"You'll not only break the ice, you'll melt it away with your new skills." -- Larry King "The lost art of verbal communication may be revitalized by Leil Lowndes." -- Harvey McKay, author of "How to Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive" What is that magic quality makes some people instantly loved and respected? Everyone wants to be their friend (or, if single, their lover!) In business, they rise swiftly to the top of the corporate ladder. What is their "Midas touch?" What it boils down to is a more skillful way of dealing with people. The author has spent her career teaching people how to communicate for success. In her book How to Talk to Anyone (Contemporary Books, October 2003) Lowndes offers 92 easy and effective sure-fire success techniques-- she takes the reader from first meeting all the way up to sophisticated techniques used by the big winners in life. In this information-packed book you'll find: 9 ways to make a dynamite first impression 14 ways to master small talk, "big talk," and body language 14 ways to walk and talk like a VIP or celebrity 6 ways to sound like an insider in any crowd 7 ways to establish deep subliminal rapport with anyone 9 ways to feed someone's ego (and know when NOT to!) 11 ways to make your phone a powerful communications tool 15 ways to work a party like a politician works a room 7 ways to talk with tigers and not get eaten alive In her trademark entertaining and straight-shooting style, Leil gives the techniques catchy names so you'll remember them when you really need them, including: "Rubberneck the Room," "Be a Copyclass," "Come Hither Hands," "Bare Their Hot Button," "The Great Scorecard in the Sky," and "Play the Tombstone Game," for big success in your social life, romance, and business. How to Talk to Anyone, which is an update of her popular book, Talking the Winner's Way (see the 5-star reviews of the latter) is based on solid research about techniques that work! By the way, don't confuse How to Talk to Anyone with one of Leil's previous books, How to Talk to Anybody About Anything. This one is completely different!

Table of Contents

Part One: How to Intrigue Everyone Without Saying a Word: You Only Have Ten Seconds to Show You’re a Somebody

1 How to Make Your Smile Magically Different

2 How to Strike Everyone as Intelligent and Insightful by Using Your Eyes

3 How to Use Your Eyes to Make Someone Fall in Love with You

4 How to Look Like a Big Winner Wherever You Go

5 How to Win Their Heart by Responding to Their “Inner Infant”

6 How to Make Someone Feel Like an Old Friend at Once

7 How to Come Across as 100 Percent Credible to Everyone

8 How to Read People Like You Have ESP

9 How to Make Sure You Don’t Miss a Single Beat

Part Two: How to Know What to Say After You Say “Hi”

10 How to Start Great Small Talk

11 How to Sound Like You’ve Got a Super Personality (No Matter What You’re Saying!)

12 How to Make People Want to Start a Conversation with You

13 How to Meet the People You Want to Meet

14 How to Break into a Tight Crowd

15 How to Make “Where Are You From?” Sound Exciting

16 How to Come Out a Winner Every Time They Ask, “And What Do You Do?”

17 How to Introduce People Like the Host(ess) with the Most(est)

18 How to Resuscitate a Dying Conversation

19 How to Enthrall ’Em with Your Choice of Topic—Them!

20 How to Never Need to Wonder, “What Do I Say Next?”

21 How to Get ’Em Happily Chatting (So You Can Slip Away if You Want To!)

22 How to Come Across as a Positive Person

23 How to Always Have Something Interesting to Say

Part Three: How to Talk Like a VIP

24 How to Find Out What They Do (Without Even Asking!)

25 How to Know What to Say When They Ask, “What Do You Do?”

26 How to Sound Even Smarter Than You Are

27 How to Not Sound Anxious (Let Them Discover Your Similarity)

28 How to Be a “You-Firstie” to Gain Their Respect and Affection

29 How to Make Them Feel You “Don’t Smile at Just Anybody”

30 How to Avoid Sounding Like a Jerk

31 How to Use Motivational Speakers’ Techniques to Enhance Your Conversation

32 How to Banter Like the Big Shots Do (Big Winners Tell It Like It Is)

33 How to Avoid the World’s Worst Conversational Habit

34 How to Give Them the Bad News (and Have Them Like You All the More)

35 How to Respond When You Don’t Want to Answer (and Wish They’d Shut the Heck Up)

36 How to Talk to a Celebrity

37 How to Make Them Want to Thank You

Part Four: How to Be an Insider in Any Crowd: What Are They All Talking About?

38 How to Be a Modern-Day Renaissance Man or Woman

39 How to Sound Like You Know All About Their Job or Hobby

40 How to Bare Their Hot Button (Elementary Doc-Talk)

41 How to Secretly Learn About Their Lives

42 How to Talk When You’re in Other Countries

43 How to Talk Them into Getting the “Insider’s Price” (on Practically Anything You Buy)

Part Five: How to Sound Like You’re Peas in a Pod: “Why, We’re Just Alike!”

