In 1968 a psychiatrist called Stephen Karpman published a short paper with an upside-down triangle in it, to explain why some families keep having the same fight with different words. He put a role on each corner. The Victim says poor me, and feels powerless, hopeless and stuck. The Persecutor says it's all your fault, and is critical, blaming and in control. The Rescuer says poor you, let me help, and relieves the pain in a way that keeps the Victim dependent on the help. Karpman called it the drama triangle, and therapists still draw it for couples and families. It is also the clearest map of a sales funnel I have seen.
Achology Academy has a video walk-through of the triangle that is about toxic relationships and never mentions marketing. Watch it with a funnel in mind and most of the ads you have seen this week will turn up in it.
The rescue I used to write
In May 2009 I typed a small-group lesson for a church that had about 80 people in it, and one line in it reads: You might get them saved, but you'll never see them again! I meant it as a warning about being unfriendly. Read now, it is the triangle in one sentence. Somebody has to be lost before they can be saved, the saving is the easy part, and the work of the system is making sure they come back next week and need it again.
Karpman's roles rotate, and most marketers miss that. When I left, I stopped being one of the people doing the helping and moved corners, and the friendships went with it. I can't be friends with you anymore, one of them said, and it wasn't cruelty, it was the lesson working. A system built on the triangle has a seat for everybody in it, including the person on the way out. The Church That Grew tells it in full, and the video sits with its sources.
The funnel version
Most persuasive marketing is a casting call for the same three corners. The customer is offered the Victim's seat: Google changed the algorithm, AI is coming for the industry, the bank won't lend, the weight won't move. Something is cast as the Persecutor, whether that is the algorithm, the big players, the agency that burned them last time or the old way of doing things. Then the offer walks in as the Rescuer. I'm a victim of technology changing and I need a consultant to save me is a whole sales pitch, and the buyer has written most of it before they reach your page.
The long-form video sales letter turned the triangle into a template. It names the pain until the viewer is sitting comfortably in the Victim's seat. It says it's not your fault, which may be the most powerful line in direct response, because it lifts the blame off the viewer and leaves it lying around looking for somewhere to go. It finds that somewhere, a Persecutor with a face, and spends a few minutes throwing rocks at it. Blair Warren's one-sentence persuasion course says people will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies, and the middle of a sales letter is the last two of those, run back to back. Then the founder arrives, I was just like you until I found this, and the offer is the way out of the seat, for a price.
None of those steps is wrong on its own. It's not your fault is often true. A lot of small businesses really were hurt by an algorithm update they had no say in, and naming the real cause is a kindness. The trouble is the last part of Karpman's description of the Rescuer, the help that keeps the Victim dependent, because that is also a description of a recurring revenue model.
Rescuer or coach
Donald Miller's StoryBrand advice is to make the customer the hero and the brand the guide, and the triangle explains why that holds up. A Rescuer and a guide look identical in the first week. Both arrive when you're stuck and both have the answer. The difference turns up around month six. The Rescuer still needs you stuck, because every renewal depends on the problem still being there, and the Persecutor gets a little bigger in every email, because a shrinking enemy means a shrinking invoice. A guide wants you to need them less, so they teach the thing, hand over the files, the logins and the playbook, and would count it as a win if you didn't renew because you didn't need to. When you are the one buying, the same check is whether what a specialist learns stays with the business.
David Emerald redrew Karpman's triangle in The Power of TED* with the same three corners doing different jobs: the Victim becomes a Creator, the Persecutor a Challenger and the Rescuer a Coach. The Coach still turns up when you're stuck, and asks what you want instead of saying poor you.
Four questions for your own offer
The test on the persuasion page still applies: if a tactic relies on the customer not knowing about it, it is manipulation. The triangle adds four questions I can ask of my own offers. Is the Persecutor real, or did the first thirty seconds just need something scary in them? An invented enemy is Authority Theatre with a villain in it. Is it's not your fault true, and is it complete? Some of it usually is theirs, not as blame but as power, because if none of the problem is theirs then none of the fix is either. Where does the customer stand when the work is done, more capable or more dependent, out of the triangle or still in the Victim's seat with a better Rescuer? And what happens when they leave? If the person who walks away from your programme gets recast as the refund-seeker who didn't do the work, the triangle is running the business.
Good at traffic, bad at offers
The triangle is very good at traffic. A clear enemy gets shared, drama gets watched, and it's not your fault gets the click. Over time it is bad at the offer, because a Rescuer offer has churn built into it: the customer either gets better and leaves, or doesn't and leaves angry, and in a market the size of New Zealand both of them talk.
The offers that last move people from Victim to Creator. You still name the pain, you still say what isn't their fault, and you don't need them to stay hurt.