Book Club Discussion – How Highly Effective People Speak by Peter D. Andrei

Speaking is a huge part of sales, especially in the aviation industry.

So, you might as well get good at it!

This book is a great place to start.

Michael Duke of DBT Aero and Stella Bouldin, copywriter, join John and I for this discussion.

Despite the title, it’s not really about speaking, in the sense of delivery of information through public speaking, which is what we were expecting.

This book goes back to the basics of Aristotles principles of rhetoric – Logos, ethos, and pathos – but reframes it as the science of persuasion, or “behavioral economics,” as Andrei put it.

He puts these principles into a mnemonic

“EFFECTIVE”

• Make it Enduring.
• Make it First.
• Make it Forceful.
• Make it Exceptional.
• Make it Confident.
• Make it Trustworthy.
• Make it Intuitive.
• Make it Visceral.
• Make it Evident.

Or, in more detail about the cognitive biases each element exploits:

• Enduring to activate the availability bias.
• First to activate the anchoring effect.
• Forceful to activate the psychology of judgment.
• Exceptional to activate the contrast effect.
• Confident to activate the zero-risk bias.
• Trustworthy to activate the halo-effect.
• Intuitive to activate agent-detection bias.
• Visceral to activate attribute substitution.
• Evident to activate base-rate neglect.

Put simply, you want to be simple, powerful and clear.  And you’re talking to humans, not machines, so you need to take human biases into account. So, this checklist makes it easier!