Thread by @JoshuaLisec

1 retweet = 1 borderline unethical persuasion tip

Because you deserve to know how manipulator-marketers seduce your mind, soul, and cash-money.

Your first 25 are on me.

🔥👇

Manipulators use pseudo social proof.

They tout the success of "inner circle" clients and students who would have made it anyway.

Immoral persuaders self-flagellate before you over a "good deal."

e.g., "My boss is gonna yell at me for giving you this price."

Masters of dark psychology virtue-signal how their pet political side makes you a good person, if you buy from them.

"All business is political now."

Persuasion hackers ape into micro tactics that, together, may make a difference.

"Make the button red, the font 14 pt, keep subhead to <7 words, add urgency, 9 left"

Anything but improve product quality.

"Poorus" (h/t Bushra Azhar) repackage early 20th century New Thought bestsellers into their own books and courses.

They translate those timeless classics into Millennialspeak so they seem omg so relevant.

Unethical master persuaders attack the competition visually.

"Look at this [Straw Man made to represent entire opposing team]! Do you want to look like this? No! So buy my stuff, or you will!"

Manipulative marketers make YOU feel bad if THEIR promises go unfulfilled.

"You want a refund on my $10K course because it didn't work? Obvs it's because you never finished the course. Try harder. Then go f**k yourself."

Skunky persuaders study hypnosis in order to cultivate fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

That way you'll start believing you need them ... but you don't consciously realize you adopted that belief

Edge cases, edge cases, edge cases.

"Buy this, and you'll look like THAT!"

"Look at her RESULTS!"

"You are NEXT for numbers like these!"

They fail to mention the hormone replacement therapy, 5-figure ad budget, and existing 100K-follower account (respectively).

Manipulators tell you that your product doesn't work unless people you know buy it, too.

(I'ma just leave that there...)

Stinkin' thinkin' sleaze-Gs are all benefits and no features.

In rare cases when a customer got a desirable result, the sleaze-G takes the credit.

Copy never connects the "how" feature to the "what" benefit though.

Dark persuaders who sell "the good life" aim to impress beta broke bois who, by their buying said persuader's crap, can feel validated by said persuader.

"I'd totally let you borrow my hoe, thanks for buying" energy

Make your male audience prove their manhood by joining.

Make your female audience show their desirability by buying.

Write each information product as a sales letter for the next, higher priced info product so the ideal customer can never feel satiated without buying more.

Or don't.

Manipulators do.

FOMO

But forever

Few

Marketers without a conscience select for attention over honesty.

This is why social media's most viral accounts 💩poast what even they don't believe:

To agitate their audience's enemies into a triggered state, which the marketer's followers can then make fun of.

Manipulators understand the 3+1 Principle from NLP.

Ask your target 3 questions you know they'll say yes to. Then quickly slip in a 4th to keep the momentum of agreement ... even though they would have said no if you asked that first.

Manipulators use adverbs to spin facts into Narrative that state the opposite.

e.g., "The price is seriously gonna double tomorrow." = The price is not in fact doubling tomorrow.

Unethical persuaders back up their claims with Ghostsources.

"Look at this evidence!"

- links to NPR report
- which cites Vox article
- which mentions Twitter activist
- who made that sh*t up

Manipulators exaggerate.

In both directions.

At the same time.

"The problem is worse than you think; my solution works better than you can imagine."

Manipulators know their tactics are predictable.

So the great ones hold Unpopular Opinions™ in order to seem authentic.

Sleazeball sellers are noisy about who is not "right" for their offer.

It's cardboard cutout integrity.

And it works.

On most.

Manipulative marketers make a deal you "can't refuse."

And it's not always price.

It's shaming, guilting, and undermining you out of saying no.

Look for this when the marketer or seller is the opposite sex.

Dirty persuaders move you to the buying decision without consulting outside perspectives, even from loved ones or business partners.

They're your "little secret."

When others find out, it's too late; you've bought.

Manipulators understand this:

Manipulation = I win, you lose
Persuasion = I win, you win

So they overpromise what a win for you looks like while understating how big their win is relative to yours (which would make your "win" seem like a loss).

Manipulator-marketers aren't stupid.

That's why they make strategic decisions to "lose money" because of "integrity," then remind you loudly and often.

Disavowed!

Unethical persuaders know you can be good at what you do, or you can be good at marketing it.

Few are both. It's easier to choose just one.

Manipulative marketers choose, well... you know.

Manipulators tell white lies we all know are lies.

"I can't believe I'm sending this email"
"You have no idea how good this is"
"You'll be shocked to find out"

We know these aren't true. And we let them slide.

