How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People

Published on: 25th June 2023, Updated on: 20th August 2024

Written By:

Darren has been working in the world of soft skills training and coaching for over 20 years. He began his career as a buyer at big 4 UK supermarket and after 13 years he decided to leave to set-up Making Business Matter (MBM) because he wanted to help people to be the very best version of themselves. Connect with Darren on Linkedin and his Google Profile.

Game-changing Tips to Command the Hearts and Minds of Others – A.K.A. Influence People

First published in 1936 Dale Carnegie’s book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ has since sold over 30 million copies. Interestingly, Carnegie said he published the book when he realised that many people wanted to learn the topic of self-confidence when interacting with others. Furthermore, he had been teaching people how to succeed in business and asked them if they wanted to learn more things.

Not wishing to make Dale turn in his grave, let’s take a look at what is strangling our ability to win friends and influence people.

Avoid These 10 Things to Positively Impact People

Using ‘If that makes sense?’ at the end of a sentence, will kill your influencing power. So stop if you wish to effectively influence people.
Us looking at the side of your head during a meeting because you …have two screens and you talk into the other one. You cannot influence with an ear (I also love the irony of that sentence because active listening is great for influencing people).
When presenting, using Apple and Apple. Many people show a graph, e.g. this is how many people buy this each year and the title is ‘Sales Per Year’. The graphics and the text need to complement each other. In other words, they should not be the same. For example, the title might be, ‘In 2021-2023 Sales Grew By +19.5% Versus the previous 3 Years’.
Using the words ‘But’ or ‘However’. Because everything before ‘But’ is Bullsh1t and also everything before ‘However’ is Horsesh1t. Remember this to influence people.
When making a case/pitch/point you give many reasons. Use a few reasons or even just one, because otherwise your audience will pick on the 4th reason, and your whole wall of reason crumbles. Think espresso versus Latte. Espresso is a short sharp hit. Be more espresso. Less Latte.

Close up of cofee mug with heart shaped milk pattern on wooden table for tips to influence people — Lattes are much larger drinks than expressos

More Tips to Help You Influence People…

Delegate hoping that they will do it when you need but you never gave them a deadline. ‘Sorry, my telepathy machine was in for a service,’ they might say.
Talk more than listen. Try the 43:57 rule (Worth a Google). Basically, it’s important for the other person in a conversation to feel that you have listened more than you spoke.
Repeating the same thing hoping to finally get your point across, and that ‘they will eventually get it’. Don’t. Learn other persuasion techniques to help you influence people. There are 78.
Asking a question when you know the answer and hoping that they say what you want them to say. Don’t ask. Instead, recommend or suggest.
You never make a decision because you are then never wrong. True, but also you’ll be associated with the phrase, ‘Is that fence hurting you’re a$$?’. You need to pick a side and end your pain.

There are things we can stop doing that reduce our ability to influence people. Then, we can do things to improve how we influence people. So let’s start with stage 1, stop doing things that reduce our influencing power.