Embarrassment vs Shame
Embarrassment is an emotional state that can be exploited by manipulators--and nefarious sales people.
This is a post from Paperdolls.Today, under the section “Sales Techniques.” The intent of this section is to help people, particularly the vulnerable such as sexual assault survivors, to understand if and when they might be manipulated by sales techniques. If you wish to unsubscribe or subscribe to any sections of Paperdolls.Today, please follow Substack’s instructions.
Remember, the most important sales principle: People buy emotionally and defend it with logic.
A trained sales professional asks questions to assess the prospects emotional “sweet spots.” Then uses that information to ask questions to lead the prospect to the closing “buy” decision.
Questions
The questions typically start opened ended, the narrow to multiple choice, alternative choice, to the final closing questions—when whoever speaks first loses.
Many sales people gauge their prospect’s primary emotional motivators in two categories: Fear or Reward. Think of ol’ Teddy Roosevelt’s Carrot or the Stick cliche.
Under the fear category is embarrassment.
Embarrassment is a natural response to making a mistake.
Shame is “you are the mistake.” Shame is typically a byproduct of children sexually abused as children. Children simply cannot comprehend why they were the target of such a heinous crime. Hence they illogically determine that something is wrong with them and that’s why they suffered so savagely. Manipulators and perps capitalize on that illogical shame and blame the victim.
Absolutely no one is a mistake. You are not a mistake. Your perpetrator is the one responsible for the crimes committed against you. Humans have minds and choices and there is absolutely nothing a children (or anyone) can do to cause a perpetrator to lock into some altered state with no control of their own actions. There is no “hot button” that a child can push for an adult to launch into a tirade and descend into crimes against humanity.
Embarrassment
Embarrassment is a natural response to making a mistake. No one is perfect. We all mistakes. And, we’ve all been embarrassed by them.
Psychology today provides a succinct definition of embarrassment:
Embarrassment is a painful but important emotional state. Most researchers believe that the purpose of embarrassment is to make people feel badly about their social or personal mistakes as a form of internal (or societal) feedback, so that they learn not to repeat the error.1
When you make a mistake, don’t internalize it. It was just a mistake. An action. It’s not your essence as a person. Learn from it and move on. You are okay. You are just as good and deserving as anyone on this planet.
Manipulators use of Embarrassment
Manipulators capitalize on this natural discomfort we all experience with embarrassment. If you ever encounter a sales person who remotely touches on trying to evoke any sense of fear or avoiding embarrassment—WALK AWAY.
Here’s a sickening example of a nefarious sales person using the embarrassment trigger to get someone to purchase a fictitious weight loss or body sculpture product:
A commission hungry sales person might ask, “Aren’t you embarrassed by your belly hanging over your belt?
Prospect: red faced and embarrassed about their body, “Yes”
You won’t even have to worry about your belly fat after you get our XXXXX (XXXX = whatever. Examples of this made up situation could be liposuction surgery, exercise membership, personal training programs, and so forth).
Would you like to sign up for a year or enjoy our monthly plan?Prospect embarrassed and wanting to leave: “I’ll take the year….”
It bothers me so much to even write the above fabricated scenario. Please know, there are many commission hungry sales people who will do just that to get their prospects into a fear of embarrassment state—in order to buy—so they get their commission.
Worse, there are manipulators who will try to point out mistakes or flaws to try to control your behavior.
If and when you encounter nefarious sales people or manipulators, please at least take a break. There isn’t one sales situation that you can’t say, “Hold on, time out, I need to think.” NOTHING. Walk away if you need to.
The same with manipulators. Take your time. There is nothing so urgent that you can’t take a short break. A longer break if you need it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/embarrassment