Notes from the book 'Manipulation' by R.B. Sparkman released 1978
Those who protest too much: Any time the other person stresses something too much the street-educated mind starts to doubt him. Being too reassuring and over emphasizing is often used to compensate for his lack of substance.
Repetition of what you stand to gain: If a deal is not in your favour then he will excessively sell it by repeating how it benefits you. If the deal is fair then the terms will speak for themselves so he will will adopt a take-it-or-leave-it stance.
They tell you they are trustworthy: A person you can trust doesn’t need to remind you of it. If a person feels the need to remind you of his trustworthiness he’s probably trying to use you.
He changes details of stories: Listen to someone tell the same story twice to gauge their honesty. Habitual liars get so used to changing stories to fit the purpose at hand that they often forget the original story.
People who lie to other people: If you ever hear a person you trust lie to someone else then it’s time to cancel your trust. If a man lies to somebody else then he will lie to you as soon as it suits his purpose.
He says he wouldn’t lie to a pal: Your ‘pal’ status isn’t set in concrete you know. It’s easy to reclassify a pal as an enemy when he gets in the way of something you’re after.
Riches to rags stories: Most con men claim to have been rich once to create confidence in their ability to make money, but many of them will be struggling to pay rent. Avoid any financial dealings with these people.
Pedents: Incompetent business owners and managers tend to focus on the trivial details instead of the crucial challenges (not sure how this relates to manipulators but it’s sound advice anyway so I’ll leave it in).
A well known technique to increase rapport but the misuse of this tactic can backfire eg someone who wears a forced smile all the time (even at inappropriate moments) is seen as either a big goofy or up to something.
The author introduced himself to strangers at airports, bars, offices and tried out the following strategies of smiling to see how people behaved.
| Strategy | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| never smiling | Without any real interest, feeling, or effort |
| constantly smiling | Condescending with forced smiles if I said something amusing as if I was the country bumpkin |
| smiling after I said something which warranted a smile | Suspicious and negative as if I were a sarcastic smart ass or a charlatan |
| smiling during and after I said something which warranted a smile | Warm reception from men and flirtatious response from Women |
The key is to begin smiling the moment you inhale to say something that calls for a smile. Then look look the person in the eyes and sustain the smile during and after you say it
Everyone says they don’t like flattery but the truth is that everyone loves to be flattered but not in an obvious way. Blatant flatter stinks of dishonestly but shrewd and subtle flattery swings a person over to your side.
Ask for advice and let him know it works out: This is essentially saying “you’re smarter than I am” but in a way that seems totally honest and impossible to fake.
How did you wind up in the xyz industry?: Always ask someone how they got into their job because even if they hate it they will love telling you how they got into it.
95% of people subscribe to the belief that “if you don’t need me, you must have something going for you”.
It’s human instinct to become stubborn when we sense that someone needs something from us. If he senses that you need him to do something then his head will scream at him “Don’t do it!”. But if you can make him believe that he needs it for more than you do then you’ve got human nature on your side.
Hardy the con man used this technique while selling plots of land: He told customers that if he sold 15 plots he would win a holiday and on his wall he hung a calendar with 15 fake sales marked up and a “Holiday Winner!” message. It showed clients that he didn’t need to make the sale even though at the time he had no money for food.
The person with the upper hand in any situation is the one who can afford to walk away from the deal if it’s not to his liking, or the one who can make the other person think he can walk away.
Another example is when a plot was sold twice meaning he had to switch a clients plot to another. A tricky task as she had hand picked the plot as it was next to a creek. He lied to her saying she couldn’t build on the land because of the creek making her the one that needed him (to find a solution) instead of him the one needing her (to accept an alternative plot).
Avoid being a know-it-all as it makes people suspect that you’re clever enough to manipulate them. Act like you don’t know much and you’ll find that:
Hardy the con man was an accomplished salesman yet he still told his customers that he was new in the business in order to use their resulting lack of suspicion to his advantage.
The smartest people you’ll ever meet are the ones that don’t act like they know much. It’s a dead give-away that you’re dealing with a dumb ass when a guy thinks he knows everything.
Another benefit of adopting such an attitude is that you’ll continue to learn. It’ll make you more receptive to new and better ways of doing things, more likely to sharpen your skills, and more likely to steal ideas from others.
When an opponent attacks you verbally you should respond with “you’re probably right”.
This reply immediately takes the wind out of your opponents sales and makes him look like the hot head who lost his cool. It also avoids escalation which is likely even if you’re witty enough to deliver a superior insult to him.
Ask someone an unexpected question and you get a 3 second window of time to read their eyes for any answers they may be hiding, after which they are able to reconstruct their defences.
People often hide their main objections because they feel they are selfish or unappealing. This leaves you having to swing around in the dark hoping you find it, and during this time he’ll tune out which will reduce his openness to you. But if you can ferret out his major objection first then you have something to work with.
The question needs to be direct but the most elementary approach of “why won’t you do x” almost never works. Instead try asking “is there any reason in addition to that?”. For some reason people often reveal their true motive verbally when you ask them this question.
This part of the book doesn’t relate much to manipulation if you ask me, however it is sound advice for success in life and therefore I’m noting it down.
