My TRs=high-pressure Sales Training Theory
Q: I've got a theory. My theory is that the "TRs" have been lifted out of
some weird old salesman training manual that existed in the US. Does
anyone know of any bizarre it systems for training high pressure sales
staff in the US that existed in the 1940s or 1950s that might fit the
bill?
A:-Maybe, but it doesn't indicate for me. What they are chiefly
is a recipe for sociopathic / psychopathic behaviour. What you
should imagine is a person who hasn't got the normal context for
conversing or showing emotion i.e. they're "empathically deaf";
the other person's feelings don't have the same sort of direct
and unconscious input to what they do as with you or me.
Therefore they learn conversing and prodding at the other person
for response, and showing the apparently required emotion,
as something they need to fake under conscious control ---
and use to get their way without conscience or scruple.
The drills first teach a person to be generally suggestible,
next to remove the normal link from their own feelings to
behaviour or utterance and then substitute conscious
manipulative control (getting people to do exactly what you
want), in a context where all alternatives to dominance/submission
are removed; there is no "give and take", only giving and
taking orders.
-I note what you say, but look at it another way. In the US there is
this theme that it is a great thing to be a succesful salesperson.
They love you for it. You have made LOADS of money. That earns
respect over there. You can *swindle* people to get money so long as
you didn't *kill* them to get money. From what I have heard there
were all sorts of training methods in the 1930s 40s and 50s to
transform sales staff into "hard-sell" sales people. You would bully
the person into signing. And if you were a bit weak-hearted about
it then they would give you the training to overcome your resistance.
When I look at the 8-C technique it niggles in my mind that this
could have been one of the techniques used to train sales staff.
To tech then to physically move a person around until