Tricks Learned in Psychological Persuasion by R. Paul Wilson During His Time as a Salesman
In the late 1980s, a magician found himself employed by an odd little man to sell a deck of magic cards. The price of the deck was quite high, but the pitch included several psychological weapons to make it hard for people to resist.
The magician, initially employed at Fenwick Department Store in Newcastle, England, struggled with poor sales at first. However, after receiving advice from his employer, his sales improved significantly.
One effective psychological trick involved starting the scripted pitch for nobody, hoping that people would come to watch. The magician would bring a crowd of strangers to his table and begin the pitch again.
The pitch was presented as a show, not a sales pitch, and was framed as "free". The magician would hand out the jumbo boxes containing the deck of magic cards and the additional tricks, commenting on their size and weight as a fantastic gift.
The author noticed variations of these psychological tricks being used in car showrooms, online app stores, and websites that describe the benefits of their product without revealing the price.
The magician would perform additional tricks during the pitch, but these were not for sale. The employer advised the author to make ordinary people believe they could perform miracles with the cards, and to act as if the author had no unusual abilities or experience beyond what the trick deck provided.
The psychological weapons included the perception of added value through the inclusion of additional tricks and the presentation of the cards in a jumbo box. The magician learned that if he handed out the boxes instead of placing them on the table, it doubled his profits and fewer people left without a box of the cards.
These techniques, used by skilled pitchmen, leverage emotional and cognitive mechanisms to influence decision-making. They include building rapport and trust, emotional engagement first, social proof, soft selling, transferring belief and positive energy, and avoiding missteps.
By appealing first to emotional drivers and trust, and then providing logical rationale to justify the purchase, these techniques overcome buyers' defensive skepticism and lead to more effective persuasion and higher closing rates.
- In contemporary times, bloggers and social-media influencers employ similar sales tactics, using emotional appeals and psychological manipulation to market products, such as books on entertainment or pop-culture.
- The strategies, once refined by the magician, were adapted for use in various forms of entertainment, including casinos. For instance, high-stakes poker rooms entice players with the perception of added value, offering free drinks or luxurious ambiance.
- These effective sales techniques have transcended traditional boundaries and seeped into various aspects of society, from car dealerships to online stores, making consumers more susceptible to impulsive purchases by appealing to both their emotions and logic.
