A short YouTube talk by George Kao warning against using persuasion tactics that 'sell to people's trauma.' Kao describes his personal shift away from manipulative copywriting toward authentic, service-oriented marketing. He argues that showing up reliably, maintaining integrity, and serving without pressuring immediate purchases leads to sustainable business success over time (example: shift begun in 2014, results by 2016–2017).
Chapters
There are many people who are unknowingly selling to other people's trauma and they keep doing it because they notice that it makes money. Now, I am not a trauma expert by any means, but some of you who are watching this are that you are, because either you've been trained in that direction or you have your own experience to tell. And I do welcome you to comment below. Never mentioning any names, but you can let me know below. Comment with any behavior you've seen where it's like selling to someone's trauma and getting them to say yes. Because those of us with traumatic backgrounds are particularly susceptible to all kinds of, of persuasion psychology. And the people who are using these tactics, they're not bad people necessarily. They're just unaware that that's what they're doing. Now, by the way, this includes me. I started out like this. I started out when I was selling high ticket items, high ticket coaching. I was desperate to get clients because even one person who said yes would bring me a lot of money. And so I was learning from copywriting experts, persuasion mentors who said, george, you have to do it this way. This is the only way that works. If you don't do it this way, you're going to fail. That sound familiar? And so I did it their way. And sure, I did make some money doing it. But it always felt off to be doing marketing and selling in ways where I know I'm consciously manipulating someone, for example, pressing in to their pain point in a way that, you know, they say, oh, if I don't do this, I can't succeed. And I'll just. This short video, in this short video, I want to first of all acknowledge that this is, this stuff is happening. And I hope that in the comments below we can enlighten each other on the kinds of behaviors that we want to watch out for as clients, ourselves, consumers ourselves, but also as coaches, ourselves, as service providers, as business owners, ourselves, to be aware not to do that to others as well. All right. The core shift that I hope you can make besides becoming aware of these practices, is that you never have to use those practices to make lots of money to be really successful in business. The shift though, is instead of looking for quick results in, if I, if I use this copy tactic, if I use the selling tactic, I'll get people to say yes. If instead of doing that, the core shift is to understand that if you do your marketing from your authentic point, your authentic energy, whatever that means for you, it might be different than how I do it. However, you do it. If it feels good to you and you feel like you're in true service to the people who are watching or listening or reading, then what's happening is several things. One is you are building your integrity and you'll know it. You feel grounded in the fact that you're providing care in your content, in your marketing. You are genuinely in the mission of uplifting humanity. Whether, and here's the other key. Whether or not the person on the other side is going to buy today or tomorrow or ever, you are in genuine service to your ideal client, whether or not they buy in a certain time frame that you want them to buy. If you can make that shift, your business is going to be placed on a path towards authentic success. Because here's what happens. You find the integrity within yourself or, sorry, you strengthen the integrity of continued caring service, number one. And number two, your reputation keeps growing over time. Now, I'm speaking from experience. This is what worked for me, right like this. When I, when I restarted my business in 2014, I started to say, I'm. I'm going to stop using those persuasion psychology tactics. I'm going to find a way to be as authentic as I possibly can, even if people don't buy from me today or tomorrow or this year even, I'm going to place my faith in my integrity and I'm going to work diligently. Yes, I showed up as often as I could with practicing as much joyful productivity as I could. Showing up is needed, right? Showing up is needed for ourselves, to practice integrity and confidence and skillfulness. That's all needed. And it's needed to have your reputation grow over time. And so what, that was what happened. My reputation grew over time because my grounded confidence grew over time. And so 2014, I started doing it. And I noticed by 2016, 2017, business was so easy for me. Like people were just inquiring with me to work with me without me doing barely anything in terms of trying to sell. So it took time. But my business today is so beautifully. I'm so grateful because the financials are doing great and my deep happiness, more importantly, perhaps. So I hope that this is going to give you a different way of succeeding in business than perhaps you've seen out there. You don't have to follow anyone's way, not including my own, but I encourage you to find your authentic way to success. Be patient. Just observe yourself showing up day after day, finding an authentic way. And as long as you feel like, you know what, this, this feels right to me. This feels good. To me. I feel like I'm serving people. You are on the right path for you and you will succeed if you keep at it. I hope this helps. Thank you for joining me.
