Kevin Hogan is the author of 22 books. He is best known for his international best selling book, The Psychology of Persuasion: How to Persuade Others to Your Way of Thinking.
In the past decade he has become the Body Language Expert and Unconscious Influence Expert to ABC, Fox, The BBC, The New York Times, The New York Post and dozens of popular magazines like Forbes,Investors Business Daily,InTouch, First for Women, Success!, and Cosmopolitan.
He has become the go-to resource for analyzing key White House figures.
Hogan has taught Persuasion and Influence at the University of St. Thomas Management Center and is a frequent media guest. Articles by and about him have appeared in Success!, Redbook, Office Pro,, Selling Power, Cosmopolitan, Maxim, Playboy and numerous other publications. He was recently featured in a half dozen magazines (including wProst) in Poland.
Kevin is a dynamic, well-known international public speaker, consultant and corporate trainer. He has trained persuasion, sales and marketing skills to leaders in the government of Poland, employees from Mutual of Omaha, Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Cargill, Pillsbury, Carlson Companies, Fortis Insurance, Great Clips, the State of Minnesota, 3M, The United States Postal Service and numerous other Fortune 500 companies. He recently spoke to The Inner Circle and at the Million Dollar Roundtable (MDRT) convention in Las Vegas.
His keynotes, seminars and workshops help companies sell, market and communicate more effectively. His cutting edge research into the mind and keen understanding of consumer behavior create a unique distillation of information never before released to the public. Each customized program he leads is fit specifically to the needs of the group or organization. Kevin will give your people new and easy to implement ideas to achieve excellence.
I am so conflicted about this book. The content is interesting, and likely very valuable to those in sales. However, it is presented so poorly that it is difficult to make use of the material.
Loy Machedo鈥檚 Book Review - The Science of Influence: How to Get Anyone to Say "Yes" in 8 Minutes or Less! By Kevin Hogan.
I came to know of Kevin Hogan through Jeffrey Gitomer鈥檚 Vegas Seminar. He was one of the Speakers featured at the Seminar and so I eagerly waited for his turn to come up on to the stage and speak. Seems he was the best in the country 鈥� so why not! He walked up on to the stage and then it began. First my eagerness turned into surprise, from surprise to disgust and then it was just absolute boredom 鈥� with me waiting for him to finish his talk so that I could listen to the next speaker.
I have no idea what he spoke about. The only thing I do recollect is that he was horrible.
Now, when I found out he was the author of this book I purchased accidentally 鈥� which supposedly was a best seller, I kind of had the feeling that may be I misjudged this guy. May be it was one of those 鈥榖ad-hair-day鈥� kind of moments for him. May be he was a good Speaker, Writer and Trainer. I mean you can鈥檛 blame me for a guy having a bad opinion because he gave a bad speech and then he has a website that sucks!
So now comes his book.
Let me tell you this bit. I browsed online to see what were the reviews others had about his book and I was a wee-bit surprised that he was practically hammered by his critics.
For instance, his book title 鈥楾he Science of Influence: How to Get Anyone to Say "Yes" in 8 Minutes or Less!鈥�, valid questions were being asked as to Why 8 minutes? Why not 9? Or 11? What about 4 minutes or less? Who came up with this number?
And then the other critics hammered him of plagiarism 鈥� taking material from Robert Cialdini鈥檚 book to using material borrowed from the works of Kahneman and Tversky. He was also profoundly criticized to making the book bland, boring and bitter. In fact the most humorous of them all was the mockery of his 鈥榤odels鈥� with ambitious scientific sounding names like "Delta model", "Omega Strategies" or "Secret of Oscillation".
In fact if I had any criticisms about this book, it would be simply this 鈥� the material was repetitive and rephrased to sound new over and over again to the point you would just turn back the previous pages to see if he had accidentally repeated those phrases. In fact, my biggest shock was this. At first I was totally mesmerized by his book and concepts. However, after I finished reading this book and when I began writing notes, I realized he had just simply dragged on a singular concept and made it sound totally sophisticated and powerful with his so called 鈥榮ubliminal鈥� use of words. And this in turn can be made to look manipulative in nature. So overall, it would give you the feeling the author is trying to take you on a ride, rather than sincerely educate you towards becoming a Master at the Art of Persuasion.
So does this book have nothing at all to offer you other than these critical points?
