The One About Live Manipulation

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:00]:

Live events. They can be a great source of information. Unfortunately, they can also be, ripe for manipulative selling, And it’s that which we’re gonna take a look at in today’s episode.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:46]:

Hey. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to another episode. Thank you so much for joining me. In this one, we’re taking a look at manipulative selling within live events. This is from the wider context of anti manipulation, sharing or exposing the tools, tricks, and techniques which the unscrupulous use to attempt to manipulate us into buying their stuff, and this is very prevalent in some asp some areas of live events. There’s so much we could go into on this.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:17]:

In fact, I’ve written a book about it, anti manipulation. But what I wanted To cover today was, take a little look at some of the manipulative techniques that are used in live selling, because I can’t stop the, unscrupulous from attempting to manipulate us. But what I can do is show you how it’s done, expose what they’re doing so that you can better protect yourself against it. So let’s take a look at a few of the ways in which they seek to manipulate us with live events. One of the ways, and this will depend upon the size of the event and the type of audience, but one of the ways is through profiling. Now, Have you ever wondered why some really big events offer tiered levels of attendance? There’s the basic basic package. Easy for me to say. There’s the basic package, which could be very low cost, might even be free.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:02:17]:

Then they’ve got higher levels. You know, like the bronze, Silver, gold, platinum, diamond, VIP inner circle, exclusive super hyper deluxe. You you get the idea. Or the list of names is endless. Each one offers, increasing levels of goodies, better seating, so once you get Platinum, you’re actually sat inside the auditorium. No. You’re you’re sat closer and closer. You might get, better, better deals on on food and drink at the breaks.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:02:48]:

You might even get access to the speaker on speakers. Obviously, the higher the tier, the higher the price. Now, obviously, it’s a money making exercise. Of course, it is. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that at all. The higher priced tickets, in effect, subsidising the lower priced tickets. Nothing wrong with that.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:04]:

However, it is in and of itself a form of profiling. They know that the people who pay the high priced options have proved that they are prepared to pay. They see value in things. They are prepared to pay. So these are the people it’s definitely worth schmoozing with. It’s definitely worth treating nicely. It’s definitely worth keeping an eye on when it comes to the obligatory offers and special sales. These people have shown they’re willing to spend, they’re more likely to spend again.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:32]:

So it’s worth pampering them a little bit. It’s worth, It’s worth offering them their own dedicated space during breaks where the organisers are better able to mingle with them, find out a little bit more about them, Profile them a little bit and gently nudge them towards making the offers. Profiling doesn’t just end there, however. Sometimes, depending on the event, they’ll actually profile everybody who books in. Yeah. They will profile everyone who books in. They’ll, go check check out your social medias, check your posts, check your websites, Find what? Find out everything they can about you. Profile you as much.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:15]:

Build up a profile of of who you are, what you do, what you spend your money on, What you like, what you like, what you dislike, all of this sort of thing. Reason being, they can then, connect with you a little bit more on a little bit more, personal level during the event, and maybe offer you a snack, see how you’re getting on, make idle small talk, drawing upon what they’ve profiled about you, having already identified you as someone who is more likely to be the sort of person who would buy from them. They’ll then schmooze you a bit. They’ll build rapport with you so that When the sale pitch itself comes, they can swoop in. They’ve already built rapport. They’ve they’ve built a bit of reciprocity with you because they’ve been Plying you with freebies all the way through, you’re more likely to to, reciprocate, and they can steer the conversation because they know that more about you, and they have identified you as being a suitable, target for, for for for for working, basically. It happens, and it happens more than you’d think. Now that’s just one way.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:28]:

Think, think, think about events that you might have been to. The manipulation, it’s it’s about getting us into an emotional state. It’s about applying time limits to encourage us, encourage us to make the decision there and then so that we don’t miss out,

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:47]:

and it’s also about reducing our defences. Getting rid of our critical analysis, and dulling our decision making so that it’s it’s easier for them to get us to buy.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:58]:

I mean, think about this. When do you make better decisions? Do you make better decisions when you are fresh, relaxed, You maybe had a good night’s sleep. You have got time to think about it. Or do you make better decisions When you’re tired, when you’re exhausted, when there’s lots of distraction going on, lots of noise, and you haven’t slept much for the past couple of days, and you’re just exhausted, Which of those 2 are you more likely to make good decisions, and which of the 2 are you more likely to be able to be confused, and bounced, and influenced? If there’s 1 thing our brain detests, it’s confusion. Confusion is a horrible, horrible thing to have, a horrible place for our brain to be, and a minor grasp for anything to to get out of that confusion.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:06:47]:

So when we’re exhausted, mentally and physically drained, Confusion is much easier, for us to find ourselves in.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:00]:

Which is part of, any torturer’s toolkit. Now the unscrupulous that can’t torture us, I mean, let’s think about it. Outright use of torture, Probably even the most inattentive observer is gonna notice that, and it does tend to be frowned upon. However, they can Use some of those techniques. They will they will, let me explain. Let me explain. Have you ever noticed that many of these events right from the start, Full on high energy in your face, bam, high energy right from the outside as you walk through the door. There’s lots of whooping and cheering and high-fiving, no doubt.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:33]:

There’s loud music blaring away. The lighting’s bright. It’s almost almost club style, which is nice because you don’t wanna walk into a dull dead room. Right? You want a bit of atmosphere. Every time the speakers come on, lots of loud music, bright lights, standing, cheering, dancing. Yeah. Woah. Woah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:52]:

All throughout, the energy is kept high. All throughout, the energy is kept high. Every time there’s a break, woah, up, high, dance, woah, which is cool because you don’t wanna be a dull and boring event where you drift off to sleep. Right?

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:04]:

High energy keeps us keeps us enthusiastic, helps us to enjoy it, which is cool, which is great. However,

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:13]:

as the day wears on, you’re starting to feel a little bit tired, Must be all the info you’re taking in. Right? Never mind. Nothing that good early night and a good night’s sleep won’t cure. Hang on. When does this event it’s a multi

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:29]:

day event? When does today’s one end? Seems to be

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:32]:

going on a bit late. It seems to be going past the finishing time. We are going on very late tonight, very long hours indeed, and Tomorrow’s got a very early start. In fact, by the time you get back to the hotel at the end of the 1st day, have a bite to eat, Go to bed. It’s time to get up and go back to the next day. Did somebody make a mistake with the schedule? There’s not really enough time to get proper good night’s sleep here. Well, no, they didn’t. You see the long hours, the draining hours, the high energy, it’s all quite deliberate no matter how many days the event runs.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:09]:

Now, yeah, they’ll they’ll give you some plausible excuse about, hey, we wanna give you maximum value. We wanna ensure you all get what you came for. We wanna make sure you get out of your own way, so you make breakthroughs. It’s all nonsense. The reality is the long hours are there. The long hours, the high energy, the constant drain is there to psychologically wear you down, wear down your defences so that when that inevitable sales pitch comes, Again, there’s

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:36]:

nothing wrong with selling at events. It’s when they manipulate, when

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:40]:

they use these tricks and techniques to push you into actually buying even though you don’t want it. So when the inevitable sales pitch comes along, you’re worn down, you’re knackered, you’re exhausted, you can’t think critically. It’s easier for you to fall into fall into the traps as they manipulate you emotionally, and we’ll take a look at that maybe at another, another, in another episode at

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:02]:

some point. They, drain you so much that you’re just like, oh,

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:07]:

well, oh, I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll buy. I’ll buy. I’ll sign on the line. Yay. Go me.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:14]:

Yeah. Interesting. In fact, here’s something to here’s something here you may not have spotted Many of these big events, the main speaker isn’t on

