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Most marketing advice boils down to “add value” — as if value alone makes people care.

Here’s the thing no one says out loud: people don’t care about value. I wrote about why you should NOT cram more “value” into offers that don’t sell here. The TL;DR is that they buy based on the reputation of the seller.

But that’s just one piece of the puzzle.

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So, people don’t care about value. They care about reputation and something else.

They care about belief.

You can flood your audience with tips, strategies, and insights, but if they don’t believe something needs to change, they’ll nod politely and move on.

So, how do you make them care? You don’t educate them. You disrupt their beliefs.

Let’s unpack that

1. People act on beliefs, not facts

According to the Theory of Reasoned Action, people make decisions based on their pre-existing beliefs and social influence — not logic.

“TRA states that a person's intention to perform a behavior is the main predictor of whether or not they actually perform that behavior.”​
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​Image source​

Say you’re selling designer bags at $20,000 a pop. That’s expensive AF for a bag, so who will buy them?

• People who have been socially influenced (all their friends have similar bags, so they need one to consolidate their status). One more reason why social proof matters!
• People who believe that $20K is a fair price for a bag. They need to have this pre-existing belief or they’ll move on to a “regular” $100 bag.

In other words, if your audience doesn’t already believe they have a problem, they won’t care about your solution — no matter how good it is.

2. Emotion > information

I’m sure you’ve seen this everywhere, a million times: emotions drive decisions far more than facts do.

In fact, some 90-95% of our decisions are made at a non-conscious level. Which brings us gems like this:
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This is also why logical arguments like “this is a great investment” don’t move the needle. But something like “Every day you don’t do this, you’re falling further behind”? That hits differently.

Here’s the thing, though: emotions are NOT purely irrational, nor are they as easy to manipulate as most people think. Case in point: people are more inclined to buy when you give them data, numbers, things that appeal to logic in general.

And that’s not just because “we buy emotionally, then use logic to justify our purchase”.

It looks like the emotional brain is very good at identifying “the probability of success for maximum gain”. Thus, people know “instinctively” if something is good for them.

Logic follows, sure, but it’s slower.

If your audience isn’t emotionally invested in their problem, they won’t take action — because people don’t fix what doesn’t feel broken.

3. People hate change (even when they need it)

Ever notice how people complain about a problem for years without actually doing anything about it? That’s status quo bias in action.
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​Image source​

Briefly put, the status quo bias is a strong preference for the current state of affairs, even when change might be very beneficial.

We’re creatures of habit, so we will doggedly resist anything that proves our current way of doing things can be improved upon. Because change is uncomfortable.

Your job? Make them more uncomfortable staying the same than making a change.

How to flip the script and make your audience pay attention

Most people assume that “more value” means more attention. Wrong.

Your audience doesn’t need more information. They need a belief shift.

Here’s how to make that happen:

1. Break their default thinking

If your message doesn’t challenge their existing beliefs, they’ll ignore it.

Instead of:

Instead of:

Disrupt their autopilot thinking, and they’ll have to pay attention.

2. Create cognitive dissonance (AKA make them uncomfortable)

People don’t change unless staying the same feels worse than taking action.

Make their current reality feel untenable:

• Show them what they’re losing by waiting.
• Make them feel the cost of inaction.
• Expose the downside of their current choices.

Instead of:

Now it’s personal. Now they care.

3. Destroy the ‘I’ll figure it out’ lie

Your biggest competitor is often not another business — it’s your audience thinking they can DIY their way to success.

If they could figure it out on their own, they’d have done it already.

Call it out.
Instead of:

The second they realize doing nothing is the bigger risk, they’ll move.

4. Make your offer the ‘inevitable next step’

People get stuck in “maybe later” purgatory when they think they have options. Don’t give them options — give them conviction.

Instead of:

One makes you optional. The other makes you the solution.

5. Make inaction feel riskier than action

People put things off until they feel a real reason to act now. Create that urgency:

• Show them what’s at stake.
• Make them feel the consequences of waiting.
• Frame action as the only logical choice.

Instead of:

Instead of:

✋ Limitations

I hesitated to write this issue for the longest time because these principles are SO easy to abuse — often without even realizing it.

Let’s be honest: manipulation works. That’s why clickbait exists.

But I don’t teach manipulation — I teach persuasion with integrity.

What’s the difference?

🚫 Manipulation: creating false urgency, faking authority, making exaggerated claims.
✅ Persuasion: challenging assumptions, providing proof, framing action as the best choice.

If you want people to trust you long-term, your marketing needs to hold up under scrutiny.

So the first word of caution here is to use these psychological levers cautiously. Don’t cram them all into a single sales page — you’ll sound like a marketing bro selling you a 90-day program that’s guaranteed to make you a millionaire.

If you take it too far, you lose credibility​

Challenging beliefs is powerful — until it turns into clickbait. If your claims are too exaggerated, people will see right through it.

Fix it: back up what you say with proof — quote your sources, add testimonials and reviews, and so on. Above all, be honest. Don’t make claims you can’t substantiate.

If you’re on my VIP list, you know that I promise to teach you how to make real money through your newsletter. (If you’re not, join us here, I’ll open up registration next week).

I could give you a number — $10K/year, $20K/year, heck, let’s make it $1 million/year, we can be generous with imaginary money.

The truth is that I can’t promise an amount, so I don’t. No matter how good the information is, there is more than one factor at play. So here's how I framed it instead.

You still need to educate and inform

There are two sides to good marketing:

• Education
• Dislocating common beliefs

Ideally, these two feed off each other. You use education as pre-suasion so that changing beliefs becomes easier.

However, if everything you say or do is self-serving, you will lose trust.

Fix it: is what you offer good enough so that you don’t have to fake stats and come up with made up numbers like “99% of people don’t know this: raccoons can’t fly helicopters”.

Your offer doesn’t match the belief shift

This is a limitation most people ignore because it’s very subtle. But it’s there.

It’s one thing to get people nodding along and another to make them take action.

Fix it: make sure your messaging naturally leads to your offer as the only logical next step.

Don’t assume everyone will agree with you

Not everyone will buy into your message — and that’s fine. Trying to please everyone makes your marketing forgettable.

If people disagree with you, it means you’re standing for something. And that’s valuable — it will help rally relevant people around your brand.

Fix it: own your positioning. Accept that it will alienate some people – no brand is for everyone.

The world’s best offer is irrelevant if people don’t believe it works for them

Keep this in mind when you build offers. Beyond “don’t sell features, sell outcomes”, beyond “add more value”, there’s usually a limiting belief that needs shattering.

This is why you need to tell people how you’ll fix their problem too, not just agitate the pain and present the solution.

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That's it from me today! See you next week in your inbox. Here to make you think, Adriana ​

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