Actually I cheated and listened to the audiobook instead of reading it. My schedule doesn’t seem to allow much reading, or I don’t schedule much in. Either way, I mostly listen to audiobooks, and do it to and from work, as I find there are no distractions, and is easy to soak in the information.

I had heard of Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, but when looking for the audio version, Yes’ was at the top of the list, so I decided to get it instead. I had an idea of some of the techniques/studies from hearing an interview if Robert Cialdini, so I had been looking forward to getting into the book.

The book basically talks about 50 proven ways to influence people, and get people to agree to whatever you are selling. Each chapter talks about the method, introduces the study that was done to prove the method useful, and then gives a few examples of how or how not to use method. Methods covered range anywhere from using scarcity to using caffeine.

You may think this book is for salesman, or people in negotiations, but it really is useful information for anyone. Its about selling your ideas in a way to make people give you what you want, without having to try hard, or lie to get your way.

The practical uses range from selling products online, to getting a better tip from restaurant patrons to getting a refill for free.

Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive is definitely one to add to the bookshelf or the audio library.

So Tim Ferriss is launching the Four Hour Work Week Expanded and Updated tomorrow, and this evening he had a live Q&A with Joe Polish. I decided to listen in while dong some mundane mindless tasks like cleaning my inbox and checking stats.

First off, If you haven’t read the Four Hour Work Week, you need to. It doesn’t matter where you are in your business, if you have one, or what stage of your life your in, you will get something out of this book. Awesome material.

Anyway, I just thought I would share a couple things real quick that I got from the tele-seminar. I frequent Tim Ferriss’s blog fourhourblog.com, and have read the book, but its always good to hear things a second time, or hear them in a new perspective.

So the first great tip from Tim was about how to get and keep your business running without you. Whenever a situation comes up in your business that could possibly happen again, make a policy about it. So if you get an email asking if the water cooler should be filled up before Christmas break, ask yourself if this will come up again. The answer is yes, even though its only going to be once a year. This is similar to how FAQ’s are created if done properly on a website. Nearly every question a customer asks, should be put into the FAQ’s. This get you to an eventual point where nearly all of the questions have been answered, and therefore you don’t have to be there all of the time.

The4 second tip was about the 80/20 rule, which I wont go into here. If you dont know what it is, theres another reason to read the book. Tim recommends using the 80/20 approach on a daily basis. If you cant use it on a daily basis, then try once a week. But you need to run the numbers and make sure you are spending 80% of your time on your top 20% income producing tasks. And weed out the things that take the most time for the least results. By constantly calibrating yourself, you can guarantee you are always working on the things that will have the most outcome.

Very powerful tips from Tim, and will probably be buying the book shortly to see what in the Expanded and updated version. And if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. You can find it here at Amazon