 Hi, it's George Gao. I'm still here in the winter wonderland of Long Island, New York. And in this short video, I wanted to explore the question, must we persuade in marketing and in sales? Typically, the answer is yes, right? Typically, marketing teachers tell us that we must convince our audience to buy from us, convert them from visitor to buyer. All these words suggest using persuasion tactics. You know, ways to use trigger points to get their hot buttons and to quote, and we'll get them to buy. It's sort of like we're almost hypnotizing them. In fact, there's there's been a term called hypnotic marketing. And I really don't like that personally. I imagine you probably don't either. It doesn't feel great when we feel like we've been persuaded against our own will. And some people say, well, no, George, marketing is about education, educating them into what it's really good for them. But here's the thing, we're not parents to our clients and customers that are children. We're adult to adult conversation here. Each everybody has their own free will. And when you use a persuasion tactic, what you're suggesting is that we are overriding someone's free will. We are kind of tricking their free will into obeying what we want. And I don't think that's necessary. Let me give you a better alternative. The better alternative instead of persuasion is alignment. What are we aligning? We are aligning what we have with who truly needs it. So I'll give you an example. This is a bit of a odd example, but let's say that you've developed a solution to cancer. If you have a solution to cancer, you won't need to do much selling, do you? You just tell someone who knows someone who has cancer and the word will spread like wildfire. You don't have to persuade anyone because people need it. Okay, now let's say you have developed a solution to the cancer of the right toe, a very specific type of cancer. It only cures someone who has cancer in their right toe. That's it. Then you try to persuade everybody who has all kinds of other cancers. Well, you've got to try because it'll work probably as well. You might get cancer of the right toe one day. You better buy it now. You use scarcity tactics and you use fear and all kinds of persuasion tactics. You better buy this now because you'll never see this offer again. Who did you get cancer of the right toe? Let me tell you all the horror stories of other people who got cancer of the right toe and what happened to them. Alignment instead of persuasion, aligning what you have with who truly needs it. If you talk to someone who has the cancer of the right toe, you don't need to do any selling. They say, oh, I've got a problem and you've got the solution. The other part is of really aligning what people want with how you frame what your offer does. For example, your solution, your methodology, your modality can solve maybe five different problems, let's say. Maybe it solves only one problem, but that one problem can be described in 10 different ways. But in your marketing, if you only use way number one and someone needs to hear way number two, version number two, and you're using version number one, that's misalignment and you don't sell. Really, instead of persuasion, you get to know people's needs and you get to know how they describe their challenges and how they describe their dreams. If and only if your product can truly solve their problem or help them get to their dream, then you frame your marketing in that way to align what you have with what they need and how they describe it. It's not about persuasion. It's about alignment. As usual, I'll include more ideas and details in the notes of this video, but I'm always open to your questions and your comments. Until the next video, be well.