Most people suspect that the best persuaders are the best deceivers. That to get others to do what you want, you must dissemble, exaggerate, puff people up, and basically do everything short of grovel on the floor.
But what if that decades-old narrative is wrong? What happens when persuaders — salesmen or politicians or writers or whoever— grow brave enough to flip the script?
Luckily, one man’s past answers those questions. For not only did he make a living by flipping the narrative; he’s become one of the world’s leading experts on negotiation, with tips that apply both inside and outside the business world.
In Flip the Script, Orren Klaff uses his history of high-pressure deal-making to prove that the dogma around persuasion is wrong. His thesis, while multi-faceted, is actually pretty simple: Cut the BS. More delicately: Flip the script.
Honesty pays, Klaff argues, because people trust genuine people, but can sniff a fraud miles away.
Unlike most books on the psychology of persuasion and deal-making, Flip the Script relies not only on theory but also on the author’s experiences. Klaff intersperses his book with (sometimes hilarious) anecdotes from places outside the classic (often boring) business world. For example, he devotes an entire chapter to how he managed to persuade the best Counterstrike sniper on earth to join an e-sports team.
I won’t spoil the book, but suffice it to say that Klaff is an excellent persuader and an even better salesman.
I was sold.
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Previously Published on Medium
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