The Master Elicitor
How to Perfect your Craft
Elicitation, the art of gathering information through conversation and manipulation, is a powerful technique employed by social engineers and black team professionals. To hone your elicitation skills effectively, it's essential to seek real-world scenarios that provide ample opportunities for practice, but how do you perfect and practice ? In my opinion, there are a number of possible places to practice, but one of the easiest are visiting high-value retail stores, such as those selling cars, computers, and TVs. The presence of commission-driven salespeople makes them prime candidates for engaging in conversations and extracting valuable information since they believe the more they speak to you and the more friendly you two are, the closer they are to a sale and therefore a big commission.
Formulating Your Goals of Elicitation:
When engaging in elicitation, it is important to formulate your goals and gradually refine them as you gain confidence and expertise. At the beginning, focus on getting comfortable talking to strangers (yes exactly the opposite of what your parents told you). This will help build your confidence and establish a foundation for future elicitation endeavors.
Getting Comfortable:
Approach each interaction with the primary objective of getting comfortable engaging in conversations. Practice active listening, observe the nuances of body language, and learn to ask open-ended questions. These initial steps will allow you to build rapport and establish a level of trust, setting the stage for more advanced elicitation goals.
Establishing General Knowledge:
Expand your goals to encompass gathering general information about the salesperson's background, interests, or hobbies. Engaging in conversations that go beyond the product at hand helps create a more personal connection and makes the elicitation process more natural.
Crafting Specific Goals:
As you become more adept, you can create specific goals that require extracting precise information from the salesperson. For example, you may set a goal to elicit their birthday or gain insights into their preferred vacation destinations. Such goals sharpen your elicitation skills and challenge you to employ more sophisticated techniques.
Understanding the Setting:
High-value retail stores often employ salespeople who are motivated by commissions. Their primary goal is to make a sale and maximize their earnings. This environment creates a conducive setting for practicing elicitation techniques, as salespeople are inclined to engage with potential customers and share information that could influence their purchase decisions.
What follows is an example of how to prepare for and practice elicitation
Preparation:
Before stepping into a high-value retail store, take some time to prepare. Familiarize yourself with the products being sold, their features, and current market trends. This knowledge will lend credibility to your conversations and help you navigate the topics more naturally.
Building Rapport:
Approach the salesperson with a friendly and approachable demeanor. Engage in small talk to establish rapport and build a level of trust. Show genuine interest in the products, asking questions about their specifications, pricing, or performance. This initial interaction sets the foundation for eliciting valuable information. Remember that the more rapport you have, the more the target trusts you and will share sensitive information.
Active Listening:
Active listening is a key component of successful elicitation. Pay close attention to the salesperson's responses, observing their choice of words, tone, and body language. This awareness allows you to tailor your questions and follow-up inquiries more effectively, steering the conversation in the desired direction. This will help you to both understand if you need to leave the situation (you’ve become suspicious) or actually ‘hearing’ the goal you set out to get from the target. Don’t be the elicitor who is so focused on what you’re saying that you ignore the response which is why you’re there.
Utilizing Open-Ended Questions:
Craft your questions in a way that encourages the salesperson to provide detailed responses. Open-ended questions, which cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no," prompt the individual to share more information willingly. For example, instead of asking, "Is this car fuel-efficient?" try asking, "What are the factors that contribute to the fuel efficiency of this car?"
Leveraging the Salesperson's Expertise:
Salespeople in high-value retail stores are often knowledgeable about their products. Exploit their expertise by seeking their opinions or recommendations. By asking questions like, "In your experience, which computer model offers the best performance for graphic design?" you not only gather valuable information but also make the salesperson feel valued and appreciated.
Engaging in Casual Conversation:
To elicit information subtly, engage in casual conversation that may seem unrelated to the purchase. Topics like recent industry news, popular customer preferences, or upcoming product releases can provide insights that you can leverage during the interaction. This conversational approach keeps the salesperson engaged while subtly extracting information. This is the method of pivoting, start with a random subject, find a natural way to pivot to the topic of interest then after successfully eliciting the information you want, pivot back to a random topic.
Escape Clause:
To save yourself headache, always have an escape clause. This is a simple excuse for why you are there or asking questions and perhaps why you need to leave, in case you fail to eliciting (even the best elicitors fail sometimes).
Remember:
This practice is nothing more than becoming comfortable chatting with strangers and building rapport with them. You probably don’t feel you need to elicit information from a loved one, since they would likely tell you the truth anyways … but this is only because you have a great deal of rapport with them. The faster you can generate real rapport with someone, the faster they will trust you and tell you secrets.
The techniques of elicitation simply help you to get information from people you either don’t have good rapport with, or that you don’t want to remember what they said.