I used to work as a model scout, many many years ago.
It was a big con, and I really didn’t figure that until I’d worked there for a while. But here’s how the game went.
They’d send out the “scouts” out into the world. Our job was to grab anybody who looked like they could be in a magazine ad.
Now, if you’re familiar with magazine ads, you know that means pretty much everybody. Not every product depends on girls in bikinis.
Anyhow, we were taught how to scout them, approach them, convince them to come into a trial “photo shoot” in our office downtown.
They’d come in, have some photos taken, and then the “pitch” would come.
The pitch was that they’d pay a few hundred dollars upfront, along with a monthly fee, to keep their photos and contact information in some database.
And this database was supposedly the national database that all advertisers used when they needed models.
Or at least that’s what these people were told.
Truth was that they had little chance, if any, of ever getting a phone call.
But it was about $500 up front, and then something like $30 a month to keep their profile “active.”
So what were they paying for?
A dream.
A dream of being discovered, striking it rich, being noticed.
The scary thing was this modeling “agency” had offices in every major city in the U.S.
Meaning they were running this scam every single week, in every major city.
And it was easy money.
Why?
Here’s some of the “triggers” they were firing off.
Social Status
Everybody wants social status. No matter how much you’ve got, we all want more. These people were buying a dream of massive social status.
Commitment and Consistency
Once we do something, we’re likely to keep doing it. Once these people signed up, $30 a month probably doesn’t seem like much to one day get “discovered.”
Losing
Nobody wants to lose something they think they have. Once these people had been sold the dream, they weren’t likely to give it up. Meaning that they likely paid their monthly fee far into the future.
The truth is that these kinds of scams and cons are played out all the time. Most people have no clue what’s going on. We just feel compelled to take action, without really knowing why.
But when you understand the truth behind these triggers, why we have them, and how you can resist manipulation, a whole new world will appear.
To learn how, click the link below