The "paradox method" to writing absurdly believable claims

You ever catch someone in a paradox? Maybe they say "Anger in politics is toxic", but grumble about the politician du jour.

Or they say "Health is the most important thing", but shove cookies in their maw every time you bake them.

Or any number of self-contrary statements, hypocritical actions, and so on and so forth.

This is the paradox of hypocrisy.

But there's another sneakier paradox that afflicts humans too. And once you are aware of it, you can leverage it to write better copy and get even the most absurd of claims believed.

In fact, this technique was used by North Korea during the cold war to brainwash American POWs — causing dozens to refuse to return repatriating and hundreds to collaborate with the Korean and Chinese communist governments.

The paradoxical reason they were able to do this:

1) Humans are skeptical of new information
2) Humans will readily believe anything that supports their worldview

In other words, don't challenge your prospect's beliefs when making claims. Instead, show the logical connection between what they already believe and the claims you need to make. If you do, it's extremely hard for them to say "no".

You can think of it as building a bridge from the beliefs they already have... to what they must believe in order to buy your offer.

For example, "If you care about the environment, it's important to reduce waste. Most widgets have lots of waste. I sell the only widget with zero waste. Therefore, if you care about the environment, you must buy my widget over any other."

See how it's logically laid out? How it's in the correct order? How it starts with what the prospect ALREADY believes then segues into what you need them to believe in order to buy?

If you can see that good.

Because most people fork it up. They start with the biggest, boldest claim. Or they stuff their ads and emails with so many unproven claims their prospect's eyes glaze over before rolling back in their skull. Or their claims simply aren't laid out in a logical order that leads the prospect to the desired conclusion.

So here we're dealing not with the content of the email, but the structure.

Which should flow logically all the way to the close.

Speaking of which:

If you'd like to find out what it would take to get me on your team, head to the link below and hop on my waitlist.

On my waitlist, you will be the first to know when I have an opening in my schedule for a new client. To do that, head here:

www.copybymccune.com/waitlist

Tyler McCune

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