Gary Halbert (copywriting genius) was generous with the pearls of wisdom he shared.

He certainly taught about the words you could write for sales letters.

But for me, his most valuable teaching was about human nature.

It’s particularly insightful the little tricks we play on ourselves.

This one I’ll share today can impact our own businesses. And how we “listen” to our customers.

So…

Gary was teaching a class at USC and asked…

“Who here prefers to go and see plays more than movies?”

He looked around the room. Seeing many raised hands.

His response?

“BULL!”

“You are all fooling yourselves and I’m going to prove it!”

“How many of you have seen a play in the last week or two?”

No hands went up.

“How many of you have seen a movie in the last week or two?”

More than half their hands shot up.

“Ahh!”

“What am I seeing?”

Blank stares

He explained…

“ALL OF US have a slightly shrewd idea of ourselves. We often try to convince others and ourselves that we are something we are not, something we have an idea we ‘should’ be.”

Can YOU relate to this?

When thinking about it… I had one of those survey-my-entire-life moments.

And… truth be told…

I was as guilty as the next person.

There’s this kind of inbuilt urge… not to lie on purpose… but to live up to what I ‘should’ be. Just like Halbert told his class.

When you realise this kind of thing happens. It raises questions.

Like… how accurate are opinion polls, surveys, and other feedback we ask for from our customers?

I can understand why the advice is… when doing market research… it’s best to listen and look in places where people are letting loose.

Where they aren’t putting on a mask or filter… and trying to live up to some standard. Or expectation.

Good thing for us is…

When we have an email list… we can do our own accurate “listening.” Just from the way people respond to our emails.

You see…

And I’ll let Gary Halbert have the final word…

“Truth can be determined NOT by how people use their mouth. But rather how they use their wallet.”

That’s wisdom you can take to the bank.

Ready to build your email list? Go here…

EmailForTheWin.com

Chris Milham