to native human egocentricity. Basically, it's a how-to guide for people who want to learn how to be charming and fake, without seeming to be fake. All very useful for ambitious corporate folks, entrepreneurs seeking financial backing, and even musicians looking to get a record deal, no doubt, but not very useful for average people looking to improve their social skills among friends.

For instance, the publisher's blurb on this site brags that the book shows you "7 ways to establish deep subliminal rapport with anyone". What they don't specify is that the author only shows you tricks to SIMULATE rapport with that person. This book is mostly about creating a complex, flexible illusion.

Although the author had many useful tips (I made myself a list of the 19 excellent tips I want to remember and incorporate into my own life) and her writing was very entertaining, I found myself thinking - "I'm glad she's not my friend. She may be a cool cat and a charmer, but she's also plastic."

So I'm giving the book a mixed review. Be aware of why you are buying it. If you want tips on how to network (a necessity for many people to succeed in their field), this book is probably nothing short of brilliant. She's keenly observant and gifted with the ability to analyze behavior and articulate it in an easy to understand manner. This book may very well be a life saver if you are trying to survive in a world that essentially runs by the rules of politicians and bureaucrats, where the ability to play the game is what counts. When you are surrounded by fakes, sometimes your best option is to learn how to put on your game face. The author does deliver the goods on this, in fine style.

If you want to improve your relationships with family, friends and romantic partners, where the creation of a facade is of no real value, this book does have something to offer you, but it will be limited. You'll find yourself trudging through entire chapters on how to sell people widgets by handing them pictures of your dog, or how to get a dead bore to tell his favorite "I'm so cool" story to your friends at a party so you can sneak off for better company without him realizing you've ditched him.

83 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not only unhelpful, but also pretty irritating, February 18, 2006

By	Amazon Buyer (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

I was really excited when I found this book... but sorely disappointed when I read it. Here's my beef:

- Too obvious. Out of the 92 tips, I found about 5 to be helpful-- the rest are painfully evident to anyone who has been to more than 2 cocktail parties. I learned to stand up straight in kindergarden, thanks. Got that smiling thing down, too.

- Some of the tips are plain awful. The author suggests you read the paper to get topics of conversation. "Anything that happend today is good material" she says. OK, if you want to get into some heated political debate about the Iraq War, go right ahead.

- The writing style is too verbose/ unecessarily emotional for my taste. The whole thing could have been compressed into a booklet, sans all the exclaimation points and cutesy anecdoetes only tangentally related to the topic at hand.

- Related to the above point, the author spews out annoying untruths. She says "most NYC subway riders only know 2 things about the subway: where they get on and get off" As an 8 year NYC resident, I can tell you we do occasionally go places besides work and home.

- The advice is potentially damaging. She says "big cats are anotomically correct... they'll say "breasts" when they mean breasts". I've worked for a number of fortune 500 companies, and I can tell you no 2 have the same culture. Making generalizations like this can cause you to not only look silly, but lose your job in some places.

- "How to talk to a celebrity". Enough said.

By the way, it is perfectly OK to ask someone what they do.