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:25]:

the stage a lot of the time. They have other people delivering some of the some of the content, which is great. Hey, you get different perspectives when you hear it from different people. Nah, what’s actually going on is They know that the whole thing is so draining and so exhausting. The main speaker will come off stage, have a bit of a nap from time to time so that they are fully rested. They are at top of their game. So when the inevitable sales pitch comes, they they are not half tired. They are fully awake, fully alert, ready to manipulate you in the most coming in ingenious ways to get you to buy their stuff even though

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:00]:

you don’t want it, don’t need it, can’t afford it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:05]:

Nasty stuff, nasty stuff, isn’t it? And let’s think anchoring is something else that they all use anchoring.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:13]:

This is this

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:14]:

is where this comes from the work of, Anton Pavlov. Pavlov. That name rings a bell. See what I did there? That, we can attach emotional, emotions or responses we can attach to triggers, like the whole thing where he fed the dog and rang the bell, fed the dog and rang the bell, fed the dog and rang the bell. After a while, just ringing the bell, the dogs would start salivating because they dissociated the sound of the bell with eating, with food, and salivating. And it happens in

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:45]:

so many different thing areas in life.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:48]:

Many of it can be positives. I mean, if you think there’s probably a tune where if you Play the particular tune, it’s gonna bring back some wonderful, amazing, happy memories. It’s anchored. That tune anchors those response.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:04]:

So anchoring is used in in these live events.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:10]:

They they will anchor different parts of the stage. So when they talk about really sad bits, they’ll be in a particular part of the stage, particular sort of lighting, particular type of music. When they talk about action and success and happy and stuff, they’ll be in another part of the stage, another lighting. They can move from one to the other. It takes you from feeling down to feeling inspired. Yay. Motivated. Let’s do this.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:32]:

What is it? Buy the stuff. Yay. Let’s buy the stuff. They’re also anchoring things like,

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:40]:

you notice we mentioned this

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:42]:

high energy music. Every time there’s a break, the high energy music Pumps in, which is cool. Yeah. No worries for that. Liven you up, wakens you up. But you’re being conditioned to get up on your feet and move every time the live music starts. Because the music’s so loud, you can’t sort of sit there and have conversations with with your fellow fellow delegates. You have to head out in order to to chat.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:03]:

So every time that live music, you’re being triggered to get up and move toward the back. It just happens to be where the sales desk is. Interesting. So when the big pitch comes, you’re already conditioned to get up and move to the back there, and then do whatever comes next. They’ll use the anchoring on the stage to anchor in, so when they’re sort of building up, oh, imagine how awful life will be if you don’t change. They’re in that bit of the stage where they’ve told all the all the the, sad stories. So they’re anchoring in the sadness, And they then move to the part of the stage where they’ve talked about what happens when you take action, and and people who’ve done good things, and people who who did what they told them to do and had great success.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:50]:

They move to that part

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:51]:

of the stage when they have to be talking about go to the back of the room and buy my stuff.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:57]:

If you, they send you about one

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:00]:

of these events, kind of take yourself out of it and just watch it From, from a dispassionate point of view, you’ll see a lot of these are used in many different events, many, many different events. Now, obviously, if it’s a big ticket, big tickets, big price that they’re they’re

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:18]:

the thing they’re selling, often lots of people can’t afford that, But here’s where

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:24]:

they get manipulative again. Here’s where they get very manipulative. They will tell you stories throughout the event. They’ll tell you I

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:33]:

mean, obviously, they’ll encourage you

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:34]:

to put on credit card, or they’ll say, hey. Payment plans are are are available. Just go up to the back, have a chat, and discuss

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:41]:

the payment plans, which is great, handy if you if you wanna buy, but it also does something else. It means when they come to

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:51]:

to make the sale, they’re saying, hey, if you think you can’t afford it, there are payment plans. Go to the bank, have a chat with them, see what payment, we can arrange payment plans. So there are so there are people up at the back chatting, figuring out if they can afford sort out a payment plan, which means the seller on stage gets to go, hey, look, Lots of people in the back already. Remember, when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Voiceover [00:15:11]:

