BOOK / SOURCE
Influence!: 47 Forbidden Psychological Tactics You Can Use To Motivate, Influence and Persuade Your Prospect
- Material reviewed for this piece
- Selected ideas from two handwritten notebooks saved as 18- and 54-page PDFs. Every PDF page was inspected, including a blank final page in the longer file; some photograph edges are cropped. The original book was not reviewed in full, and this is not a summary of all 47 tactics.
Editorial draft · Selected ideas from reading notes
The source is reading notes from the personal library, not evidence of implementation or results. The two notebooks cover the same book and overlap in their ideas. The distinctions, example and conversation practices below are new editorial interpretation, not attributed to Dan Lok or presented as Shachar’s approved personal position. Claims about covert influence and sales outcomes are not endorsed. The link below identifies the book and author only.
1. Replace a Guess With an Answerable Question
The expanded notebook repeatedly warns against assuming that a business already knows what customers want. Its notes suggest asking what led to a purchase, what people liked or disliked, and what else they would want. Later pages return to surveys and understanding needs instead of describing the product at length.
A modest working rule follows: before changing an offer, find out what happened in a recent decision. Rather than asking “Would you buy a service like this?”, try “How did you handle the problem last time?”, “What made choosing difficult?” or “What is still unclear about this offer?” These are questions proposed in this adaptation, not quotations from the book.
Keep the answer separate from the interpretation. “We have no time for training this month” is something a buyer said. “They do not understand the value” is the seller’s inference. Keeping only the inference can leave even polished sales language addressing the wrong problem.
2. Different Hesitations Need Different Responses
The notes distinguish people who are not ready to buy from those seeking information, comparing alternatives or unsure they could use what is offered. Elsewhere they raise questions about making the right decision, trusting the supplier and what happens if the buyer is dissatisfied. This detail is more useful than the blanket label “objection.”
For a practical conversation, the inquiry can be organized into four editorial categories: missing information, fit, ability to implement and trust. Missing information may need an answer. Poor fit may require changing the offer or dropping it. An implementation problem may be a time or staffing constraint that a discount cannot resolve. A trust question may call for relevant evidence or a clear account of responsibilities.
These categories do not diagnose the person across the table. They help identify what remains to be understood. There need not be an answer that ends in a sale, and not every hesitation is an invitation to keep persuading.
SEE THE IDEA
“I need to think” can lead to more than one question.
Four editorial categories from the article, prompted by notebook themes. They are not a buyer diagnosis, a list of Dan Lok tactics or stages toward closing a sale.
- InformationWhat else needs to be known?
- FitDoes the offer address the need?
- ImplementationIs there time and capacity to use it?
- TrustWhat evidence or responsibility needs clarification?
Ask, do not classify
Several issues may coexist, and the person may not want further inquiry. The map is not permission to search for a hidden objection after a refusal.
Let the answer change direction
In the workshop example, time may be missing rather than an explanation of the content. Change the scope, wait or end without another offer, depending on what was actually said.
Correctable understanding
Briefly summarize the understanding and ask whether it is accurate. A correction is information, not an obstacle to overcome.
No required purchase outcome
A useful answer may be that there is no fit. Do not invent urgency, hide alternatives or promise an undeliverable result.
3. Listening Should Produce Something the Buyer Can Correct
The closing pages of the expanded notebook emphasize talking less, asking and listening; the shorter notebook returns to the same theme. The idea can be used without adopting a fixed speaking-to-listening ratio or promising that silence produces sales.
One proposed application is to finish the inquiry with a check: “If I understand correctly, what is missing right now is available team time, not another explanation of the content. Is that accurate?” This gives the other person a chance to correct the understanding. A correction should change the proposal rather than become another obstacle to overcome.
It also tests the question itself: can the answer change the direction? If every answer leads to the same presentation and the same request to buy, the question is decorative. Genuine inquiry leaves room to discover that the appropriate solution is smaller, different or unnecessary for now.
4. A Tactic Is Not Automatically a Recommendation
Alongside surveys and listening, the notebooks include ideas for invoking fear, guilt and urgency, as well as claims about influencing the subconscious. It would therefore misrepresent the material to present all of it as a guide to open communication. Some notes explicitly concern moving the buyer toward a purchase, not merely understanding them.
The editorial choice here is to separate information that supports a decision from pressure intended to hurry it. A genuine deadline is relevant information; an invented deadline does not become true because it is persuasive. Another customer’s example can illustrate a use, but cannot establish that an offer will suit everyone. A promise should describe something deliverable, with clear limits.
Numerical assertions in the notes, such as advertising exposure counts or the supposed advantage of a particular price-ending digit, are not treated here as research findings. Recording an idea in reading notes does not establish its validity.
5. An Example: When Price Is Not the Problem
Suppose a company is considering a team workshop and its manager says, “It is too expensive for us right now.” This is a fictional illustration, not a client case. The automatic response would be a discount. A brief inquiry might instead reveal that the difficulty is taking the whole team away from work for half a day, with no clarity about who would support implementation afterward.
In that situation, the provider could explain the time commitment and explore, without commitment, whether a shorter, focused format would fit at all. The conversation might also establish that there is no workable time window and end without another offer. If budget really is the issue, there is no reason to invent a different explanation.
The difference is not a phrase that neutralizes “expensive.” It is information that changes the decision: what to offer, to whom, when, and whether an offer is appropriate at all.
6. A Small Review for the Next Conversation
Choose one discovery conversation, without recording or retaining unnecessary personal information. Afterward, write three lines: what was actually said; what you inferred; what remains to be asked. Separately note any change to the offer made because of the answers.
Then check: was there room to say “not a fit”? Did something become clear that you had not known before? Was uncertainty resolved, or was another argument merely added? This is an editorial exercise for reviewing a conversation, not a validated method for improving conversion rates.
The selected idea from the notebooks is simple: before looking for a way to influence a decision, understand what decision the other person is actually trying to make.
SOURCES / FURTHER READING
Turn this reading into a next step
A new worksheet inspired by the ideas—not a form reproduced from the book.
Your working notes
Write a few words. Nothing is sent, and this site does not save your notes to an account or file. This is a temporary worksheet — copy it somewhere of your own before leaving or reloading.