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How to get your customers to ignore you

A few years ago I was walking down the street in Panama City. Some guy came up to me and said, in a big, booming voice:

 

“EXCUSE ME, SIR! DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH OR SPANISH?”

 

In the 30-ish days I spent in Panama City I saw this guy maybe 4 or 5 different times. Every time I saw him, he said the same thing to me in his big booming voice.

 

And every time he spoke to me in his big, booming voice, I ignored him.

 

I didn’t look up. I didn’t acknowledge him. I just walked right past him, without saying a word.

 

Why? I’ve learned that in Latin America, when some random dude on the street starts speaking English to you, you need to ignore him. Because they either want to sell you something, they want to beg you for money, they want to tell you about their god, or they want to rob you.

 

(If the dude had talked to me in Spanish, I might have responded. The people who speak Spanish to me are usually nice and just want to chat.)

 

You probably do the same thing when a salesman knocks on your door, or when a telemarketer calls you, or when you see somebody handing out flyers on the street. You instinctively ignore them, because you know nothing good can happen if you talk to them.



Most marketers do the same thing that the guy in Panama did. They do the online equivalent of speaking in a big booming voice: they write in all caps, they say stuff that’s obviously not true, they inflate their authority, and they try to sound as hype-y as possible.

 

In other words, they try to “sound like a marketer”.

 

That’s the worst thing you can do!

Because if you sound like a marketer, your audience will tune you out!

 

At this point, most people know that most people who sell stuff on the internet are full of shit. If you talk like a marketer, they’ll ignore you.

 

How do you fix this? Just talk like a regular person.

 

Don’t do weird gimmicky stuff to get attention. Because it usually hurts you more than it helps you.

 

(Oh, and, the smarter your audience is, the more this rule applies to you.)

 

If you want help making content that sounds like a real person wrote it, with no weird gimmicky stuff, check this out:

 

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