We have to talk about toxic and manipulative sales tactics

Warning: This post may include some foul-language as a result of my blood-boiling reaction to a really bad sales email.

Background: I went to an event, and signed up to a speaker’s email list to get an interesting-sounding pdf. I don’t mind lead-magnets as a tactic, and don’t mind getting more content in my inbox if it’s useful.

I get a lot of content in my inbox and as a potential customer am exposed to a lot of different tactics, some better than others.

This particular speaker is a pretty well known in the space, and is held in high regard. I won’t name him here, but I bet you’d be able to think of someone similar. Former startup guy “maven of SaaS” who has dozens of success stories about how he’s helped bring people back from the brink of failure, etc.

Fast forward a few days, and cue the automated follow-ups pushing me to sign up for a ‘growth call’. Not interested; I wasn’t really impressed with the lead-magnet.

Second or third email, I got this gem (bold: mine for emphasis):

Subject: Giving you a second chance.

Message:

Here’s the situation, Rob

You applied for a call but failed to book in a time.

I’ll be honest with you — that’s a red flag. You might want to pay attention to the following:

This week only, we have decided to do something crazy.

You see, our [Name of Program] is serious business. Not for the faint of heart. Not for the lazy.

You need to be ALL-IN or do not bother applying at all.

Now, someone like yourself may very well be “all in.”

You might be the perfect fit.

You might be the next case study success story, yet there may be ONE thing holding you back.

Money.

The fact of the matter is, the fastest way for you to build the business you dream of is to pay someone who has achieved what you’re looking to do & teach you everything they know.

It’s what I do every year. It’s what our clients do. It’s what our mentors do. It’s what every success story you’ve ever seen on and off the internet has done.

See — good coaching is an investment. When you have an excellent coaching team, that investment pays off 10x, 20x, 30x — as it continually does for the other founders in our programs.

It makes more sense than pretty much any other investment out there for any SaaS business.

However, what happens when you cannot possibly come up with the money to get started building your dream life and business?

Stagnation and frustration.

We get it… to an extent. In general, we foster a no-excuses take-no-prisoners mindset in our coaching programs. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Cliche, but true.

Still, life has a way of smacking you down at times. So:

This week only, we are eliminating that factor for you.

This week only, when you book in a call with us, you will be eligible to earn one of the FIVE spots at 20% off our SaaS Academy Program.

That’s a huge reduction, with ALL of the upsides.

This isn’t a free handout. This must be earned. You will be coming on board with the sole intention of becoming another mind-blowing case study like the ones [here].

If you apply expecting anything less than that, and intend to just coast along — you will be rejected.

We need fighter jets. Not butterflies.

We want hungry ones. The ambitious ones. The run-through-walls mentality.

IF, and only if this is you, the first step is booking in your call time for a call. I’m the gatekeeper and make the final decision on who gets into the program. Because you’ve applied for a call… but have yet to book in time — it’s a red flag for us.

However, we’re giving you a second chance.

If you’ve seen the [case studies], watched our content, and are tired of drowning in your current business situation — it’s time to pull the trigger and tell us your story.

Just HIT REPLY with “YES” and I’ll get the details through to you.

Book in your growth session call [RIGHT NOW] so that we can determine whether or not you’re a good fit.

Spots will fill up immediately after sending this email — so get on it. If you apply for next week and bring up the topic of this email, that simply means you didn’t take action quickly enough.

So if you’re serious… reply back now with YES.

Talk soon.

I literally laughed out loud and snorted my coffee and had to change my shirt.

My initial reaction went something like this:

1) Fuuuuuuuuck you (elongation required).

2) Speaking of red-flags know what one is for me? Framing the start of a relationship as me having failed before I started rather than you having failed in conveying any actual value

3) Fuck you again

4) I didn’t ‘apply’ to anything. I filled out a form to get some content

5) If this is how you treat your prospects, it makes me doubt even more the care and attention that you bring to your clients.

6) “Book your call so WE can determine if YOU’RE a good fit” Bull-fucking-classic-alpha-framing-gaslighting-shit

Breathe. Okay, now a quick reflection about why this is so problematic, so morally bankrupt, and why I hate these tactics so much. They take advantage of the target and it’s text-book gaslighting.

Starting a company is hard. Growing that company is hard. Putting yourself out there and being encouraged to succeed quickly, or “fail and learn” (but not fail too badly of course) is a tough space to be in. We can’t do it alone and sometimes (most times) need help. We all respond differently to different methods of encouragement and accountability, and some of us have tougher resilience than others.

I’m well aware that some respond really well to ‘tough love’ but when framed in the way this email does (and without any attempt to build trust), the target has already failed, and there’s literally no excuse for continued failure other than their own inadequacies.

That’s also an easy set-up for more failure and an abandonment of blame on the part of the expert. “Dude, that’s a total red flag” becomes “See, I told you this was a red flag” then “Well, we did say from the beginning you might not be cut out for this right?” This person’s an “expert”, so you have no right to blame them. It has to be you.

Gaslighting is leading someone manipulatively down a road in a way that makes them psychologically tied to your approval and unable to think rationally about the situation.

Those who respond to this email, and who are activated by it will most likely be suffering from poor self-confidence already, and this reinforcement of what a red-flag you are simply by not booking in a time for a call, only furthers that feeling of inadequacy.

Scenario: you’ve been working on an idea for a while, you’ve ploughed lots of your own money into it and it just isn’t working. You’re surrounded by posts by others highlighting all of their successes and none of their failures, your family thinks you’re wasting your time, and you’re emotionally and physically exhausted. And then you get this message.

It might work — he might get signups to this program as a result of this tack, but this email is taking advantage of a person in an incredibly vulnerable state, and is designed to appeal to the most desperate and lowest sense of self-worth. Instead of articulating that feeling, acknowledging it, and building a connection of trust through mutual experience and awareness of what they’re going through, it bolts for the lowest way to take advantage of the most vulnerable.

And then if they don’t find value from the course at the end, it’s their fault for not being “all-in” enough.

The language is toxic, the framing is toxic, and it will solicit a type of customer that will either not be ready for the training, not prepared for running a business, or in another way having challenges with their mental health and resilience that makes it even more harmful to their confidence.

To be honest I was really surprised that a speaker like this would use such tactics. On stage he had that classic ‘no-bs, let’s just do it’ tone which I usually like, but paired with this, it’s crossed the line from supportive through accountability to just straight-out manipulative gas-lighting.

Do better, stop being lazy, prove your value, validate your customer, educate them so they can be an affirmative, excited client that sees value and is ready to learn. Challenge people to move beyond where they are now, to learn more and to find what works, sure, but stop gaslighting, pushing your toxic expert appearance that uses the lowest level of bully framing just to make a sale.

Photo by Philippe Mignot on Unsplash