Why “unprofessional” emails are often more believable (and thus, profitable…) 

“That’s gonna be a C+… want to know why, what you can improve?”

“Yes?”

“You have to be more definitive in your claims, when you’re stating facts, statistics, and data you have to be specific.”

That was how my first seminar assignment at uni, many years ago, went.

Now what did the teacher mean by being more “definitive”?

In that particular seminar, I had to quote a few numbers from my head.

For instance, I didn’t definitively say:

“ABC company did 32M in Revenue last year…”

I said:

“ABC company did roughly 32M in revenue last year…”

Or something akin to:

“They’ve currently got around 20 different SKUs…”

My professor argued that you have to be definitive, spot on and precise when you’re on stage presenting to something/someone…

You cannot be throwing around words like “roughly”, “nearly”, “almost”, “around” – they sound unprofessional and uninformed.

Well…

That’s a load of squadoosh.

Even back then, I knew she was wrong.

I just couldn’t quite place my finger on why – properly articulate it…

But now?

That changed once I learned about the power of…

Being INTENTIONALLY unokay/imperfect:

The first Avengers was the highest-grossing movie at the box office in 2012.

But according to a site – which tracks these sorts of things – it had the most continuity/logical mistakes than any other movie released that year…

Now I suspect there were many lesser grossing movies that same year – with little to maybe zero continuity blunders in them.

All probably super logical too…

But thus?

Super boring and not very profitable.

People inherently reject perfection.

That’s why Mary Sue characters are so boring and ultimately destroy profits.

(Which is why I’ll always be amazed how hell-bent some marketers are at annoying people with blatantly AI-prompted emails.)

Ted Bundy always posed as being unokay/imperfect to get his prey.

Why?

Because he understood people are ultimately comfortable with humanity

Flaws & imperfections included.

He understood it made him less sketchy and more BELIEVABLE:

It’s why he’d often wear an arm cast to appear weak and/or hurt – looking in need of help to more easily lure victims into his trap.

So what my professor – which just hung around in the ivory tower of her notebooks and never actually had to sell something to anyone in her life – failed to understand…

…is that I’d rather be perceived as “unprofessional” with my ‘roughly’ ‘about’ ‘around’ ‘nearly’ conditional phrases…

Then be perceived as professional boring.

(And thus unrelatable and largely unnoticeable.)

Presidents like Regan – who used to struggle for answers – or Bush – whose cowboy persona people would make fun of – fully knew this and actually leaned into it…

…instead of trying to water it down and blend in as just another boring, robotic orator.

Believability is EVERYTHING in marketing.

One simple trick I use to enhance the trust factor in my emails…

Is to add a conditional word before any claim/promise/benefit – words like:

• May
• Almost
• Nearly
• Probably (I really like this one)
• Likely
• Should
• Could
• Virtually

A trite example:

“Studies have found creatine increased participants’ bench press 1RM after 4 weeks.”

“If you take creatine, and keep your diet and training on point, you could see – according to literature – your bench 1RM go up in as little as 4 weeks.”

Exact same product, exact same selling angle…

…just expressed slightly differently.

And see how much more believable/candid it sounds?

Anyway, enough about Ted Bundys and American Presidents, and ivory-tower academics.

If you don’t get this concept at this point…

…it is NOT pretty.

And probably nothing I say further will change that.

So just discard this email and turn on your favourite AI movie.

But if you DO get this?

It’s a beautiful thing – you’re properly equipped to make out like a bandit from the rising trend of humanity in marketing.

Oh yes,

I’ve already started seeing some marketing agencies – the ones worth a damn at least, which is not many – BRAG how they use zero AI in their workflows.

If that tells you something.

If it does?