Not actually.
The very fact that I was drawn to this book with a sense of curiosity and intrigue is proof enough that there was something worthwhile about this book. In fact, the desire to get into shape and lose my belly is all thanks to Kevin Hogan who clearly put it that if we do not focus on looking attractive 鈥� the chances of success come down considerably 鈥� something that I believe totally. (but here the question is why isn鈥檛 he following his own advice?)
So what鈥檚 the final verdict?
A book that would have people either finding it a total waste of time or a book that can give you a few nuggets. So since I found it in between two worlds, I would still give him a few plus points based on the fact that though most of it was just over-hyped fluff, the few good worthwhile points (20%) was worth purchasing the book. Only suggestion Mr. Hogan 鈥� please redo your website, find out why the hell your book is being shared all over the world wide web for free( I downloaded a free copy though I purchased the original from Amazon) and finally, please for Jupiter鈥檚 sake 鈥� improve the content of your Public Speaking Appearances.
Kevin Hogan's Science of Influence is about how to influence people, in work or daily life. When I first saw this title, I was afraid of it, thinking, like some other people out there, I'm sure, that the word 'influence' as a noun or verb is often synonymous 'manipulation' or 'manipulate,' respectively. But that implies that the intention is sinister. The truth is that even though someone who is unscrupulous could used these tools for ill, that is not the intention.
Hogan basically wants to show people that due to a number of genetic tendencies and psychological mechanisms people could be influenced using different strategy sets, either to set conditions for the sale or to provide people with reasons to accept an offer. Anybody from a person trying to resolve conflicts with his or her significant other to a top-level salesperson could benefit from this knowledge, and nobody should be without it. Many of the strategies, you'll notice, you already use in everyday life, no matter what your problem or line of work may be, but this is just a more systematic and well-supported version of that information, in large part.
The reason I did not give it more stars, by the way, is because there were parts of the book that could have benefited from being a little better organized or some of the conceptual distinctions being clearer. For example, in one part of the book Hogan provides a list of characteristics a person should have or acquire before he or she wants to convince another person of something. Among the listed were "competence" and "expertise." Then later when talking about what competence is, he writes that it's identical to expertise. Then what of the conceptual distinction? This might seem a minor quibble, but the reader will see other kinds of examples; this is just the first that comes to mind.
It's a useful book for people running business than other self-help books.There are so many tricks which is based on researches.Like changing your voice,breathing and movements according to another person,showing future and possible regrets people for persuading them on an idea,changing personal environment and including family factors etc. to affect people,scaring people and then giving them solutions to persuade them for an opinion,changing form of sentences to increase purchases,talking about somethings downsides too so that you can look more honest etc.In brief book has ideas which should be considered.But I have to say that those methods might corrupt the nature of communication(by manipulation) and the idea of its based on using people's weaknesses does not seem too ethical to me.
I was unexpectedly impressed by this book.. Based on the title, I anticipated a lot of NLP-style techniques. (I even selected it on that basis, thinking it would provide me some examples at the other end of the spectrum to reference in an upcoming presentation. Instead, I found a very readable presentation, grounded in real psychology, but written for practical, everyday use. Hogan's sensational title follows his own principles about framing and getting small commitments right away. Many of the specific selling tactics I'm now more likely to guard against than use, but his book is definitely credible and instructive.
Yazar谋n daha 枚nce okumu艧 oldu臒um 'Konu艧arak 陌kna Psikolojisi' kitab谋nda da okuyucu sat谋艧 eleman谋ym谋艧 gibi anlat谋ld谋臒谋 yerler vard谋 ama bu kitab谋nda bu durum daha a臒谋r basm谋艧. Halbuki her konuda kar艧谋daki ki艧iyi ikna edip onay alma durumu olabilir. 脰rne臒in, bir bayana evlenme teklif edece臒im, 'evet' cevab谋 almak i莽in kitab谋 okuyorum diyelim, pek bir katk谋s谋 olmayacakt谋r. Sekt枚r olarak Pazarlama/Sat谋艧 b枚l眉m眉nde olmad谋臒谋m i莽in yar谋da b谋rakmak durumunda kald谋m.
Kevin Hogan way of writting is very unpleasant for me. Chaotic and not ordered, his books seems to be written from head, without an effort to make it pleasant to read and well accessible for reader. However his knowledge is valueable and his observations are suprisingly accurate. Lot of inspirations for non-profit campaigns and interesting facts about marketing oriented on women.