44 How to Make Them Feel You’re of the Same “Class”

45 How to Make Them Feel That You’re Like “Family”

46 How to Really Make It Clear to Them

47 How to Make Them Feel You Empathize (Without Just Saying “Yep, Uh Huh, Yeah”)

48 How to Make Them Think You See/Hear/Feel It Just the Way They Do

49 How to Make ’Em Think We (Instead of You vs. Me)

50 How to Create a Friendly “Private Joke” with Them

Part Six: How to Differentiate the Power of Praise from the Folly of Flattery

51 How to Compliment Someone (Without Sounding Like You’re Brownnosing)

52 How to Be a “Carrier Pigeon” of Good Feelings

53 How to Make ’Em Feel Your Admiration “Just Slipped Out”

54 How to Win Their Hearts by Being an “Undercover Complimenter”.

55 How to Make ’Em Never Forget You with a “Killer Compliment”

56 How to Make ’Em Smile with “Itty-Bitty Boosters”

57 How to Praise with Perfect Timing

58 How to Make ’Em Want to Compliment You

59 How to Make a Loved One Feel You Are THE Partner for Life

Part Seven: How to Direct Dial Their Hearts

60 How to Sound More Exciting on the Phone

61 How to Sound Close (Even if You’re Hundreds of Miles Away)

62 How to Make ’Em Happy They Called You

63 How to Sneak Past the Gatekeeper

64 How to Get What You Want on the Phone from Big Shots

65 How to Get What You Want—by Timing!

66 How to Impress Everyone with Your Outgoing Voicemail Message

67 How to Get Them to Call You Back

68 How to Make the Gatekeeper Think You’re Buddy-Buddy with the VIP

69 How to Make Them Say You Have Super Sensitivity

70 How to “Listen Between the Lines” on the Phone

Part Eight: How to Work a Party Like a Politician Works a Room: The Politician’s Six-Point Party Checklist

71 How to Avoid the Most Common Party Blooper

72 How to Make an Unforgettable Entrance

73 How to Meet the People YOU Want to Meet

74 How to Subliminally Lure People to You at a Gathering

75 How to Make ’Em Feel Like a Movie Star

76 How to Amaze Them with What You Remember About Them

77 How to Make the Sale with Your Eyeballs

Part Nine: How to Break the Most Treacherous Glass Ceiling of All: Sometimes People Are Tigers

78 How to Win Their Affection by Overlooking Their Bloopers

79 How to Win Their Heart When Their Tongue Is Faltering

80 How to Let ’Em Know “What’s in It” for Them

81 How to Make Them Want to Do Favors for You

82 How to Ask for Favors (and Get Them!)

83 How to Know What Not to Say at Parties

84 How to Know What Not to Say at Dinner

85 How to Know What Not to Say in a Chance Meeting

86 How to Prepare Them to Listen to You

87 How to Turn Their Anger Around (in Three Sentences or Less)

88 How to Make ’Em Like You (Even When You’ve Messed Up)

89 How to Trap a Rat with Class

90 How to Get Whatever You Want from Service Personnel

91 How to Be a Leader in a Crowd, Not a Follower

92 How to Make All the Right Moves

About the Author

Leil Lowndes has devoted her professional life to helping people become more effective communicators in business, social, and romantic relationships.

The passion she brings to her writing and speaking on communication skills can be traced to childhood when she suffered almost debilitating shyness which lasted right through college. After being a teacher for six years and still feeling socially insecure, she decided to leave the teaching profession and work only in situations which put her in constant touch with a wide variety of individuals. Here is a short history of how she gained her insights and share them with the world.

After working with elementary school children, she decided to take the first step toward her goal by becoming an international flight attendant to feel at ease speaking with adults from all over the world. Still shy in front of crowds, however, tried acting to become confident on stage in. But, although she was very successful (even starring in a Broadway show,) she wasn't satisfied simply speaking from a playwright's script. To become comfortable addressing large audiences with her own "script," she became a cruise director on ships traveling around the world. That exhausting experience of dealing with people almost 24 hours a day, she said, would cure anyone's shyness!

Between trips, Leil worked as substitute host on New York's #1 radio talk show. Interviewing celebrities and political figures is how she became confident talking to anybody about anything.

After decades of communicating with all types and ages of people, Leil decided to write and speak to groups to share her knowledge with the public. Leil now conducts seminars for Fortune 500 companies and speaks at conventions, but her favorite type of communicating is still one-on-one talking with people.

She has written ten books, many of which have been translated into 26 languages. The best selling ones include: "How to Talk to Anyone," "How to Instantly Connect with Anyone," Good-bye to Shy," "How to Be a People Magnet," and "How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You."