If a Guernsey calf loses its mother it will try to nurse from another cow, but the cow will kick it away and the calf will lie down in the pasture and starve to death. Another type of calf, Brahma calf will stay on its new mother relentlessly and by the end of the day the new mother will have given in and allowed it to nurse.
The Brahma’s persistence in the face of defeat is the cloth that success in life is cut from
You have to forge such Brahma determination yourself to get ahead. The ability to rebound, Brahma style, often determins who succeeds and who fails.
Don’t confuse persistence for positive attitude as they are fundamentally different.
Positive attitudes can scare off customers: Appearing too strong and positive makes a person suspect that you’re up to something, this is why salesman who ‘act like salesman’ scare people off causing them to defeat themselves.
Positive attitudes can prevent you from taking risks: Positive attitude can convince you that you’re going to succeed which can lead to a fear of taking risks in case you sabotage your illusion of success. Someone who is running scared and afraid of risks cuts an unlikely profile for a successful person.
Positive attitudes can vanish any time: Although you great deal of comfort and value from a positive attitude, if you run into hard times it can vanish. But persistence is different in that you can decide to be persistent and carry out your decision regardless of failure.
Positive attitude is useful to football players as it gets them fired up before a game providing a boost in energy to help them win. This is a great tool for success at football but success in life requires months or years of sustained effort instead of 90 minutes on Sunday afternoon.
There’s nothing wrong with positivity but always remember that an unshakeable winning attitude is built upon experience, which can only be acquired through persistence.
Decide what you want and resolve not to quit until you get it: Accept that most things that are worthwhile will cost you a lot of effort and sacrifice. Vow to overcome the inevitable times when your goal seems too far away to be possible.
Prepare for the possibility of failure: This will free you from worrying about what might happen allowing you to think clearly and take more chances during your journey to success.
Learn from every defeat: This will eliminate any fear of defeat as each one becomes an opportunity to learn, and as every success is built on correctly handled defeats, each one takes you a step closer to success.
In any deal or financial arrangement, Whoever holds the money, holds the power. A corrupt business, a scammer, or a so called friend will think nothing of walking all over you if you let them hold the money.
As long as you hold the money until you’re fully satisfied, things will be done your way.
Advance payment is the hook in nearly every get-rich-quick scheme, bogus investment deal, worthless stock swindle, or home repair ripoff ever invented, so when someone asks you for any payment in advance other than a small deposit, alarms should go off in your head.
When you doubt a company wouldn’t pay off a law suit if they lost it you should:
Note that ‘the money’ may be hidden inside things other than hard cash. For example a key that grants access to a home filled with sellable items could be the money. Accepting services without agreeing on a price is also the money. A phone with a contract in your name is also the money.
Lending friends money is a minefield, in fact the Chinese have a saying:
If you want to make an enemy of a man, lend him some money.
Remember that lending someone money puts the power in their hands and they can literally spit in your face and not pay you if they decide to. The only thing they have to lose is a friendship and as they consider themselves having power over you it suddenly won’t be worth much to them.
If you do want to lend someone some money while salvaging any hope of friendship then ask for some collateral. This may look callous on the outside but it solves all the problems of friction between you both.
Don’t want to lend someone some money? Look him in the eye and say: I don’t have twenty dollars. But when you find somebody that does, borrow forty, because I need the other twenty myself.
Think of someone you don’t like, would this person ever be able to talk you into doing something? Nope, never. In order to manipulate someone you have to be friends with them first.
Before you sell anything you must sell yourself first. Make people buy into having you as a friend before you even start mentioning the stuff you’re trying to sell them.
In order to win all your arguments you should know when to avoid arguments you cannot win. Only enter an argument if:
Always let sleeping dogs lie if the don’t affect your vital interests.
The “yes-no” state is the balancing point of your target making a decision and when you sense that they are at that point just a small amount of pressure can make things go your way.
When in a ‘yes-no’ state, most people will follow he who confidently leads them out of indecision
Bouncing from yes to no can be hypnotising for many people so during this state they are more responsive to your suggestions. Also remember than most people will appreciate you helping them out of their uncomfortable state of indecision.
One way to apply pressure is to assume that the indecision means a “yes” and then to suggest moving onto the next step. If they don’t voice an objection then you’ve successfully manipulated them into going your way. For example: saying “I’ll go and reserve our room them” when a girl is undecided about going home with you.
To use this technique, sum up your case in a sentence or two, ask for whatever it is that you want, then shut the fuck up. For example: When presenting a deal look your target in the eye and tell him firmly “that’s it, you’re on a good price and it’s what you want. You can’t get it better anywhere else so now let’s do business” and then shut the fuck up. If you get an indecisive gesture or the silence has gone on for a while then assume yes and ask “shall I write you up a contract this afternoon?”.
Ingratitude is inversely proportional to the amount of money you lend. Lend someone a small amount and it’s likely neither of you will bother much about it, but lend a large amount and eventually the other person will resent having to owe you such an amount resulting in an ungrateful attitude towards you. Such an attitude leads to friendships breaking down and you not being paid.
The above approaches work on the intermittent reinforcement idea where by removing their power every now and then (by forcing your son to work or by indirectly forcing your lover to give up something they own) you are restricting their capacity to be ungrateful.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bit you. This is the principal difference between a man and a dog (Mark Twain)