Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through abusive, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.
Source
10 years ago..
When I was working as a salesman on Svenska Dagbladet, a newspaper in Sweden. (http://www.svd.se/). I worked on the field. Field sales are selling activities that take place outside the office environment. It is also called outside sales.
What we did was to give away a newspaper to people for free and the minute we gave them our newspaper we asked them to become subscribers. We pitched them all the benefits.
- You will be able to read the news during your morning coffee!
- You don't even have to leave your home to buy the magazine!
- When you wake up.. Wouldn't it be amazing to have something to read?
We gave them everything we had. We did our best. All of us did.
When I started, the sales record was at 52 subscribers in a single day. A woman had the record and she had been working for more than 2 years doing this..
I started out during a Monday. I was totally new to this, but not new to sales. My first day was one huge introduction. I stood beside their best sales people and the idea was that I should get a good feeling for it.
The last 30 minutes during my very first day, I gave it a try. Just as a test. I got 3 sales. The person who sold the most had 9 sales that day.
The next day, I was up for the task. I was ready.. But I didn't get a fair chance yet. That day was exactly like the day before. I stood there and did nothing and finally I got 1 hour to do my thing. 5 sales. Our top seller had 13 sales that day.
And here me out..
I do understand that they do things like this. Everyone has to do this. It's their way to educate their sellers. That's how they train their sellers.. That's how they create and shape their employees into sellers.
Wednesday.
Today was the day. My first real day.
I came to work, I opened a energy drink and talked to my colleagues. I talked to my team leader.
I heard him talk about our sales and their expectations for today. They wanted us, me and my two colleagues, to end the day with 25 sales in total. That's 8,3 sales each.
Before I even started, before I had finished my energy drink I already made my first sale. A classy businessman.
My team leader acted surprised but not only that.. He actually looked angry..
He asked me what I did and I told him this:
"You wanted me to sell and I'm here to do my job. I've not even started yet.."
I was obviously cocky and all, but I made a sale even before I started.. That was a good reason for being a bit cocky.
One of my colleagues for the day was their top seller. The woman with the sales record. The other one was a guy who had been working for the last 6 months. So I knew they brought the "heavy artillery" so to speak. They wanted me to learn from "the best" and they probably never thought that I would be the one breaking their sales record. Especially not on my first day. The first real day at work.
Unfortunately, for them.. They had wrong.
At lunchtime, I told my team leader this:
I'm gonna break the sales record today.
- He laughed.
I told him again..
I'm gonna break it and you know what.. I'm gonna do it just so I can prove to you all, that I know what I'm doing.
- He laughed again, but this time he said:
If you get more than 10 sales today, I'll pay for all of your lunches during next week.
I said: (jokingly)
I hope you can afford it.. And just because you're laughing about it, I'll even humiliate all of you just for fun..
He looked at me with that weird expression. It felt like anger.. He asked me how and I told him:
I will break your record with 1 sale. I'll end this day with 53 sales in total.
At the end of the day..
Believe it or not. I had 53 sales. Just imagine how they all reacted..
The next day I got a phone call. I had to go to the HQ before I started.
When I arrived.. You know what happened?
- They celebrated. They had bought cake and everything.
I was their up and coming top seller.
It took me 3 weeks to get a better position. I climbed the ladder quickly.
I got hand picked and I was asked to choose 1 person I wanted to work with. We would be a 2 man team and work directly towards businesses instead of private individuals.
Something like this had never been tried before. It was insane. It was tough and hard as hell. I was 20 years old.. And I had to go in to the HQ of big companies like Ericsson and sell newspaper subscriptions..?
I hated the idea.. We did this for the next 4 weeks. With truly bad results. We had no mentors, no team leaders with experience from something like this.. We had nothing..
At the time we stopped doing this, I ended up back with my former colleagues again.. Back on the streets where I broke the sales record..
- I got my first paycheck.
They ripped me off. Big time.
- I called my team leader. I called everyone I could.. I called my boss..
"You have to come in to the office tomorrow. We'll need to discuss things."
Said and done. I went the next day. I was angry and confused at the same time.
When I arrived they gave me a huge list of subscribers.. My subscribers. My clients. My sales. More than 50% of all of them were deleted. That was the reason for not paying me the money I should have got.
I asked them why they did this and they told me:
You broke the sales record, and you've sold more than most of the workers here.. But you did all of that because you're manipulative. You are using shady tactics. You are a fraud. A scam artist.
Remember how I started this post?
Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through abusive, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.
My team leader, was a jealous son of a b****. He was obviously so jealous so he told my boss that I used shady tactics. He tricked me. He played me. He went behind my back and talked shit about me..
This wasn't something I knew at the time.. I found out about this about 2 weeks later. The only thing I could do at the time, when I stood there, in front of my boss, was to tell him that I would never do something like that..
I didn't get paid for 50% of all the sales I made and I couldn't do a thing about it..
I got fired, with immediate effect.
My boss called me about 2 weeks later. That's when I got the news. My team leader had been fired. He tried to claim some of my sales as his own.. He tried to steal my sales.. And he had done it before too!
Rumours is that my previous team leader did this because he was jealous. What I made my first day at work, was more than he made in a month..
My boss asked me to become the team leader. I told him that I wanted to continue in the same way as I did previously but that I couldn't do it due to this bad experience I had.. I wouldn't be able to become a good leader.. I declined. - 3 or 4 days later I got paid for the other 50% of my sales.
I never got the free lunches though!
Money and jealousy can be dangerous things..
Other Stories By Me:
How A Desperate Man Lost His Job, His Home And Almost Became A Criminal.
in this new delicate snowflake world, personal excellence is first and always seen as a personal insult to people who are not, and can not be, excellent.
nicely said!
Absolutely
Cool article bro keep it
Thank you very much, I appreciate it! :)