In an email a few months ago, I recommended illusionist Derren Brown’s book Tricks of the Mind. That’s because the book gives you 90%-of-what-you-need-to-know summaries of persuasion topics like magic, cold reading, hypnosis, and NLP.
But there’s more to this book.
For example, there’s one scary but instructive story in Brown’s book that sticks out in my mind. It’s not really about any of those persuasion topics, but about dealing with prospects, particularly bad prospects.
The story starts out back in the day, when Derrren Brown used to perform stage hypnosis at universities.
Brown is English and he performed in England. So it’s little wonder that during one show, a very drunk university girl stumbled to the stage to take part in Brown’s hypnosis act.
Brown quickly realized the girl is sloshed. He told her to go back to her seat, because he knew drunk people make poor hypnosis subjects. The girl grumbled and cursed but did as she was told.
Later, Brown was called over the PA. The girl was found unconscious somewhere. An ambulance had been called.
Even though Brown had in no way hypnotized the girl, he was told by university staff to try to awaken her as if she had been in a trance.
Brown gave it his best shot, putting on an act to appease the people around him. Unsurprisingly, his dehypnosis had no effect on the unconscious girl.
The girl was loaded into the ambulance and taken to the hospital. There she had her stomach pumped. She almost died.
Of course, she had had way much too much to drink, and that’s why she had passed out.
Now here’s the scary question that Brown ponders in Tricks of the Mind:
Had the girl really died, would Brown and his stage hypnosis be blamed? After all, when the girl was found unconscious, it was assumed Brown’s dark arts might have had something to do with it.
And if that’s the case, then how much worse would things be if Brown had allowed the drunk girl to actually participate in the stage show?
Would he have had to deal with police inquiries… with bitter lawsuits from the girl’s family… with denunciations in the press? Would his act, his career, and maybe his name be ruined, possibly forever?
I think the point stands whether you do stage hypnosis, or hawk info products, or just sell yourself and your services.
And the point is to know which characteristics make a bad prospect — or subject — for whatever it is you do. And when you spot a prospect with any such characteristics, the point is to tell this guy or gal, without regret or malice, to go back to their seat, and to get far away from you.
Of course you don’t have to take my advice. And you don’t have to learn anything from the Derren Brown story above.
You can learn from your own experiences if you want to.
As for me, I’ve long ago decided on strict criteria for prospective clients, customers, and even prospects. If you’d like to see some of those criteria, you can get started by signing up for my daily email newsletter.