October 22, 2009How to exploit friends and manipulate people
I’ll set the record straight first. I love Dale Carnagie’s classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People. It’s about building character, not manipulation skills.
And while I see the social networking trends as a step forward in the personalization and humanization of business, it also can be a slippery slope.
I think of the classic multi-level marketing “two-foot rule.” Anyone within two feet is considered fair game for a sales pitch.
But some of the techniques make a mockery of relationships. When long lost friends suddenly show up and feign interest in how you’re doing before laying on a sales pitch, you know they haven’t been learning from the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. They’ve been studying: How to Exploit Friends and Manipulate People.
So before you start singing someone’s praises in preparation to ask them for something, ask yourself which school you’re learning from.
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