In the presidential campaign of 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt ran on the Bull Moose ticket with Governor Hiram Johnson of California as his running mate. As Teddy’s committee was preparing to distribute 3,000,000 copies of one of his speeches picturing Roosevelt and Johnson on the cover, they discovered the picture had been copyrighted by a photographer in Chicago. The penalty for infringing on copyrighted material at that time was a dollar a copy for each infringement, or in this case $3,000,000!

Their campaign manager had an idea and sent the following telegram to the Chicago studio:

“Am about to release 3,000,000 copies of Roosevelt speech with picture of Roosevelt/Johnson on cover STOP Marvelous opportunity for photographer STOP How much will you pay us to use your picture?”

Within the course of a few hours, a reply was received stating, “Appreciate the opportunity but can only pay $250.” Now consider: was the photographer (1) manipulated, (2) skillfully managed, or (3) persuaded?

Manipulation is a psychological defense designed to manage and control a person or situation for one’s own purposes/profit. The other party’s needs are secondary at best as the manipulator uses and abuses others to achieve personal ends, not stopping to consider the needs or rights of another to participate.

Skillful management involves orchestrated control–leading a client to believe a specific action is in his best interest–but the distinction between this strategy and manipulation is that here the prospect is involved. The end result may be similar, but the means are so different as to make one acceptable, the other highly objectionable.

Along the continuum, the most sophisticated form of communication is persuasion. This is where the professional salesperson creates a win-win situation. This is where healthy selling occurs. Here the sales professional builds a convincing case leaving the prospect in a position of more than just “almost persuaded.” Long after the transaction has been completed, the consumer continues to respect the salesperson for having helped the prospect to become a satisfied purchaser.

Clients or prospects respect a good deal over a fair deal over a raw deal. Manipulation has no place in selling because of its self-defeating pathology. Until this pathology is thoroughly understood it is not possible to analyze the Teddy Roosevelt example any more than it is to avoid the high cost of manipulation.

Manipulative behavior focuses on the chase rather than the end result. Successfully concluding the transaction is but a byproduct of the artful playing of another. The real problem of manipulation is found in extracting from others what they don’t want to give. This makes tomorrow’s enemy of today’s customer–a turn of events which becomes more costly to the sales professional.

If manipulation is so costly, why does any salesperson practice it? There are five possible explanations:

1. Paranoid tendencies suggest that the salesperson is suspicious of a prospect’s motives. Rather than running the risk of being played off against another professional in the field by the customer, the manipulative salesperson makes it a point to get the client before the latter has a chance to get him. The reward is a sense of control, countering the feeling of being out of control. Unfortunately, any feeling of having exercised control is short-lived, lasting no longer than it takes for the prospect to conclude that he has been had. Subsequently, all future business transactions between this sales person and this prospect are doomed.

2. Aggressive or passive-aggressive behavior often translates into manipulation. Feeling angry, agressive people become victims of their need to use others for their own fulfillment. The victim’s angry response feeds the manipulator’s own anger as he justifies having put something over on someone who “was asking for it.”

3. Rationalization is another defense mechanism leading to manipulative behavior. With no feelings of respect for the person duped, the manipulator justifies using a customer with the twisted logic, “If I hadn’t gotten to him, someone else would; so why not me?”

4. The need for self-aggrandizement. The manipulator prides himself on having been successful in his ploy to put something over on another. Having won the power struggle, the manipulator is gratified, not so much with the outcome (a signed contract or a large sale), but with having prevailed in the battle of wits. The problem is that in order for the salesperson to inflate his own grandiosity, he must elevate himself by standing on the customer’s ego. He overlooks the fact that anyone who elevates himself by standing upon another rests on a weak foundation.

5. Regression to earlier stages of behavior is common in manipulators. The reasons may go back to a family’s failure to build a trusting base for the child. Regressive behavior echoes early adolescence, where peer approval was so important. The adult now continues the teenage game of dividing the world into winners and losers. The manipulator is determined to be identified with the “winner.” Thus, bullying techniques become a stock-in-trade of the manipulative personality.

Generally, however, most manipulators lack ego strength. Suffering from low self-esteem, they are willing to make any sacrifice to forego rejection. These salespersons despise cold calling. They procrastinate endlessly to avoid picking up the phone or calling on new prospects. Any rejection of their product is viewed not as a rejection of their sales proposal, but rather as a rejection of the person. Never having learned to separate self-worth from business success, feelings of self-esteem exist only if there is black ink on their ledger sheets. Success then assumes exaggerated importance because of the complex psychological needs each sale must satisfy.

Can manipulation be upgraded to skillful management or, even better, to persuasion? Of course, since change is always possible. Understanding the underlying reasons for manipulative behavior is the first recovery step. The trick is to substitute desirable (effective) for undesirable (self-defeating) behavior.

Short-term psychotherapy is a good solution to correct the problem. Limit setting (establishing new guidelines) is another. Salespersons who learn to accept limits on how far they will go in making a sale can safeguard themselves from slipping down from the “Persuasive” category or from falling down beyond the “Skillful Management” area to the bottom level of “Manipulation.”

If there is anything more costly to sales than the manipulative salesperson, it is the manipulative customer. The latter can, however, be handled very effectively without losing the sale.

Dr. William D. Brown is a noted speaker and stress-management consultant. A clinical psychologist in private practice in Washington, DC, he writes a nationally syndicated newspaper column on stress and is a frequent contributor to Success Magazine.