Radical honesty

There's an idea in dating that instead of trying to hide stuff you're insecure about from women, you should just say them and own them.

I have a new client who uses the same approach in his marketing. Instead of hiding the fact that he's selling something, he'll come right out and say "yeah, this video contains a sales pitch."

It works. He's tested this approach against other stuff. It converts better.

Marketers tend to assume that the people they're selling stuff to are stupid. I think largely because a) marketers don't actually see the people they're selling to, b) spammy tactics dowork for a lot of audiences, and c) people always underestimate other people's intelligence, because we can vividly see what's going on in our own heads but not in other people's heads.

But the truth about people (including me) is that they're part dumb and part smart. 

We use bad heuristics to make decisions, which spammy marketers take advantage of. But then people get wise to those spammy marketer tricks, and learn to sniff them out.

That's where you can get an edge from using higher trust tactics, like radical honesty.

High trust tactics work really well in dating because women have learned to sniff out low trust dating tactics. They've seen them all before and they don't appreciate them.

When you're selling stuff to smart people who have seen all the marketing gimmicks before, the same principle applies. (Especially if the people you're selling to are much smarter than you.) No spammy tactic that takes advantage of their perceived stupidity will work, because they will have learned to spot that tactic. You just have to put yourself out there and hope for the best.

If you sell to smart people, give radical honesty a try.