Why does sales have to be so manipulative?

[SBB4746]

@Leo Gura hahaha love your stage red example.

[Staples]

I've worked at a computer retail store before, I was completely disillusioned within the first week. Here are a few reasons why Computer Salespeople at least are forced (yes forced) into being manipulative:

1. In order to compete with other retail stores, managers often price computers for $50-$100 dollars less than what they bought it for. If the store bought it for $600, they might be selling it for $550. They do this because it gets people in the door. If one store is advertising a computer for $600, another will advertise it for $550 so people go to them. This keeps going until the store physically can't get it lower. It's a negative feedback loop. The salespeople are then forced to make up for this deficit.

2. Salespeople must make enough profit for the store to warrant paying them. So how do they make this money? Add-ons. The things salespeople slap on to whatever you're there to buy make ALL of the money. The profit margins are murderous. A 5-year subscription of Internet Security might have $300 on the label at a retail store. Guess what the store buys it for directly? $20. Extended warranties usually have a 300% markup.

3. KPIs. The targets the store must reach. Each salesperson has their own KPI, a target amount of profit each person must make. It's equal to roughly 1.2x what their salary is per day. If they don't reach this each month, see ya. There is also commission, which for me was roughly 10% of total profit I made.

Those are some of the hard structural reasons. Of course there's stage orange motivational reasons, but they only thrive because of the systemic structure of retail.

[7thLetter]

@bejapuskas That’s great!

Me personally, I consider myself a mix between Orange and Yellow. Haven’t been through a lot of green. I’ve tried to share Spiral Dynamics with old friends but they’re not as open-minded towards it as I am. So be careful, there will be people who aren’t and you need to accept that.

I’ve been moving away from as much as I can. Not in a neurotic way though, I usually let it happen naturally. I have no one I can call a close friend these days. Honestly because I focus on my own thing too much and a lot of people don’t understand what I value. Not that easy to find friends who share the same values

[bejapuskas]

@7thLetter  I discovered that girls are more open - they tend to be green most of the time. I taught spiral dynamics to a group of friends, including a 13 year old girl. She got it excellently! I see her becoming stage yellow thinker in no time. Basically, any mature green/orange person is quite coachable in my opinion, but pure orange or a mixture of blue people are very stubborn most of the time. Even if you think, that the blue person trusts everything you say, they will just reframe it, put it in their mind, retransform it, so it agrees with their values and then continue smoking weed.

I like teaching spiral dynamics to close friends, you just have to find the right close friends. I have many orange friends, which I just laugh with, they are great, but I wont tell them, they are not ready. Green people are a whole different story though! I plan to teach about spiral dynamics on a camp, as an optional activity. I am already discussing it with the big guys in Czechia, where I live. People who do scouting are green very often, so I dont think I will damage anyones mind or anything like that, but maybe I will have no choicce but to do some filtering of the group  

[7thLetter]

@bejapuskas Yeah its usually the pure Orange and below who are closed off it it. Not sure what it is but it could be the fact that people usually want to be right about everything and they don’t want to be seen as an ignorant human being. They don’t want their beliefs to be proven wrong, so that’s why closed-minded exists. Which to me is absurd, the world and life is too complex for people to assume that they know everything and that their beliefs are correct.

I’ve tried to teach spiral dynamics to an Orange friend quite recently and he ended up freaking out at me. Which is pretty much why I said “be careful”. He said things like “its toxic” “sounds esoteric” “where’s your research?” Stuff like that. But I guess it depends on your approach and how you present the information. The Spiral Dynamics model is a bit too complex to teach someone within’ half an hour, which is pretty much what I tried to do.

[bejapuskas]

@7thLetter Its based on freaking 40 years of hardcore professional research haha. I like teaching green/orange and higher, because they are already at the top of tier 1 and they dont have to whine about going to a „meaningless“ colour. I always tell them to think about themselves as a honey melon, they have to get the peel away to get to the juicy stuff, its a really good metaphor. I am trying to build on what I have learned from Leo - how he is teaching people, I am like that pushy friend.  Also its good to see the whole picture from different points of view, not just your. People are usually manipulated or disgusted by the dogmatic teachings of orange self-help gurus. 

Green people are also more patient, when working with orange people, they are hurrying and want to get to turquoise from the beginning and skip all the „bullshit“ because they always want to get to the top. I often like to say that there is no top, you just need to grow exponentially and continuously without stopping. On the other hand, higher stages are open to the possibility that people might also want to help them and they are serious when they say that SD can cause depression, if misunderstood.  Some people are just really hard to help...

[7thLetter]

@bejapuskas Lol right? I mean I wish I was the one who came up with the idea of Sprial Dynamics.

And exactly, some people are just really hard to help so I’ve personally stopped trying to “change” people. I used to be the person who shared everything I learned online, and tried to get everyone to think the way that I think. But then I discovered people can be stubborn sometimes. So now I just let people be the way that they are, if they want help then they will ask or seek for themselves.

But then sometimes you can learn a lot from other stages and more about their stage, by sharing your knowledge and getting their thoughts or feedback on the information. I’ve honestly learned more about stage Orange by talking to my friend I mentioned, so I don’t regret it even though he freaked out at me lol.

So I guess I kinda wish I knew more Green people and above so that I can learn more about their paradigm because its best to experience what this specific person is like, compared to just reading about it. I’ve only pretty much met a lot of mixtures of maybe some Red, Blue, Orange, and one Green person.

[bejapuskas]

@7thLetter  I do scouting - there are a lot of green people there, even boys. And before I found Leo, I focused on learning languages, so I used to go to the meetings with all kinds of people. Also people studying languages are usually green, at least where I live.

[Strikr]

As a electronic musician my music content will ever be free.

I want people to feel free

I do not need to trick. 

Monney is energy

Fearless is always more rewarding in all ways. Who needs a tons of monney to be happy

Just look deadmau5 he is rich and keep playing video game most days ( Twitch ) I m not judging just pointing to you that monney do not create 'higher pleasure'

You don't need to be rich to be happy. People who trick are not living they are surviving

Sharing pure energy is the new futur of our world

Edited October 9, 2018 by Strikr