The author has a doctorate in psychology, and this shows quite dramatically in his book, which covers many varied aspects of influence. His sources include research in basic psychology, choice, learning, sales, and marketing. From this knowledge base, Hogan in his 320-page book develops numerous influence/persuasion applications that extend not only to the previously mentioned areas, but to advertising, politics, and different genders.
There鈥檚 certainly a lot one can learn from this book, and it鈥檚 an excellent general resource for improving one鈥檚 leadership, sales, leadership, and general persuasion techniques. I must say, however, that I don鈥檛 recall (unless I somehow missed it) the author proving his subtitle鈥檚 claim: 鈥淗ow to get anyone to say Yes in 8 minutes or less.鈥� Unless, of course, the reader somehow memorizes and becomes well-practiced in all the methods the author presents鈥r uses his fine index.
For me, the best take-away is that found very near the end of the book on page 282, where the author discusses anti-authority message reactance (aka polarity response, as with N-N magnet repulsion): 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 have an authoritarian message and expect the customer to say yes. 鈥ou are pushing their anti-authority button. You are telling them they are stupid, or worse, that you are smarter than they are! If the pressure you use is directly from you and it is perceived as a win/lose, the other person says no, and they hit the brakes and dig in for a fight, defending their position more vigorously every second of the way.鈥� The author then briefly discusses a slight exception or two; however, one need only go back to the beginning of the book to find innumerable work-arounds and strategic how-tos. You鈥檒l also find on page 91 a way to reduce, often to your benefit, polarity responses in yourself.
Bottom-line, read this book to become more persuasive! No, wait, that might be too authoritarian. Here鈥檚 another try: As a fellow author, I highly recommend it, and look how many other reviewers do, too!
I never understood the allure in the Dale Carnagie, Cialdini schools of books until I read this one. This is a modern rendition of those old classics, and hence thankfully a little more scientific. About half the book brings out good ideas on cognitive science and behavioural economics that cause certain ideas, presented in a certain way to be more effective and better received by the world at large. Some of the book (the earlier parts - delta method etc) was the classic snake-oil stuff that Dale tried to sell.
On the whole, certainly worth a read and repeated referring. Is a good reference companion to serious reader, when accompanied with good books like - Thinking Fast and slow, or other Dan Ariely type books.
This books is one of the best books I've read so far. The author analyzes influence tools and techniques from both scientific (psychological) perspective and practical perspective.
The book discusses how people usually make decisions based on trivial criteria and not on rational reasoning, which is a good opportunity for manipulating them into following the choices you provide them, it's straight forward, but needs to be read multiple times.
The chapters are concise and to the point, this book is very interesting and amusing! I totally recommend it.
the book is mainly written for business people,sales.But it has general informations for general audience too.there are several clever techniques that could improve your sales if they are correctly applied.I think,you should note down these,while reading.Also,the book has some facts about human mind and how people make choices,decisions.these are quite interesting.I like these parts more than other parts.I would love to read other books of the author for mind-matters,body anguage e.t.c.You should take a look!
I'm still reading this book, and learning more about myself in it. It is persuasive, in that it offers a unique, psychological look at why we do the things we do. He addresses the roles of the conscious and non-conscious in decision making. It's quite a perspective! I've ordered it to have on my shelf. I think I'll open it once in a while in future to remind me of what I've learned.
Kevin Hogan has shared on persuasion and effective communication through his various books. In this one, he shares specific actionable information to influence anybody - especially a sales target - in minutes. There is much useful insight here even if you have read some of his other books. If you deal with people, the Science of Influence is a must read.
Advertising of this book worked for me, but nothing really paradigm shifting. Being rule breaker a lot, I simply can't follow conformism way of old-school. "Pitch anything" by Oren Klaff for that has much simpler and thus better algo: either you win with your alpha-status or lose in every social interaction. No need for complicated many times heard checklists like in this book.
The author reminds us of some neat tricks to get yourself out there...networking and such... I liked the examples that he wrote about, gets you in a different perspective. There are some repetitions that you know can be to repetitive.
While he was telling about the science of influence, I felt a bit stressed about the idea, he might be trying to make me think what he wants me to think the way he thinks! except, must read!