How to Wow

June 29th, 2009 (Books)

I’ve been reading the book “How to Wow” by Frances Cole Jones. Sarah suggested it to me and loaned me a copy to read. Since I’ve been having a hard time getting motivated to read lately, I thought that I would give myself the goal of reading one book a month, starting with “How to Wow”. Well, the month is drawing to an end and I am almost finished reading, so I thought I’d give a quick synopsis of my thoughts on the book so far.

“How to Wow” is mostly a collection of expanded bullet points on topics such as presentations, meetings, interviews and other situations you might encounter in a work environment. Frances Cole Jones lays out suggestions based on her experience for conducting yourself in such a way as to leave others with the best possible impression of you.

While there were many wonderful and helpful pieces of advice in this book, two things in particular stuck out to me. One is that 55% of communication is transmitted through facial expressions and 38% through tone of voice. I have always focused on what I am going to say and not how I say it, so to read that 93% of your communication is not about content, but about delivery certainly introduced a shift in my thinking of how I will communicate with others in the future. This isn’t to say that the change in communication will happen immediately, but it is something to start working on.

The second thing that jumped out at me is preparation. In every area of the book, Frances Cole Jones stresses the fact that you can’t really over-prepare for a meeting or event. I tend to under-prepare for things because they often seem overwhelming or unfamiliar, so I often think a lot rather than do anything to prepare. This will also require a shift for me to take action rather than becoming too entrenched in thoughts to move forward.

All-in-all, what I have read so far has been enlightening and very applicable to life (both work and personal). It’s also a pretty easy read as far as non-fiction goes.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 11:44 am and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “How to Wow”

1. Andy says:

   June 29, 2009 at 5:15 pm

   Like the review of this book. I never thought about communication in that way either. Definitely a new way to look at expressing your thoughts to others. Preparation has never been my forte either. Procrastinators unite!…tomorrow

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