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Chapter 2. The Miracle Script Comes Pre-Photocopied
You know what’s funniest about these guys?
That they’re not original.
Not even a little.
They use the same manual. The same techniques. The same tricks as the door-to-door salesmen of the fifties, the TV evangelists of the eighties and the timeshare sellers of the nineties. The only thing that changed is the stage: now they use Instagram instead of your living room and a sales video instead of a meeting in a hotel.
But the manual is the same.
And the manual has an author. Well, it has several, but there’s one named Robert Cialdini who in 1984 wrote a book called "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion," where he described six principles that explain how normal people end up saying "yes" when they should say "no." The guy wrote them so people could defend themselves. So we would understand how we’re manipulated.
They read it too. They just read it backwards. Where Cialdini said "this is how they’re going to trap you," they read "this is how I’m going to trap them."
So let’s talk about that manual. The one they’ve already read and you haven’t.
But don’t worry, I’m going to translate it for you. No jargon, no footnotes, no academic pretensions. In paisa.
Principle number one: Reciprocity.
Cialdini explains that there’s something in the human brain that can’t stand owing. If someone gives you something, you feel the need to give back. It isn’t just good manners. It’s a social response wired deep into our heads: humans are social, and reciprocity is the glue that holds relationships together.
Professional salespeople know this. That’s why they give you a free sample at the supermarket. That’s why the mechanic does you a "free adjustment" before charging you for the full repair. That’s why the charlatan gives you a presentation, an ebook, a masterclass, a template, a PDF with "the seven secrets nobody tells you."
It all looks free and generous, but every gift plants an emotional debt. It isn’t charity: it’s customer farming.
They give you something of "value" —in quotation marks because a lot of the time what they give is worth what it costs: nothing— so your brain starts feeling that you owe them. And when the moment of the sale arrives —after ninety minutes of free content in which they gave you three useful tips and eighty-seven minutes of manipulative storytelling— your brain is going to think: "Well, these guys gave me so much... the least I can do is buy something from them."
You don’t owe anything.
A free presentation isn’t a gift. It’s a hook. The fisherman doesn’t give the worm to the fish. He offers the worm so the fish opens its mouth and swallows the hook along with the worm.
But of course, the worm tastes like worm. And the fish thinks it’s eating.
Principle number two: Commitment and consistency.
Cialdini says that once you take a position —even a small one— your brain will do the impossible to stay consistent with it. In other words, if you say yes to something tiny, you’re much more likely to say yes to something big later.
Smoke sellers use it like this:
First they ask you for something minimal. "Register for free for this presentation." "Download this free ebook." "Join my Facebook group." "Tell me in the comments what you’d like to achieve."
Every micro-yes commits you a little more. You type in your email, you comment, you show up in the group and your brain writes itself a soap opera: «I’m the person who’s finally doing something; I follow this mentor; I’m getting ready». By the time the charge arrives, you don’t feel like you’re buying: you feel like you’re confirming who you are.
And when the offer comes —the big one, the thousand-dollar one—, saying no would mean breaking that narrative. It would mean admitting everything before was wasted. That you’re not who you said you were. That the effort —even if it was only typing an email— wasn’t worth it.
The brain hates contradiction, so sometimes it buys just to avoid admitting it already let itself be convinced. I saw it in my own skin, and it’s not exactly profile-picture material.
I once joined a free group run by a coach who promised to help you "scale your business." The first few days were useful content. Tips. Exercises. Things that, if you were honest, you could find in any three-minute YouTube video. But since they were in an "exclusive" group, they felt special.
After two weeks, the coach announced a paid program.
I had already commented on her posts. I had already done the exercises. I had already said publicly, in that group, that I was "committed to my growth." Without realizing it, I had already built the narrative.
And you know what the worst part is? I know how this works. I know about persuasion. I know about sales. I read Cialdini before most of these gurus knew who he was.
And even so, for a moment —just a moment, okay?— I felt the pressure to buy.
REALITY CHECK
Because the brain doesn’t consult. It acts.
Fortunately, my rational side —the one that runs on ice-cold Coca-Cola and sarcasm— managed to say: "Yenny, stop. You know what’s going on." And I didn’t buy. But I understood something important: if I, who know the trick, had a hard time stopping, what happens to someone who has no idea a manual is being used on them?
What happens is they pay.
And then they wonder what happened.
Principle number three: Social proof.
"If everyone else is doing it, it must be okay."
It’s the oldest mental shortcut in the world. Your brain doesn’t have time to evaluate every decision from scratch, so it looks at what others are doing and copies. If there’s a line outside a restaurant, the food must be good. If there are positive reviews, the product must work. If a thousand people already bought the course, it must have something good.
Charlatans exploit this in several ways.
Testimonials. "More than ten thousand students in forty countries." Screenshots of WhatsApp messages where people say "Thank you, master, you changed my life!" "Spots remaining" counters that suggest there’s demand. Reviews on their pages with five stars and comments that look like they were written by the same copywriter.
All manufactured.
Or worse: all real, but carefully selected.
Imagine you sell a course and a hundred people buy it. Of those hundred, three get results —by luck, by effort, by circumstances that have nothing to do with your course—. What do you do? You show those three. You record their testimonials. You put them on your page. And the other ninety-seven who got nothing don’t appear anywhere.
Not because they don’t exist. But because you’re not going to show them.
It’s as if I sold a system for winning the lottery and showed you only the people who won. "Look, the system works. Juan won the jackpot. So did María. And Pedro." How many didn’t win? A thousand. But those don’t appear in the ad.
Manufactured social proof is the backbone of this industry. Without it, nobody would buy. Because if you saw reality —the ninety percent failure rate, the lost money, the broken dreams— there would be no business.
Principle number four: Authority.
People find it hard to disobey authority. It’s another survival mechanism: if the leader says run, you run. You don’t stick around to ask why.
These guys manufacture authority with a minimal investment:
A self-published book on Amazon. ("Bestselling author" —bestseller in the "accounting for artisan bakeries" category, where four books are competing, but a bestseller nonetheless—.)
A TEDx talk. ("International speaker" —TEDx, not TED, but nobody notices the difference—.)
An interview with someone well known. ("Advisor to public figures" —he appeared for five seconds on the podcast of a YouTuber with two hundred thousand subscribers—.)
A made-up title. ("Certified expert in quantum neuro-transformation applied to digital marketing" —a certification issued by an association he created himself—.)
Real authority takes time. It takes results, experience, clients, verifiable work and recognition from people who actually know the field.
Manufactured authority takes an afternoon of Photoshop and twenty dollars for a web domain.
And it works because people don’t check. They see "bestseller" and think "this guy knows what he’s talking about." They see "TEDx" and think "if they invited him to give a talk, he must be important." They don’t know you can pay your way to a bestseller in an obscure category. They don’t know TEDx is a locally organized program where anyone can propose a talk if they get past a basic filter.
I don’t have a TEDx. I don’t have an Amazon bestseller. I don’t have a "quantum neuro-transformation" title. What I have is twenty years of real business, a website that works, clients who pay and a tarot deck that doesn’t lie.
And I assure you my authority to talk about this doesn’t come from a diploma. It comes from having been on both sides of the counter: selling and being sold to.
Principle number five: Scarcity.
"Only five spots left."
"The offer ends tonight."
"This won’t happen again."