I don’t know how many of them are gonna buy, but you don’t

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:12]:

wanna miss out. So more more social proof, more, evidence that, oh, there are lots of people, I better go as well, so I don’t wanna miss out. But they also have they’ll also seed in things like throughout the event. They’ll talk about, hey, Bill. Bill who, knew he had to take these, Knew he had to do the trading. We’ll we’ll talk about the trading slightly, but he knew he had

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:36]:

to do them. And he also knew that even though he didn’t have the money, He had his pride and joy, his Harley, his Harley bike, or his beloved sports car or or whatever it is.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:51]:

And he came up to me afterwards, and he he told me that I knew I couldn’t afford I knew I couldn’t afford the training. I knew I couldn’t afford not to take it. So what I did, I sold my sports car because I knew that everything I learned by taking the courses with you, everything I learned from that is Gonna earn me so much money, I’ll be able to afford to buy 5 sports cars. They just sort of throw that in as a just a nice happy little story, or possibly almost seemingly accidentally telling the story. So, oh, I don’t know where that came from. Anyway, where were we? Now see these sorts of things in getting you to sort of think,

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:32]:

remember if I sell some stuff

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:34]:

because I’m gonna make it

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:35]:

all back? There’s no guarantees. But

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:40]:

they do it in such a way that it gets you thinking, If I am serious, maybe I should sell that thing. Maybe I should sell the thing because I can always buy another one later, or, a particularly nasty one that I’ve seen. They will Tell the story about, now I’ve seen this told about, Richard Branson, I’ve seen it told about a couple of other, big successful people, that tell the story about how they wanted to buy something, But they couldn’t afford to buy it, so they phoned round 20 friends, and they got their friends to lend them the money. With with Branson, I think it’s, when he bought Necker Island, his 1st island. Couldn’t afford it, so he phoned round 20 friends, Said, Hey, I’m buying this island. Got them to put the money in, lend you the money,

Voiceover [00:17:34]:

and he had the money to buy the island. Hey, yay. All you have to do is phone your

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:37]:

friends and family and friends and get them

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:39]:

to lend you the money.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:41]:

What they don’t tell you is that, yes, he phoned these people, but he had created an entire business plan on how Neckar Island was gonna make money. It was gonna return be a big return on investment, and he basically pitched to these people as seeking investments. They never tell you that bit, so he did a did a huge amount of work. But, anyway, They’ll maybe have dropped that story in or similar stories elsewhere or even a story about how they did that, and their dear old mom and dad wrote out a check, say,

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:12]:

I don’t understand what you’re doing, but here’s some money. I wanna see you succeed. They’ll then say, okay. Hey. Here’s a bit of fun. Why don’t you make

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:22]:

a list of 50 friends and family members, contacts, 50 people you know? And then in

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:28]:

the break, which is coming up in 5 minutes, Tell you what, phone each of them. Just as an exercise, just as a bit of

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:35]:

fun for this exercise, phone them and tell them, hey. If I was investing in my future, How would I raise it? How how could I raise the money? Or would you be would you be prepared to give or lend me some of the monies? Because I’m investing in my future. And you keep phoning until you’ve got the money from them, however many it takes.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:55]:

Manipulative or what. And I have seen this happen time and time and time again at live events. It happens a lot.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:08]:

One final nasty manipulative one that, we’ll Finish this episode with is where you get the attendees to sell to each other. Now the way this might work, it’s peer pressure, it’s getting peer pressure from people who are desperate, which makes it really unscrupulous and devastating. Now, for example, let’s let’s say, They tell you the supposed full price of this this offer. Obviously, the full price, nobody ever pays the full price, but they give you the full price. And let’s say the full price is £20,000, and they say, hey. When you buy it today, you get it for 12,000. Oh, cool. Yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:51]:

This is this is

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:52]:

this is nice. Then they’ll ramp the prop they’ll ramp, the stakes up.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:01]:

They’ll ramp the stakes up. If they figure, based on previous experience, that maybe 10 people are gonna buy, they will say something like, you know what? The price is 12,000. But if 20 of you buy today,

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:20]:

Each of you will only pay 10,000. And if 30 of you buy today, Today, 30

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:28]:

of you, you will each only pay 8,000 now. Already, some of those planning to buy at 12,000 are thinking, oh, if I can persuade a couple of my friends I get some more people to buy. Well, I might tip it over the 20. I’ll get it cheaper.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:49]:

Of course, with these sorts of things, Subtlety

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:55]:

isn’t always a presenter’s friend, and in this instance, it’s not. The presenter will make

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:00]:

it absolutely clear to everyone. So just to

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:04]:

be clear, it’s 12,000, but if 20 of you buy, it becomes 10,000. You know what? If each person who plans to buy persuades just 1 other person to buy, you all get it for 10,000. Hey. If you fancy your chart, if you fancy yourself as a as a bit of an influencer, a bit of a persuader, if you each persuade 2 people to buy, you’ll all get it for just 8,000. You will save £12,000. All you gotta do, get a couple of other people. Convince a couple of

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:33]:

other people to buy, to to to buy. Hey.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:36]:

You know what? We’ve got a break coming up now. We’ll see you back here in in in 10 minutes. Go and have some conversations, people. Really nasty. Really nasty. They might, at the end of the break, say, hey. Anyone who’s thing anyone who’s planning to buy, Come up front. Come up front, sweetie.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:56]:

We can see you all. So getting a bit of social proof in there. There might be, say, 19 people there. Oh, there’s 19 of you. Oh, you didn’t quite get the 20. It’s gonna be 12,000, not 10, unless Hey, do you wanna take a couple of minutes, see if you can persuade somebody else? These audience members who have already shown that they are planning to buy, and they can’t really not buy because they’ve said, I’m gonna buy. Then they’re heavily invested in persuading everyone around them to also buy so they can save 1,000. But they’ve only got a couple of minutes to do it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:31]:

And there’s loud, high energy, high energy, loud music, lots of frantic attempts at selling. This is hard selling at its worst, and it happens. I’ve seen this happen at many different events very often with with, exactly the sort of results the manipulative seller is seeking to get. Peer pressure, people

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:52]:

in the audience, almost forcing

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:56]:

their fellow attendees to buy as well so they can save that bit of money. That’s all we got time for this episode. There are lots of other examples of of manipulative selling at live events. We’ll take a look at Some more of those, if that’s of interest to you. If it is something that’s of interest, do, let me know. Send me a message, drop a line. Add a comment wherever you’re seeing this. Let me know if you’d like more.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:29]:

And in fact, remember, do give us a like, a comment, a share, Subscribe if you find any of these useful. Subscribe to it on your favourite platform. Spread the word with your friends.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:41]:

It doesn’t cost you anything. It doesn’t cost them anything. Yeah. It’s not like you’re selling. Do not worry. But either way, hopefully, this has given you an insight into some of the nasty ways in which the unscrupulous out there seek to manipulate us. There are lots more. We’ll explore more of these over over over time in in this in the show.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:02]:

Or, yes, blatant plug, buy the book AntiManipulation. You can find out more at antimanipulation.com. Buy the book. Find out how they, seek to manipulate us into buying our stuff. And if you think I’m manipulating you into buying a book, don’t buy it. Simple as that. Either way, I hope this has opened your eyes into some of the ways in which we get manipulated manipulated in live events. And whatever happens, take care, look after yourselves.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:29]:

I will catch you in the next episode very soon. Bye for now.

Voiceover [00:24:45]:

You’ve been listening to the Keith Blakemore Noble Radio Show. To find out more, Please visit keithblakemorenoble.com.