Back when I was a younger man just starting out with my own business endeavors, I used to really struggle to find clients, make sales, close deals, and increase my income.
Eventually, I realized that something needed to change. I started trying to learn what other people were doing to maximize their own success, and discovered that I had a blind spot.
I wasn’t networking effectively.
But perhaps even worse than this—when I did network, I often ruined my chances to take advantage of great opportunities.
How?
By lacking the ability to persuade and influence the people around me in a positive, charismatic fashion.
Once I learned how to level up this skill, my income drastically increased—almost overnight.
In fact, during this period of time, I actually doubled my yearly income with one local networking meeting—all due to the fact that I’d learned and deployed a few simple persuasion and influence techniques gleaned through reading several of the books on this list.
As creatures that evolved to survive and succeed through social interaction and cooperation, humans tend to maximize their potential in life when they learn how to create solutions to problems—and then share those solutions by persuading and influencing other people to listen to what they have to say, buy their product, take their advice, etc.
These are crucial charisma skills.
And unfortunately, men who fail to learn them will suffer from a lack of opportunity in life.
People often say that your network is your net worth.
And this is 100% true.
So in this post, you’re going to learn the 11 best books (in my experience and opinion) about persuasion and influence to give you your best odds for success as you engage with other people, expand your network, and share your ideas with the world.
How Did I Come Up With My List?
About a third of the books in this list were actually books that I found and read on my journey to learn the basics of sales, charisma, persuasion, and influence.
They were titles that directly contributed to teaching me how to succeed in business and sales, as well as in other areas of life—like dating and relationships.
The rest of them are books that I’ve come across more recently on my journey.
Cialdini
