his pocket and pretended to clean the windows on his way down to pass himself off as a window cleaner. When he planted his feet on the ground, he gave the crowd a bow and ran away.[9]
Once the authorities finally caught up with the notorious con man, they took no chances, sending their new prisoner off to Alcatraz for a 20-year sentence. His death certificate listed his name as Robert V. Miller, but to this day no one knows his true identity or where he really came from. It wasn’t until 1906 that Parisian officials extended the Eiffel Tower’s contract to 1915, and a number of years later that they finally made it a permanent piece of the city’s magnificent landscape.[10]
Everyone Is in Sales
In the movie Gladiator, Russell Crowe’s character Maximus seeks the counsel of Proximo, a former champion gladiator, on how to win in the arena:
Maximus:You ask me what I want. I too want to stand before the Emperor as you did.Proximo:Then listen to me. Learn from me. I wasn’t the best because I killed quickly. I was the best because the crowd loved me. Win the crowd. And you will win your freedom.Maximus: I will win the crowd. I will give them something they have never seen before.
Maximus did just that, shouting the best line of the movie to the crowd after one of his victories:
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!
Maximus was a strong fighter and intelligent strategist but needed to sell himself to succeed. Lustig was one of the greatest con men ever because he knew how to win a crowd through some tried-and-true sales tactics. The actual product or service involved in his scams didn’t matter all that much because Lustig was selling a dream, an easy way out, or an opportunity to get rich quickly. In a way, he was also an entertainer, giving the people what they wanted because he understood his marks so well. Even though his sole goal in life was to con others out of their money, there are some lessons we can learn from how Lustig approached the sales process.
Those in the sales profession get a bad rap in that most buyers assume salespeople are always trying to rip them off. But most things in life have an element of sales involved. Finding a good job is about selling yourself and your strengths. Finding a spouse is about marketing your good qualities. To put forward the thoughts and ideas that you care about requires the ability to convince others your opinions matter. This is especially true when you’re first coming up in the working world without the requisite experience. Networking plays a huge role when finding a job these days, so you need the ability to convince others they should make a sale on your behalf to help with job opportunities.
Here are some of the most important aspects of the sales process to remember:
Know your audience. When Spike Lee was making Malcolm X he knew the movie would go over budget before they even began shooting. The studio didn’t have a budget for a three-hour movie but that’s what Lee wanted. Out of that same budget, Lee was being paid $1 million to direct the film so he decided to put that entire amount right back into the movie, but it still wasn’t enough. To get the movie made to his liking, Lee knew he needed to call up prominent people in the entertainment and professional sports worlds to get the remainder of the money. This would allow them to shoot a pivotal scene in South Africa as opposed to recreating South Africa on the Jersey Shore.Lee was able to secure money from the likes of Oprah, Prince, Tracy Chapman, and Janet Jackson. The last call he made was to Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player to ever play the game. But Lee went to Jordan’s rival Magic Johnson first. Johnson asked how much he needed, Lee told him, and Magic immediately sent the money. Knowing Jordan was one of the most competitive people on the planet Lee admitted, “I just happened to let slip how much Magic wrote on his check,” to which Jordan replied, “Magic gave how much?!” Not to be outdone, Jordan gave even more than Magic to seal the deal so the movie would be done to Lee’s liking.[11]If you want to get people to act, you first have to understand your audience.
Everyone can be sold to. Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvador Mundi, a 500-year-old painting of Jesus Christ, was rediscovered in 2007 at a regional auction where the original painting was masquerading as a copy.[12] Da Vinci’s masterpiece was sold for a record-breaking $450.3 million in November 2017. Christie’s handled the auction for the painting. To drum up interest they staged high-profile public exhibitions of the painting around the globe and created a video that was more or less an ad for the painting.[13] This confused some people at the time because the market for buyers of a painting that could sell for nearly half a billion dollars is quite small.The sales staff at Christie’s personally knew the list of potential buyers because it was such an exclusive club. By making a show of the process and planting the seed that it was an iconic painting, they got this small billionaires club to value the painting more highly based on the premise that it must be more valuable if others consider it valuable. You may roll your eyes at the actions of people with more money than they know what to do with by “wasting” it on art, but this is simply human nature in action. We perceive value to be higher when others perceive value to be high. It’s a vicious cycle but that’s how all of this works in some ways.
Understand who has the informational advantage. In the pre-digital days the seller had an enormous information advantage over the buyer. The Internet has leveled this playing field. People can actually look stuff up now and instantaneously compare products, services, and prices on their little handheld supercomputers. Everyone is in sales, whether they’re selling products, services, or ideas. The trick is to find a way to do it without resorting to shady sales tactics that may have worked in the past. In his book, The Win without Pitching Manifesto, Blair Enns give three ways to sell for those who don’t simply want to trick an unwitting customer:Help the unawareInspire the interestedReassure those who have formed intent
Enns writes:
The psychology of buying is the psychology of changing. Selling, therefore, is change management. The very best salespeople are respectful, selective facilitators of change. They help people move forward to solve their problems and capitalize on their opportunities. The rest talk people into things.[14]
Obviously, Victor Lustig talked people into things because he was a master manipulator with a huge ego. But he also understood people and utilized the soft skills of trust and persuasion as well as anyone. Never one to be shy from his own accomplishments, Lustig even penned a list called the Ten Commandments of the Con. Numbers three and four on the list show how eager he was to get in the good graces of his marks:
Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them.
Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones.
Trust is a huge component of the sales process because we prefer doing business with likeable, trustworthy people. When our ancestors were in small tribes and villages, the people around us were those we trusted the most, so our brains are hardwired to be more comfortable with people who seem trustworthy. Unfortunately, this is a double-edged sword as the people who often seem the most trustworthy are also the ones who possess the ability to take advantage of you. Trust, but verify.
Notes
1 1 Origins and construction of the Eiffel Tower. The official website of the Eiffel Tower [Internet]. Available from: https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/the-monument/history