Why?

Manipulators exaggerate facial expressions to over-sell. This only works on people who *want* to believe ... which is more than you might expect.

Manipulators use adverbs where they don't belong. They really, very much want you to be totally sold on how so right they actually are.

"Everyone else should be like you so you're not the only one ... the sap."

Manipulators who get us to believe this cope can drive us to do just about anything.

Manipulative Influencers take further and further extreme positions to retain attention.

That's why we all ask, "What the hell happened to so-and-so?"

Their unforseen shift now makes sense; they're following the engagement... and money.

To make a buying decision, you must have certain beliefs about the product, your need for it, and its likely outcome.

Manipulators know this. So they subtly add an extra belief to give themselves immunity when their crap doesn't work:

"If I don't get the result, it's my fault."

Unethical marketers leverage your own subconscious against you.

They know they can *force* you to buy whatever they want if their promotion can make you feel Shame, Guilt, Apathy, Grief, Fear, Desire, Anger, or Pride ... or all of those in one pitch.

A dark pitch that sets well with too many people is, "Do the right thing: buy my product."

Appeal to nobler motivates without explanation or illustration of how trading money for widgets builds your integrity.

"People will judge you if they ever learn your secret. So buy into my mindset / read my books / subscribe to my newsletter / throw away everything you've built in life. Because everybody sees you. The real you. They pity it."

Manipulators who say this become multi-millionaires.

Manipulator-marketers pull you into a decision that they have absolutely zero stake in the outcome of.

Even if it goes awful and you warm others on social media, their propaganda is too powerful and pervasive for your minority report to damage their reputation.

Sketchy marketers seed their competition with terrible ideas.

e.g., I suspect world-class copywriters are responsible for "Nobody reads long copy anymore."

The data shows the opposite. But midwits don't look at the data.

Next best thing to a monopoly.

Borderline unethical persuaders crush their competition. That's not a problem; it's business.

But all the while, they push the message, "It's not nice to talk bad about the competition! Ever!"

So the people who would otherwise call out their slarmy marmy ways ... don't.

Pseudo experts who sell courses and coaching have a surface level understanding of why what works, works, with elementary observation of cause-and-effect, leaving out second and third order consequences.

Manipulators must bill themselves as authentic. So they use in-group language that only a legit member of and authority in the niche should know.

Example: NPR commentators whose pronunciation of a foreign city is PERFECT. But they don't speak a lick of the local language.

Depending on the situation, manipulators will say either "Of course all A are B" or "Not all A are B, idiot" as they shame you for disagreeing about either.

Manipulators cannot survive much less thrive in the presence of nuance.

Manipulators understand:

simplicity > complexity

So they use straightforward language most comprehend ... while inserting a flawed premise into their claim.

e.g. "If Bitcoin had real value, it would be a real, physical product like gold or real estate or the Mona Lisa.'

"I was right about [easy to predict thing you have no stake in]. So I will be right about [murky to predict thing that if you believe will happen as they say, and you act now, they benefit]."

Manipulators, man. They're sharp.

Persuaders seed their claims with responses to most-likely objections you'll have.

"You can't think of any reason not to now, can you? No excuses. Act now!"

This tactic is neutral but manipulators use it more often because it works to get the sale, the follow, the buy-in fast.

Manipulators often experienced horrific trauma in their formative years.

Then they say this:

"Because of my trauma, I am the one true expert on all aspects of life related to my trauma. You are not. Everything I say about this topic is right, and everything you say is wrong."

"Only bad people disagree with good people like me."

This stupid-easy tactic works too damn well.

You can persuade anyone of anything if you begin like this:

"Let me tell you a story..."

In your story, the protagonist adopts the belief you want your manipulation target to believe.

Works like. a. charm.

Do I need to keep going?

Let's count.

You don't want to be the sap.

Sap = The guy who did not know any better but everyone around him did

Certain cultures and peoples of those cultures will "sap" you every change they get.

You know the ones.

The other day, someone said they hate cultures and societies where "if you let me rip you off that's your problem" and can I just say something?

Stay on track; they all go back.

That, by the way, is something both manipulators and persuaders (they're not the same) do:

Use a rhyme. So their point sticks. Like a tick. All the time.

Manipulation is an unequitable trade without consent but deception is present, i.e., used car sale with falsified Carfax report.

Persuasion is an equitable trade with consent and no detectible deception is present, i.e., the opposite of the above example.

Any questions at this point? I can keep going, but let's open the floor to YOUR questions about manipulation tactics and how to defend against them.

Ask me anything!